Toys & Bodies

Last weekend, 3/5 and 3/6, was fun. Leah's piece, News Roulette, recieved an awesome gift in the form of an amazing news story. Leah had decided to take the top story from the CNN portal on her phone at the moment rehearsal began, and use that as a jumping-off point for the work. The story that was on top was a human interest story about a doctor who saved his wife's life by giving her an emergency tracheotomy at home--which is to say, he STABBED HER IN THE NECK WITHOUT ANESTHETIC while she was having an aneurism.

This visceral moment made an excellent hook to organize the day around. After reading the story out loud and getting appropriately excited, the team (Kristina Thalen, Sarah Rose Nottingham, Carmen Cook, and Jonathan Coyne) dumped out their goody bags. Leah had asked everybody to bring a random assortment of props, not knowing what the day would look like, and they had obliged--the fairy wand that lit up and made a noise and the football-like nerf brain were my favorites. (sadly, I don't think either of those ended up in the final piece.)

What emerged from that was hours of play. What they ended up with is a very physical retelling of a crazy story with life 'n death stakes. Fun!

Allegra Lebel and her team, Laurence Hughes, Jenni Taggart, Sarah Rose Nottingham, Kristina Thalen, and Brittney Williams, talked to their bodies last Sunday. Or rather, their bodies talked to them. They spent the day as physical interpreters, listening and examining with a magnifying glass every particle of their bodies, and uncovering anxiety, joy, curiosity and desire. What we get is a sweet yearning journey through bits of ourselves, plus the first theatrepoem to use multimedia elements. Awesome!

You guys I am so lucky I get to watch all this!

Alissa