” …that’s what the arts do. In the course of human life we have a million phantom-limb pains—losing a parent when you’re little, being in a war, even something as dumb as having a mean teacher—and seeing it somehow reflected, whether it’s in our own work or listening to a song, is a way to deal with it.” -Linda Barry in The Paris Review
With apologies to a great artist, we are fighting this idea.
http://visual-poetry.tumblr.com/post/143948941350/art-never-responds-to-the-wish-to-make-it
Art is for everyone.
Or rather, as Louise Bourgeois said,
“A work of art doesn’t have to be explained. If you do not have any feeling about this, I cannot explain it to you. If it doesn’t touch you, I have failed.”
It’s time to take action.
Theatre is a communal beast by necessity. When the goal is to make something that matters universally and not only to an elite, the name of the creator should be easily grasped. The idea of superstruction – building positively on what already exists – is still key to the mission of what we are trying to accomplish, but it’s not the best name for a company for which accessibility is a such a huge priority.
And so the Scranton Superstruction Company will henceforth be known as the Common Play Factory of Scranton.
Creative Operatives are encouraged to join us. A series of formal founding meetings in which we will discuss project ideas and concepts and the possible means of accomplishing them will be held in the near future.
The future is what we make of it.
–alicia grega, creative operative
“I don’t want a play to tell me what to feel, or when to cry. I don’t want to understand every action of a character because I don’t understand every action of my own. I don’t want a death or a trauma to explain away complexity because death and trauma don’t work that way. What I do want is the inexplicable, the undiscovered. I want the spaces in between. I want theatre to be a reverberation machine, whether that machine is the non-narrative majesty of Foreman, or the heartbreaking characters of Ibsen. And because of this, I love subtext. Done right, it is the evocation of the other. It is the embracing of the infinite, of the curves and crevasses that we don’t even know are there to begin with.”
-Dominic Finocchiaro
http://howlround.com/the-problem-with-the-argument-against-subtext
Thanks to Matt Mattei for this insightful look at the development of a new work from concept to world premier.
Scranton playwright, Alicia Grega, to debut dark comedy at Scranton Fringe Festival.
Join us Oct. 2-4, 2015. Tickets are $10 or $7 with Fringe button and can be purchased via scrantonfringe.ticketleap.com.
People singing; people with song mouths connecting with song hearts; people who must sing or die; people whose song hearts break if there is no song mouth; these are my people.
-carl sandburg, “work gangs”
Don’t support Anonymous, support actions.
Common Play Factory of Scranton 