Not again.

Me: on morphine and fentanyl which was WOWEE

So. Yeah. Yikes. Hi Everyone. Al here—providing a brief blow-by-blow health update in the latest chapter of ‘Adventures of Al’s Not-Colon.’

It's been a while since a health update was necessary (blessedly), but I'm writing to you from my hotel room here at the Marriott Lincolnshire with the white-hot clarity that can only come from... a liquid diet.

In brief: I'm fine-not-fine. 

I'll be fine. 

And right now I am (physically) stable, and we're on the road to "figuring it out."

WTF happened:

 

This weekend I had an experience onstage during the Saturday matinee of The Music Man. After an "uncomfortable" but not unmanageable first act, I experienced absolutely blinding, lightning-fast 10/10 pain in my viscera during Act 2, and could not continue with the performance. This has never happened to me in my career. Even in the early days of colitis. It was emotionally obliterating. 

 

Backstage, roiling in on the floor backstage, I ripped the pins out of my wig, the microphones off my head while Janet called Alec (at the airport on his way to Sacramento— whom I gently had to ask "please stop speaking to me in ALL CAPS") and then my poor mom, as an ambulance arrived and carted me away. Everyone was incredible: stage managers, company managers, the ushers (!), upper management, the Marriott staff, the cast. 

 

 

Oh the drama.

 

I am generally fairly un-embarass-able. Perhaps it's a symptom of 11 years of ulcerative colitis. You face it all and then some when it comes to the challenging of one's dignity. But the sinking feeling of despair  was almost as blinding as the gut pain. 

 

One of the many reasons I had the J-pouch surgery was to avoid this exact scenario: of being compromised because of my health not just in public, but on stage, observed by thousands and unable to continue with the show. It was in many ways, my worst case scenario, manifested. Even though I know I'm tough as nails, and nothing about this is "weak," those voices reign supreme when I make self assessments in moments of adversity. My favorite question to ask Mom and Alec throughout the surgical journey was "Am I a weenie?" To be clear: I would never be this cruel to anyone else. Of course.

The cast and crew were so respectful as they returned to their dressing rooms and waited. No one flooded me trying to over-help; no one "looky-loo-ed." When I came-to in the emergency room and returned to my phone I awoke to a flood of well wishes and a gigantic bouquet of flowers "from everyone in River City."

 

Proof positive: there's no people like show people.

Of particular note, and a memory I won't soon forget is that of our very stoic, very excellent, not-actually-grouchy, grouchy nerd with a heart of gold, our main sound engineer John. John is a character whom I would never have expected to be so intensely THERE for a work colleague who is essentially a stranger— pushed me in the wheelchair to the main entrance. He kept audience members from poking me on the way out. He held my hand while I writhed and wept, and he reassured me with a level of profound intensity, he made me believe I would overcome every element of this. It was breathtaking.  

 

Thank you, John. I'll never forget this shared moment that felt like a poem.

 

John reminded me of a wonderful male nurse I met once after colonoscopy number infinity somewhere in the 20-teens. This nurse (coincidentally, also named John) could tell I was weary, strung out, and absolutely out of hope. He held my hand as I quietly cried on the table, and was still gripping it firmly as I awoke from the anesthesia in the recovery area.

That little gesture. It meant everything. 

 

 

Back in Chicago: I was hospitalized. Given incredible drugs. Tested within an inch of my sanity. The Emergency Room team was not a specialist team and they weren't able to help me figure out what had happened. Blessedly, a gastroenterologist happened to be on call that night! He had heard of the J-pouch surgery! It was a start.

 

 

I have no idea what is wrong with me, I'll update you when I do. But I have both a physical and psychic sense that it is... not good. 

 

Making Marian with Katie

Doing The Music Man in Chicago has been a great blessing to and for me, and a great break from the dark dark plays I've engaged with over the last few years. 

There have been SO many revelations—many that have occurred, artistic and personal—some simply because I am spending so much time outside of work by myself, in contemplation). Which, though I miss Alec and Tati terribly, is always fruitful for me. I am an introverted being after all. Solitude always seems to “force” something to the surface, outward, forward. 



It’s a fantastic room, and it’s profound to work with such a close friend

Katie Spelman as director/choreographer because I know she trusts me utterly. 

