Director’s Notes

In a theater production, we practice the process of leaving our own small concerns behind and enter into a single focused community. We practice the greater goal of forming unity in humanity. In theater we actually practice how to love our neighbor as ourselves, how to find a path to working with those we disagree with and how to connect to one another on a deeper level – a blend of individuals who can become a family of choice, a community of support, a nation of hope and a world of acceptance.

As we step into the light of a post-Covid era we have had a chance over the past year to reflect on our loneliness as individuals and the fact that we need each other and miss each other when we are forced apart, isolated and divided. In this production, you will see two actors representing separate aspects of each character (spirit and body). An illustration of the belief that we are not, in fact, alone at all. Try to let go of any ideas you may have of interpreted theater and enter into this joyous romp of physically expressed theater. Open your mind to the richness of movement and you’ll be surprised at how much more you understand. We are using our restored ability to present live theater to use a “wide screen” rather than the “close-up” that our screens have trained us for. Let us communicate our story using images even more than individual words. The word communication comes from the Latin words “comm” and “um” literally meaning “becoming one with”. Become one with us and enter into this imaginative island Shakespeare created. For those of us yet to risk travel it can be your mini vacation to a desert island in your mind.

In this production, we are communicating using two planes of reality and two languages embodied in two actors who bond so closely in ideas and feelings that they “become one.” In this production with two actors sharing roles, I have often cast them as opposites: Deaf/hearing, male/female, gay/straight, white/black; and that allows them (and, therefore us) to see that each individual harbors the whole of humanity within themselves. In a world that has become so polarized it is important to take a moment to recognize that spirit and body are one across cultural and community lines, emphasizing our commonalities as human beings.

Although many see theater as “playing”, for me this is not a pastime or a gift. If theater were a church this would be how I try to allow a higher power to work through me. This is how I hope in my own small way to improve our community by showing the beauty of “what if”. Suppose we could all live in the blended, cultural mosaic, represented on stage tonight. We are not there yet… but if you can imagine it, it can “become.”  We weathered the storm of Covid so join us now in experiencing… The Tempest.