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I had to prepare some material for a recorded interview on Friday about That's What We're Here For (an american pageant), and after writing about it at length, I realized I should put it here, too, as it's a better overview of the show than anything else I've posted. Here ya go:
Jo Ann,
First, my standard (longform) bio, cut down a bit:
Ian W. Hill has acted in over 75 Off-Off-Broadway shows in the past 15 years. As a stage director/designer with his company Gemini CollisionWorks, he has created almost 50 productions since 1997, including works by Richard Foreman (Film Is Evil: Radio Is Good, Egyptology, and the world premiere of Harry in Love, among others), T.S. Eliot (The Rock), Clive Barker (Frankenstein in Love), Mac Wellman (Harm’s Way), Ronald Tavel (The Life of Juanita Castro and Shower), Jeff Goode (Larry and the Werewolf), Mark Spitz (The Hobo Got Too High), and Edward D. Wood, Jr. (The Violent Years and Glen or Glenda?), as well as original works (Kiss Me, Succubus, At the Mountains of Slumberland, Even the Jungle (slight return), and the acclaimed World Gone Wrong at The Brick in 2005). In 2001, he directed/designed the world premiere of Eugène Ionesco's The Viscount (also in its first-ever English translation, by Hill and Berit Johnson). As a designer (light, sound, projections, sets) and technical/artistic consultant he has worked with many other stage artists. He is a former artistic director of the Nada Classic theatre and co-produced acclaimed festivals of the works of Richard Foreman and Edward D. Wood, Jr. there. He received a BFA in Film Production from NYU/Tisch School of the Arts, and his films as director include the short "How Did You Manage to Steal a Car from a Rolling Train?" and the featurette Deep Night. He is a member of AEA. He lives happily in Gravesend, Brooklyn with Ms. Berit Johnson and the Two Best Cats in the World.
As for other questions brought up in the first email, here's a longer description of the show:
A revue/pageant focusing on the history of America from 1945 to the present. A celebration of freedom. A swing choir performance. A collision of art, industry, irony, and sincere patriotism. Two days (weekday and weekend) in the life of an American family as it goes about its business, related through a series of musical numbers, tableaux, slides, puppetry, and video. In two parts -- Act I: Money and Work; Act II: Religion and Leisure. Robert Wilson and Richard Foreman meet Up With People and trade shows. A must for all who wish to be better citizens, and better salesmen! Inoffensive, and a strengthener of one’s moral character!
You mention: "It would help if you told me something about the play (I saw the summary online), its origins, the tone it takes, and anything else that we might focus on to make the exchange intriguing to the listeners. Let me know what you really want to focus on."
So . . . The play began primarily because of a personal interest (bordering on obsession) with films and audio recordings primarily made for limited audiences for specific business, educational, or religious purposes. Films and recordings designed to teach businessmen how to be better salesmen, children how to respect authority, and all Americans how to worship, often with the idea expressed that learning these things will make them Better Americans (but with the undercurrent that really they're trying to make better customers). I have been collecting these pieces of fascinating Americana for years, but this past November, on finding a huge online cache of them, and downloading them, burning them to CD, and listening to them repeatedly, it suddenly struck me that there was a theatre piece here. I wasn't sure what, but there was SOMETHING there. It has taken me all the time since then to find what that show was. I am still finding out in every rehearsal.
It's the work of a rather serious-minded theatre artist who is trying to use American Kitsch to express his patriotic feelings, through a presentation of the disparity between high ideals and actual implemented action.
I just got the second email with the questions, so here's some quick text answers on these questions, which I can state differently, but briefly, I believe, in the recording:
1. In what kind of pageant do you see the American family?
A patriotic revue. Somewhere between Up With People, an industry trade show, a 70s TV variety show, and a high school swing choir.
3. The play spans V-J Day to the Present – practically an epoch. Do the recordings and lip-synching reflect the decade as the play travels through time?
Actually, after beginning with V-J Day, the bombing of Hiroshima, and a brief look at post-war Japan, we slide into a day in the life of a family that in and of itself is a collision of all of the "eras" since WWII -- 50s suburbia, 60s rebellion, 70s mellowness, 80s Yuppiedom, and 90s confusion, all stirred together and overseen by two classic campy "Angel" and "Devil" figures, building towards a spiritually uplifting conclusion.
There are audio and video snippets used throughout that mix these eras. The lip-sync sections are musical numbers that frame and comment upon the larger scenes -- songs that come from in-house records by Exxon and AT&T to make their employees happy about their work.
5. We’re following a family through their daily activities. Can you give me a hint of the collision that takes place in the play?
The family bounces off, around, and through various iconic settings from the history of the America being portrayed. The collision is between the family, the various periods, the American Ideals that the family tries to hold to, and the near impossibility of living up to those Ideals in the real world.
7. You describe this as [what genre?]. What can your audience expect?
A revue. The audience can expect big gestures, pretty pictures, snappy musical numbers, funny voices, and the reinforcement of the status quo. Look deeper at your own risk, it's dark down there.
I think that's enough backstory for the recording. Looking forward to it. See you Friday,
IWH
And in other news, I did the New York magazine interview, and talked about things I didn't want to, and didn't talk about things I wanted to. Still, I thought it went well. I hope it comes off as well in print.