Katie is one of my best friends-- and, compared to some of my lifelong friendships-- she is a relatively new best friend; one I've made in the last 5 years. Something about that feels special. It's challenging to make friends in adulthood, particularly with fellow women (many of whom pair off and have children in this era of life-- so friend groups break apart and re-assemble around those choices through no "fault"). It's been an expansive relationship in every way.

Katie has visionary ideas but also encourages other great ideas and creates an environment where people can express them with ease. She is passionate but not rigid. She IS visionary — especially in the storytelling-through-dance part. 

But I’ll say the most beautiful thing I've experienced here is a kind of intimacy that I never expected — a feeling of closeness with Katie because we both sort of understand that in many ways I am playing a version of me, but more crucially a version of her. She is Marian at the top of the show, and I am Marian at the end. And together, we are weaving this new vision of Marian together. It's an act of total mutual creation and it feels sacred in its intensity and intimacy.
 

*

    We had an almost inexplicable moment of platonic intimacy the other day in rehearsal discussing the (beautiful, underestimated, gorgeous piece of theatre I utterly underestimated) second act scene when Harold Hill comes to call at Marian's house, and eventually invites Marian to "the footbridge."
 

There was a moment the other day when Katie was begging to cut the line “My dear little librarian…” 

And I took paused. Took a beat. First of all, it’s not my line (it is Harold's), but the ferocity of her passion for cutting it made me pause. I asked what bothered her about it. She said she thought it was "demeaning and diminutive and not Feminist." Despite her intellectualizing, I could see her emotion just below the surface. I love this person. I know her. This was a moment of Knowing.

I asked for a quick 5. 

It was time anyway, but it felt like a good moment to pause. Katie is a 37-year-old woman who if she had her choice, would have a significant life partner. She has some walls (who doesn't?), and it IS hard for her to find a worthy partner because she’s extra, extra extraordinary. But she’s also part of the problem. A problem I know and relate to very well. Because it is a problem I had myself… 

 

For years and years I was unavailable to real partnership and to the real reception of love because I was overwhelmed by childhood trauma, grief and self-loathing, then by illness -- and all of those contributed to the story that "no one could possibly want to love me." But the problem was not that I was unlovable— it was the fact that I believed I was. And with the belief so deeply rooted within my cells, in every action I took that I almost missed it standing right in front of me.

 

For in 2019, Alec Silver was RIGHT THERE. He was standing before me, totally in love with me, with MY EXACT F*CKING NAME

… and I almost missed him. Because of my stories. My insistence on my unloveability. I almost missed and blew the greatest gift of my life  because of my walls and fears. 

 

And this brings me to my next point— the line 
:

“I just can't. Please. Some other time, maybe tomorrow...” 



 

which oddly is the line before the “my dear little librarian” line. 

 

 

I cannot tell you how much this line shakes my soul.

Because again, Alec. And why I had to play this role after Alec.

Because love is right there.

Harold Hill is man making an actual bid to connect with Marian. He is, shockingly, truly worthy of her. They are both as lonely and broken and intelligent and isolated as one another, they both need each other. 

He is saying “please meet me— not just at the footbridge but in a place of intimate love” 

and she says “maybe tomorrow”

That was me.
Until Alec. 

"There was love all around, but I never heard it singing..."



So we broke, and I took her aside in private:
 

     “Katie… my whYfe. One of my very best friends. Part of Marian’s agony is that she is capable of so much love and passion, but her years and years of walls are preventing her from allowing herself to BE loved. And sometimes that allowance looks “soft” and “tender” and “feminine”…. none of that is negative. None of that is anti-feminist. Let’s try the line as a man who is making a bid to be soft with her. Who sees she needs softness. And then we can allow this woman who is terrified of being seen as 'girly' because she thinks it means she is weak... to be a creature of desire and of being desirED. And I think you’ll see it’s right. 
And to allow ourselves to be vulnerable is also the key to all of our liberation… when we’re ready”

Afterwards someone asked:    

         “What was that?” 



        And I replied: “That was love” 

 

Broadway World: The Music Man Q & A

© Joe Mazza

Originally published at Broadway World on April 13, 2024

Alexandra, stepping into the role of Marian Paroo, a character known for her complexity and depth, what aspects of her personality do you find most compelling to explore?
Given your extensive background in theatre, including roles in Fiddler on the Roof and Master Class, in what ways does portraying Marian challenge you in new ways?

