Wheelhouse feedback

Please tell us what you thought of the play.  We will continue to check in with your comments and workshop scenes based on your responses.  Come back a second time to see what we did with your comments.

Thanks for your feedback,

Virus Theater Ensemble

A Question to the Community

Hello our community of Silver City and beyond,

We are in the process of creating an original work of theater through our innovative Virus Process led by our long-standing leader, Teresa Dahl-Bredine. We are passionately committed to creating theater that has meaning to our lives and the lives of our audience. For this reason we invite you to make your own contribution to this year's content by posting a blog or sending us an email letting us know what ideas you would like to see expressed on the stage this year.

What do you care about? What issues are most important to you here and now, in this community, in this present moment? What would you want to see a play about? Answers cab be politically based, but also can be about love, food, imaginary lizards, etc. We'll continue this process for the next couple weeks.

Thank you,

Jesse Seavers
Virus Theater Business Manager

The meaning of Theater

Hello Readers,

I've had a couple of incidents lately with various members of the ensemble and have some things I'd like to share based on insights gained from them. I was recently frustrated over Stu missing rehearsal for the Super Bowl and stayed at his house after everyone had left so I could reflect a little more on it with him in private. I was also hanging out the other day at Jamie's house where the themes of the upcoming puppet show were being discussed and I found myself wishing that we could adopt some of their radical spirit. Lastly, I just got off the phone with another member of the ensemble who expressed some similar frustrations with the progress we've made so far.
I realize I got a little overly frustrated with Stu and Teresa regarding the Super Bowl excuse for not attending rehearsal. Teresa, I apologize for any misery I may have caused you in my wrath.

Stuart and I stayed at his house and discussed the underlying issues involved in my frustration. In that conversation, I realized that I have an attachment to feeling like I'm spending my time on a worthwhile project. John told me that I'm spending my 32nd year working on this Virus Theater production and then went on to tell me that Jesus did everything in his 32nd year. I jest, however, his comment did strike a chord as the comments of "The Infamous" one are commonly known to. I realized that part of my frustration with my Super Bowl crisis had to do with my desire to have this play have something anything to do with more than simply having a "good time" and entertaining people for its own sake. I want to work on high quality art rather than disposable and diversion.

When I was hanging out with the puppeteirs is was struck by a pang of envy when they explained the political and satirical attacks they intend to level on the University to being a dinosaur which is behind the times. I want our art to affect people beyond the 1.5 hours of watching. I want our art to strike chords with real issues that matter to Silver City folks. Let's address the existing tensions between ranching rednecks and bikers in tights. Let's address tensions between artists and traditional culteral groups in our area, ranchers and miners. Let's adress tension between us as a group and James as we vie for Teresa's attention. Let's explore and experiment with the stuff that is current in the lives of Silver City life and creatively tell a story that gets people to laugh, cry, be entertained, and ultimately say huh. Let's tell a story that makes people want to come back a second and third time and talk about its meaning and ramifications over beers and dinner and on the sidewalk.

I was just speaking with Sam, who does not have the internet. He and I discussed some of these topics together and the motivation for this email comes staight outta that conversation. He said that if everyone thinks these ideas are stupid to be sure to make the correction that these were actually John's ideas not his. I will hopefully represent the spirit of our conversation fairly acurately. We discussed the desire to have a little more reflection involved in the space of rehearsal after the various exercises that we're doing. We would like a little more time to reflect on meaining of the play, different things that occur to us in the course of an exercise. Basically, a little more time for reflection and "mining" the experiences we're having.

All that being said, I would really like have our play be about themes that have real and immediate relevance to our lives as people living in the Silver City area. Happily, I don't think anything that we've discussed so far excludes that possibility. Here's my plea: let's keep having fun and see if we can't ground some our creativity in a story that is intimately relevant to our Silver City audience.

I'll take your silence as your tacit agreement, so respond if you want to promote an alternative agenda.

Jesse

Biography Content

Virus Members, if you want content added to your biography page, send me what you want posted to: bio@virustheater.com.  Also, let me know if you want a 'yourname@virustheater.com' email address; I can forward this address to your regular email.  Thanks, Tyler

Awesome video work, Tyler

Hey Tyler,

You're video posts and webmaster work is most impressive and appreciated. Thanks for all your hard work.

Jesse