Jo Ann,
First, my standard (longform) bio, cut down a bit:
Ian W. Hill has acted in over 75 Off-Off-Broadway shows in the past 15 years. As a stage director/designer with his company Gemini CollisionWorks, he has created almost 50 productions since 1997, including works by Richard Foreman (Film Is Evil: Radio Is Good, Egyptology, and the world premiere of Harry in Love, among others), T.S. Eliot (The Rock), Clive Barker (Frankenstein in Love), Mac Wellman (Harm’s Way), Ronald Tavel (The Life of Juanita Castro and Shower), Jeff Goode (Larry and the Werewolf), Mark Spitz (The Hobo Got Too High), and Edward D. Wood, Jr. (The Violent Years and Glen or Glenda?), as well as original works (Kiss Me, Succubus, At the Mountains of Slumberland, Even the Jungle (slight return), and the acclaimed World Gone Wrong at The Brick in 2005). In 2001, he directed/designed the world premiere of Eugène Ionesco's The Viscount (also in its first-ever English translation, by Hill and Berit Johnson). As a designer (light, sound, projections, sets) and technical/artistic consultant he has worked with many other stage artists. He is a former artistic director of the Nada Classic theatre and co-produced acclaimed festivals of the works of Richard Foreman and Edward D. Wood, Jr. there. He received a BFA in Film Production from NYU/Tisch School of the Arts, and his films as director include the short "How Did You Manage to Steal a Car from a Rolling Train?" and the featurette Deep Night. He is a member of AEA. He lives happily in Gravesend, Brooklyn with Ms. Berit Johnson and the Two Best Cats in the World.
As for other questions brought up in the first email, here's a longer description of the show:
A revue/pageant focusing on the history of America from 1945 to the present. A celebration of freedom. A swing choir performance. A collision of art, industry, irony, and sincere patriotism. Two days (weekday and weekend) in the life of an American family as it goes about its business, related through a series of musical numbers, tableaux, slides, puppetry, and video. In two parts -- Act I: Money and Work; Act II: Religion and Leisure. Robert Wilson and Richard Foreman meet Up With People and trade shows. A must for all who wish to be better citizens, and better salesmen! Inoffensive, and a strengthener of one’s moral character!
You mention: "It would help if you told me something about the play (I saw the summary online), its origins, the tone it takes, and anything else that we might focus on to make the exchange intriguing to the listeners. Let me know what you really want to focus on."
So . . . The play began primarily because of a personal interest (bordering on obsession) with films and audio recordings primarily made for limited audiences for specific business, educational, or religious purposes. Films and recordings designed to teach businessmen how to be better salesmen, children how to respect authority, and all Americans how to worship, often with the idea expressed that learning these things will make them Better Americans (but with the undercurrent that really they're trying to make better customers). I have been collecting these pieces of fascinating Americana for years, but this past November, on finding a huge online cache of them, and downloading them, burning them to CD, and listening to them repeatedly, it suddenly struck me that there was a theatre piece here. I wasn't sure what, but there was SOMETHING there. It has taken me all the time since then to find what that show was. I am still finding out in every rehearsal.
It's the work of a rather serious-minded theatre artist who is trying to use American Kitsch to express his patriotic feelings, through a presentation of the disparity between high ideals and actual implemented action.
I just got the second email with the questions, so here's some quick text answers on these questions, which I can state differently, but briefly, I believe, in the recording:
1. In what kind of pageant do you see the American family?
A patriotic revue. Somewhere between Up With People, an industry trade show, a 70s TV variety show, and a high school swing choir.
3. The play spans V-J Day to the Present – practically an epoch. Do the recordings and lip-synching reflect the decade as the play travels through time?
Actually, after beginning with V-J Day, the bombing of Hiroshima, and a brief look at post-war Japan, we slide into a day in the life of a family that in and of itself is a collision of all of the "eras" since WWII -- 50s suburbia, 60s rebellion, 70s mellowness, 80s Yuppiedom, and 90s confusion, all stirred together and overseen by two classic campy "Angel" and "Devil" figures, building towards a spiritually uplifting conclusion.
There are audio and video snippets used throughout that mix these eras. The lip-sync sections are musical numbers that frame and comment upon the larger scenes -- songs that come from in-house records by Exxon and AT&T to make their employees happy about their work.
5. We’re following a family through their daily activities. Can you give me a hint of the collision that takes place in the play?
The family bounces off, around, and through various iconic settings from the history of the America being portrayed. The collision is between the family, the various periods, the American Ideals that the family tries to hold to, and the near impossibility of living up to those Ideals in the real world.
7. You describe this as [what genre?]. What can your audience expect?
A revue. The audience can expect big gestures, pretty pictures, snappy musical numbers, funny voices, and the reinforcement of the status quo. Look deeper at your own risk, it's dark down there.
I think that's enough backstory for the recording. Looking forward to it. See you Friday,
IWH
And in other news, I did the New York magazine interview, and talked about things I didn't want to, and didn't talk about things I wanted to. Still, I thought it went well. I hope it comes off as well in print.