Having spent many of my marriageable and child-bearing years as a Midwestern, bookish spinster myself, I feel adequately prepared to portray the role…

Okay okay. Jokes aside,

    Being an actor is as fascinating — just when you think you have landed upon the next realization, stage of growth, place of acceptance, or the next “AHA,” another one presents itself to you. What a gift. While Marian is in many ways “in my wheelhouse” (as a golden-age soprano, an American [I play a lot of not-Americans], a bookish, aging woman) she’s presented great surprises.

What I recall from the era of my solitary life before I met my husband, Alec (met him, at the age of 35—) was how very full-to-the-brim with love I was, with nowhere to offer it. I think many people relate to that state of being. I was certain my life story would not be a romantic one (which is absolutely fine, if that’s your choice— but if I could have been honest with myself at the time, it was not my choice). I possessed an equal amount of
    1. Reasonable standards/ principles about what I wanted love and partnership to be, and
    2. deeply unhelpful made-up stories I was telling myself that ultimately just perpetuated my solitude.

No, I was not merely “drawn to unavailable people,” because the most unavailable person in the equation was me. I was in my very own way, terrified of being known or seen or allowing myself to be vulnerable enough to receive love.

This is Marian’s plight.

More than her rigidity, her isolation, or her status as an outcast.
 
And perhaps this plight is why I have not personally played her until now. Perhaps I had to personally be on the other side of Marian’s second act— to appreciate the agony of her self-sabotage and recognize myself in it. To acknowledge how much time I wasted with my heart encased in iron locks. To fully appreciate how courageous a thing it is to allow yourself to be loved, and of course: love’s utterly transformative power on the other side of all that terror. 

© Joe Mazza

As audiences experience this production of The Music Man, what message or feeling do you hope they take away from seeing you as Marian Paroo?

All of the above, plus:

    - Women are people.
    - Read banned books.
    - Let yourself be loved.
    - We need both facts and poetry.
    - It’s never too late.

The Music Man is celebrated for its classic American storytelling and memorable score. How have you approached singing Meredith Willson's iconic music, and do you have a favorite number to perform?

    It is hard to believe that even though I have done a great deal of singing in concert or cabaret settings in the last 5 years, I haven’t been in a “proper” musical production since before the pandemic! So the first challenge is the discipline, technique and stamina to perform such a powerhouse soprano role 8 times a week with consistency and facility of expression.

    And honestly, it’s been pure joy to go to the “vocal gym” and celebrate what I do feel is my natural sound.

    I love the entire score, but I think my favorite song to sing is the “Lida Rose/ Dream of Now” number in the second act with our tremendous barbershop quartet.
Two reasons.
First, Marian’s verse is a soaring dreamscape of fantasy and yearning. It’s almost erotic in how fully alive her yearning is— and I don’t think I had ever previously acknowledged that about this character. (I mean: the clues were all there, she reads Balzac for goodness sake!)

    Second, theatre is a team sport. So while I appreciate a lovely solo as much as they next soprano (LOL), there is nothing like making music in a group— and this particular group is world class.


This production brings together an incredible cast and creative team. What has it been like worth with the incredible ensemble of artists?

A chef is only as good as their tools and ingredients.
A painter only as good as their materials.
A tennis player made better by the quality of their opponents.
By this logic, a theatre artist is only as good as their playmates (and it’s called a “play” for a reason.)

    Every member of our creative team and ensemble is world class-- I’m particularly awed by Raquel Adorno’s costume designs and honored beyond language to share a stage (and a dressing room!) with the Chicago theatre legend that is Janet Ulrich Brooks as Mrs. Paroo, and the rising star that is Kai Edgar Joseph as Winthrop.

These are only a few of the team players that awe me, daily.

