Ideally, theatre is an expression of community.

I love to gather people together and to experience being a part of something larger than myself. My process, therefore, blends common hospitality structures with open-ended play to investigate belonging. So much of how we are raised and raise children involves teamwork and play, but as we age and come to value individuality and independence, we deprive ourselves of play and partnership, our most basic pathways to belonging. As I think about the future of theatre, this is what I hope for.

Spectatorship is the great equalizer, and the final beam of the theatrical barn-raising. Spectators are sacred, their great power and their imagination––crucial to this human ritual––requires deep care. That said, the common disdain for the spectator—or, its collective form, the audience––demonstrates a critical breakdown in human connection, in civil rights, and in the practices of inclusivity. So, at the risk of oversimplifying, theatre that matters and benefits its society is theatre that prioritizes hospitality. This is what I try to do when I make theatre.

As my aesthetic has developed, I’ve set aside many of the traditions in which I was trained in order to make room for labor more commonly disregarded as menial or irrelevant, i.e. customer service representative, server, camp counselor, after-school art teacher, or administrative assistant. I use games, songs, and general nonsense to activate childlike creativity and to reconnect the mind to the body, the individual to the group. The creativity found in the rehearsal room is the tone set for the audience, and the overall experience is a natural outcome of our collective efforts. Each performance offers a new opportunity to play; if we want to play, we play with whomever shows up and whomever shows up is the ideal player.

I’m resistant to realism; I want to consciously leave room for the spectator, offering pieces of a picture that they complete. This opportunity is often overlooked in pursuit of verisimilitude. This invites innovation from collaborators and imagination from an audience. I enjoy the problem-solving required to respond to limitations imposed by time and resources. Recognizing that everyone comes to the table with different learning styles and strengths, I prefer to experiment with multiple modalities of communication. This is hospitable to both the production team and the spectator in turn.

My hope is that from beginning to end, top to bottom, the entire performance process encourages a state of relaxed readiness, from which anything can happen, in which everyone feels possible. I believe that sites of equitable, shared play encourage community formation both within those sites, and the larger communities where such sites are situated. We need theatre that embraces difference over perfection, that values care over propriety, that plays with instead of playing at.

PUBLICATIONS

“New Repetitions: Trauma-Informed Production Pathways” by Karie Miller, Kelsey Miller, and Elizabeth Wellman. Journal of Consent-Based Performance, Vol 2, Issue 1 (2023) Theatrical Intimacy Education.

Performance review of “The Jungle” by Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson, produced by The National Theatre and The Young Vic, Theatre Journal, Dec. 2019.

Book review of “Practising with Deleuze: Design, Dance, Art, Writing, Philosophy” by Suzie Attiwill et al, New England Theatre Journal, New England Theatre Conference, 2018.

Gloss of “A Reproduction (all the ghosts were children)”, by Danny Turek. http://imaginedtheatres.com/a reproduction/ . 13 August 2019.

Review of Imagined Theatres: Writings for the Theoretical Stage, by Daniel Sack, Texas Theatre Journal, Vol 14, Issue 1 (2018), Texas Educational Theatre Association, 106-8.