One of the most interesting perspectives for me is viewing technology as organic with its own chain of evolution and even revolution.  Our discussions tend to revolve around tech capabilities and limitations, but we also come back to a very human place.  We continue to find ourselves asking very basic questions about who these characters are and their relationships with each other.  I tend to really vibe off of my collaborators and so much of the work is what we find in the room.  Discoveries we’ve made include using image of multi-armed Kali for stylized movement, old-tyme radio shows with flourishes of vaudeville/spirit leader techniques, and the many uses for what you can do with a cell phone.

Fringe means performing in the simplest way possible, but we’re using the audience’s smart phones to enhance our production.  We currently have an ongoing Twitter campaign on our “companystrange” account with our character MR. I sending out Tweets meaning our show has already begun, including an inter-Tweet interview with Cindy Marie as our fictional character.  We’re discussing having characters tweet during the performance, having videos the audience can play off their phones during the performance, and of course using cell phones with the original intent they were designed for.  We took 

the thing I was weakest at and made it an asset for our show.

Getting back to the live event, I’ve given the note before that whatever may happen to “do our show.”  But with all of the above, we’re actually building in a range of larger variables–will the audience have enough smart phones?  How long does it take for their phone to ring?  How to negotiate the delay of speaking and it coming out of the handset?  What happens if someone in the audience gets a call and what should we do since we told them to leave them on in the first place?  The audience won’t be on stage but we’re hoping to engage them in a way they’ve never been asked to participate before.  I’m working to have guests come into our rehearsals for us to “play” with, but there is still a huge difference from an audience of one to a late-night Fringe audience of many.  I’ve never done nor directed Improv and I’m excited and honestly don’t fully know what will happen come show time.

The biggest challenge for me personally was support artistically and financially.  I never thought I’d get a job working at a theater after Iowa, but coming home to Los Angeles I hoped to get a job that supported my living so I could live my life doing Theatre during my free time.  I’ve applied from everything from office worker, clerk, the long ass holiday line at Target, security, even book store gigs again.  The horror stories of slashing in the academic world (check out the letter from Tom Lutz stepping down from the UCR chair on Facebook) was happening before I came out and although I had hope, I’m starting to lose faith that the way we conceive of education and Arts in California is going to really shift and affect us for years to come if something doesn’t happen now.

Not being able to find work since last August was a huge hit to my sense of self and identity. What has been really positive for me has been my relationship to Theatre and to my friend Greg, collaborators I’ve worked with, and new found friends in the community.  I’m still working on an article for HowlRound that allowed me to get a sense of the breadth of the community.  I also got the opportunity to sound design for Theatre Unleashed’s JULIUS CAESAR that lead them to ask me to join them as an Artist-in-Residence which I gratefully accepted.  There is nothing that gives me more confidence than when others believe in me and trust in the work we do together.

Working with Greg in LA is like a continuation of all the great conversations and dialogues we had back in grad school and was the most immediate way for me to work myself out of my funk–yes I’m that kind of depressed artist from time-to-time.  I’m happy to start to formalize our collaboration by forming Company of Strangers, which is starting out humbly but we’ve continued to ride this synergy from a reading, to a workshop production, to this our inaugural production for Fringe–a great stage to be making our debut.

I’m still unemployed and impoverished financially, but feel wealthy artistically.