    The majority of my work occurs with KJ Hippensteel’s Harold Hill. KJ’s Harold is one of the most fully-realized, heartfelt portrayals of the role I’ve seen— he has the stage charisma of a cult leader and the endlessly likable charm of Dick Van Dyke, and though I don’t know a great deal about the finer details of his personal life, one can tell he really loves his wife (it’s something you can see in his eyes, in his work.) I think one can always tell when an actor knows/has known true love— it’s incredibly special to act with.
    KJ is also so willing and available to exposing the vulnerabilities of Harold Hill (which always, on some level, requires exposure of the actor-self too— and that takes a tremendous courage).  To borrow a metaphor from above, it’s a gift to play “pro-tennis” with him. Long may KJ Hippensteel lead companies.

    But the deepest gift of this experience has been collaboratively re-creating a new vision of Marian Paroo with our director-choreographer Katie Spelman. Katie and I met and worked together 5 years ago, and formed an intense adult-friendship bond that was instantaneous (and mutually insistent upon being permanent.)
    One of the things that has been breathtaking is how our deep knowledge of one another has informed and shaped the mutual creation of this “new” Marian. This Marian is informed by both of us, who share much in common with Marian herself, and with one another as deeply feeling, intelligent women with much to give the world and sometimes getting in our own (different) ways.
    The moments of side-splitting laughter, of debate, of shared vision, of exponential, mushrooming creativity are endless between us.
    But it is the moments of what I can only describe as platonic intimacy that have defined our collaboration. One rehearsal memory is so private and tender it doesn’t belong anywhere but in my memory, but suffice it to say the exchange in rehearsal silently expressed Katie saying “let me give this to you” and my silent reply being “let me do this for you.” The end result is an act of service to Marian, to all woman, to art, and to one another. I don’t know that I’ve ever had an experience like it.
 

The Music Man has a timeless quality that resonates with audiences across generations. What do you believe is the key to its enduring appeal, and how does this production capture that essence?

    In many ways The Music Man as written by Meredith Wilson in the 1950s is about “America” with a “capital A.” America in the early years of the 20th century, in many ways still young, self-absorbed and foolish, in many ways brave, visionary and pioneering. I think what Katie Spelman is attempting to lead us all to do is envision and embody an America that was and an America that could be, when the best of us comes together as a community.
    In our production the fictional River City has recently been through a terrible plague (not at all unlike our world in 2024), experienced individual and collective grief, and in many ways has spiritually “died.” Harold Hill brings River City back to life— even if it is by accident.

    What human being doesn’t empathize with the sensation of dreams and possibilities bringing our souls to life? That’s The Music Man’s enduring appeal.

    Aside from that? Come on: the score is a hit parade (as they kids say “no skips” on this album), the book is impeccable, the dance numbers are bangers, and there’s an unlikely love story. What’s not to like? 

Marian Paroo's transformation throughout The Music Man is pivotal to the story. How do you navigate her evolution from a skeptical librarian to someone who embraces change and love?

    Everything changes when Marian sees what Harold Hill’s poetic lie has done for her brother Winthrop. Her grief-stricken, shadow of a baby brother transforms into a joyous child. The power of Harold’s promise changes Winthrop’s life, and brings the town of River City back to life— and it is palpable, undeniable. She can’t deny that though he may be a literal charlatan, he is in touch with something powerful that exceeds her understanding. That crack— that one aperture in— lets the light in to her soul as well.

    Not every fact with a perfect citation contains the poetry that makes life fully expansive. Harold provides—almost accidentally—that poetry.

    And what I find most interesting?
Marian lives a truthful life, and Harold lives an untruthful life.
But neither of them live honest lives.
They are dishonest in their own ways— with the world and with themselves.
That is, until they are in the presence of the other— honest at last.


Why must audiences see this production of The Music Man?

- You will see a deeply explored version of this story in character and context.
- You will see bodies of color inside the story in an all-embracing way, allowing new people to tell this story.
- You will see 37 brilliant performers on stage in the round (the second largest cast in the Marriott’s history)  
- You will hear a gorgeous orchestra play this classic score
- You will laugh, you will cry, you will fall in love. You will want to go out and buy a trombone.

See you at the library.

Production Photos: The Music Man

all ©AKA Liz Lauren

Sorrow/Grateful

On the first day of tech [for The Music Man,] I crumbled inside myself, gripped to the core by a wave of echoing grief and awakening emotion. 

 

Historically, I have always been someone who gets reamed by emotional tidal waves tardily: days, weeks, months, years after the event. Like a shipwreck survivor who only experiences the intensity of what they went through once they are standing on the shore. Except for me? I've been standing on the shore for a few weeks...or years, completely unaware that I haven't processed the shipwreck. Like at all. And I wonder why I'm having this panic response in the middle of a grocery store, on the subway, as someone is telling me a perfectly innocuous story... or, ya know: on stage.

 

Apparently this "shipwrecking" response is not uncommon. At the height of adversity I am razor-sharp, hyper-lucid, totally focused on nothing but getting through the storm.  I think my hyper-vigilance just never quite turns off... and then I get caught unaware. 

Or have a panic attack. 

Or, I give myself an auto-immune disease. 

Or D: ALL OF THE ABOVE!  

Fun. 

On this particular evening I was filled to the brim with memories of my voice not showing up for me. Bursting with recollections of my many counted inadequacies over the last decade of struggle. Once upon a time, I loved to sing. Singing was my great outlet, my greatest joy; a place of total honesty and freedom. Oh, how I had become just yet another loss. Another grief to grieve.

 

That night, I felt so small and diminished beside KJ [Hippensteel]’s panache and glitter. But I mostly felt like such a fool. My inner critic was in full force:

"Who are you to be here?"

"Who are you to try again?"

"Who are you to think you could do this anymore?"

"You are too old, too ugly and your singing voice is a disaster."

"You are so unworthy"

"Everyone is laughing at you." 

"You are such a foolish old woman, doing this role."

 



It was a deep deep thing…

I think I am having a lot of echoes of post-colitis awakenings during this because it is showing me quite deliberately how much time I really "lost”

 

I think yes. it’s the time, it’s the stories, it’s the experiences… it’s lost time. Un-reclaim-able.

 

I am holding two conflicting thoughts about colitis: 

 

1. I am so grateful to be here, and to have found a solution to colitis that appears to be really working for me! My life has been restored and I feel good and healthy and I’m so glad to have a new lease on life.
 

but also… 


2. I feel sorrowful about all the time that I missed. About a kind of 'loss' around my 30s, my "prime," my years to "be in full bloom," and a kind of female and adult expansion being “taken” from me by so much illness and (literal) unutterable pain. 

But an almost constant sensation that I was literally “disgusting” 

by the depths of loneliness and isolation and the certainty that no one would ever love me or find me attractive or be willing to deal with my illness and the “disgust.”

 

After the run I panicked horribly. I wept-- not for the "job" I had just done on stage, but for all of it. For all the loss and all the fear and all the pain and all the horrors. I released all the uncried tears. And then I did something out of character: I called friends. I let loved ones in to this experience of humiliation and loss and pain. I called friends whom I knew would understand, who loved me fiercely, who I know would hold me in this base and demoralizing moment; and uplift, validate and support wherever I "was." 

 

It worked. We are not meant to bear it all alone. I am humbled. 

 

So.

 

Onward. Onward, still. Just like this photograph of me in song-- however clumsy or imperfect: in a position of surrender and of flight, simultaneously. Eye closed in a kind of faith, heart open to the possibilities of all that life holds, arms outstretched ready to welcome it. Welcome it all.

 

Onwards with courage and integrity.  

Resilience is distinct from mere survival, and more than mere endurance. Resilience is often endurance with direction. Share this Quote Eric Greitens
Read more at https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/endurance-quotes

Resilience is distinct from mere survival, and more than mere endurance. Resilience is often endurance with direction. Share this Quote Eric Greitens
Read more at https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/endurance-quotes

Resilience is distinct from mere survival, and more than mere endurance. Resilience is often endurance with direction. Share this Quote Eric Greitens
Read more at https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/endurance-quotes

 

 

 

"Resilience is distinct from mere survival, and more than mere endurance. 

Resilience is often endurance with direction." 

- Eric Greitens

Ask Al: When what you're creating is about something deeper...

Dear Al, 

 

You mentioned in [writing] class the other night that you think sometimes there is "something else trying to emerge" from what we originally might have thought our draft was about.  

 

Can you talk more about how to [I'm paraphrasing here] "be in communication" with our work, or how we might better suss out the deeper meanings hidden beneath the surface of our first ideas? 

Thank you,

 

H

 

*

A wonderful question to expand upon. 

First of all, I'll start with a PSA: I am certainly no expert about artistic creation. Yes I do professionally create things, and I also professionally teach and mentor others through the creation of their artworks. But even that doesn't make me an expert in you, your relationship to your own self-awareness, or indeed any aspect of your personal creative process.  PSA ended.

 

That said, in my experience creating my own work and in facilitating the creative processes of others, I've observed that often times, initial offerings can offer hints of a larger "something" at play just below the psychological surface. A kind of (ecstatic or revelatory or totally annoyed) "Ohhhhhh" [lightbulb!]— followed by a realization that what we thought we were writing/acting/singing/painting about... was actually about That Other Thing. And usually— again in my experience— it's The Thing we are always haunted by, working on, avoiding or seeing from a new angle for the first time. 

     "This old thing" our conscious mind says, 

and our subconscious mind is like 

     "Yeah, girl. It's kind of always in some way, about That." 

Like Wagner's light motifs, those familiar themes return to us again and again, ready to be explored or expressed in a new way, sometimes when we were totally convinced we were writing about "Something Totally New and Original and maybe About Penguins!"

Or whatever. 

 

 

Now that can take many shapes and sizes. Let me offer some form-based examples:

- what we thought was a one-act play is actually a screenplay for a TV limited series.

- what we thought was a 1500-word academic essay is actually a 10,000 word collection of personal essays all sharing a similar theme.

- what we thought was a comedic poem featuring "funny words," is actually a very serio-comic poem about the grief of losing a spouse. 

- what we thought was a blog post is actually a full-length memoir (which, of course, is how White Hot Grief Parade came to be)  

The question to ask about psychological truth is "What might this piece really be about?"

And sometimes that Something can come in psychological shapes and sizes. Those might look like this: 

- what we thought was about packing for vacation is actually about our heart-crushing divorce.

- what we thought was about preparing a treasured holiday meal is actually about confronting being abandoned by our mother. 

- what we though was about a poetic observation of the glorious brutality of Alaskan winter is actually about a sense of agency and utter freedom. 

The question to ask when it comes to form is "What else might this be?" 

When we are creating, clarity matters. But we cannot always have these revelations in a timely manner, so we have to be patient, employ trusted eyes, ears and confidants to ask the big questions and press us to present not only our best work, but our truest work, to the world.

 

There was a great example of "something much deeper" from a new student who joined my online writing class [let's call her] Alice last month. She authored a [brilliant, might I say] "funny poem about words that is actually about grief." Alice was actively bored of writing poems about her dead husband, and even announced that fact before she shared her (extremely funny) poem about traveling around Western Europe and learning about all the different words for pastries that she found particularly hilarious. 

"I decided to write a funny poem about pastries and words because I am just sick and tired of my grief poems!" she declared.

After she read the first draft we all talked and laughed. And then I asked her about the origin of this poem. And well, before long, we weren't talking about pastries anymore. She was mentioning how we use strange words to name things in other parts of life. She told a story about visiting her doctor for her annual physical, discussing her health and her doctor using words she found inaccurate, reductive, and even bizarre to name her conditions: 

     "TIRED" and 

     "SAD" 

being two that felt particularly euphemistic.

 

None of the words her doctor used actually named what was going on with her...

 Because what she truly was experiencing was the mental and physical results of 

     "GRIEVING."

She was 

     "HEARTBROKEN" 

and 

     "DEVASTATED." 

 

So no. "TIRED and SAD" just didn't cut it, and this doctor (who was maybe trying, maybe inexperienced, or maybe callous-- who knows?) wasn't using language that named her condition, and might actually help her in a myriad of ways.

All to say: whaddya know? The poem wasn't about funny words and pastries after all. The poem— as much as she was trying to avoid it— was still about her grief.

I think THAT is what I mean. 

 

It is in our best creative (and personal) interest to keep our channels open not merely for what we want to "say" in our work, but for what our work is trying to "say" and tell us. 

 

So here's to staying open to what's happening below the surface, and welcome those messages. 

 

 

AFOOT -- GAIA

In 2124 the world is an apocalyptic landscape after the cataclysmic events known as “The Windfall.”

Adelaide’s Botanic Gardens boast an intricate network of AI-controlled maintenance systems known as “GAIA,” a digitally-preserved testament to nature’s perfection. 

 Enter Inspector Lila Gardener, a homicide detective investigating the murder of Adelaide’s great botanist: Dr. Victor Hale. 

Who killed Hale? 

How

and why?  

What secrets lurk beneath the city’s sleek exterior? 

Lila is on the case, for beneath the vibrant foliage and synthetic streams, a mystery lays concealed…In this immersive, site-specific, new form of theater, you interact with your environment using our new AFOOT console. 

All you need is your smartphone, a pair of headphones, and yourself in this thrilling theatrical walking tour of Adelaide.

 •••

CAST

Detective Inspector Lila Gardener — Amy Maiden
GAIA —  Anna O'Byrne
Yashido Natsuko — Gen Parton Shin
Dr. Amanda Narayan — Anula Navlekar
Ilan Zorillo — Mark Dickinson

"The Keepers:"
Shel Silverstein — Tony Sheldon
Madame Ranyevsky — Beverley Klein
Nessa Diffenbaugh — Ange Lavoipierre
Frankly Burnett — Nick Simpson-Deeks
Kew — Rosanna Hyland

•

TEXT & STORY by: Alexandra Silber

DESIGN, sound, mapping + concept by: Asa Wember

PRODUCED by: Alley Scott + Alec Silver for Dutch Kills Theater

MUSIC by @wet__hands featuring Argh Reath

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A post shared by Alexandra Silber (@alsilbs)

AFOOT -- Shadows of the Past

SHADOWS OF THE PAST is part of AFOOT: Adelaide— a lush, haunting, and romantic 19th century ghost story. 

The story centers around Amelia Edwards and William Gardener— who come together and fall in love across class divides in 1885. 

 Set in the founding years of the Adelaide Botanic Gardens, this romance intertwines local Australian history and supernatural elements. 

Weaving together history, romance and a touch of the supernatural, SHADOWS OF THE PAST explores themes of love, loss, and the enduring connection between people and places across class, death and time. In this immersive, site-specific, new form of theater, you interact with your environment using our new AFOOT console. 

All you need is your smartphone, a pair of headphones, and yourself in this theatrical walking tour of Adelaide, South Australia. 

•••

CAST 

Amelia Edwards — Anna O'Byrne

William Gardener — Nick Simpson-Deeks 

Florrie — Alexandra Silber

Marianna the Medium — Ange Lavoipierre 

Jonathan Edwards — James Robertson Malt 

Policeman — Mark Dickinson

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TEXT & STORY by: Alexandra Silber

DESIGN, sound, mapping + concept by: Asa Wember

PRODUCED by: Alley Scott + Alec Silver for Dutch Kills Theater

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AFOOT -- Whisper Walk

 WHISPER WALK explores the power of uttered personal stories. 

Inspired in part by the "Phone of the Wind" (風の電話, kaze no denwa) of Otsuchi Japan, WHISPER WALK is a conceptual piece of moving, living, documentary-style testimonial art of life-like personal stories “whispered” into the ears of the audience at ordinary, everyday locations-- all told as they move through the guided walk. 

The private audience thus serves as a confidant and a kindly stranger on the road to whom the speaker can perhaps speak more candidly than to a regular character in their everyday lives… 

In this piece we explore the notion that memory is tied heavily to place, and that a singular place can contain a multitude of “stacked” memories and stories from the countless humans who cross the location from the hours to centuries.

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Text by Alexandra Silber

Structure by Asa Wember

Produced by Alley Scott and Alec Silver for Dutch Kills Theater

Performance direction by Alexandra Silber 

Walking routes, Recording & Sound Design UI & Web Programming all by: Asa Wember

With performances by:

Michael Cormick

Mark Dickinson

Rosanna Hyland

Beverley Klein

Ange Lavoipierre

Amy Maiden

James Robertson Malt

Rishi Mutalik

Anula Navlekar

Gen Parton Shin 

Tony Sheldon

Nick Simpson Deeks 

Geena Quintos 

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“PS. I bless you with all my heart”

Absolutely no words to encapsulate the experience of Our Class at BAM other than enormous:

Enormous was the challenge.
Enormous were the relationships formed
Enormous is my love of Rachelka
Enormous is my gratitude for having been a part of it.

Farewell for now, friends. 🎈

“PS. I bless you with all my heart”