or...Buying Something I Never Knew I Wanted
Just this past year, I had the pleasure & joy of working with The Factory Theater for the first time on their World Premiere production of Hotel Aphrodite. After being in the audience for their productions of Jenny and Jenni, 'Namosaur, and Street Justice Condition Red, I was finally getting to join in the fun. And that is exactly what it was - FUN. The script was irreverent, the cast was insane, and our director guided us to find & share the human moments in a farce of orgasmic size.
It was also a really good learning experience for me personally - my comfort zone is classical text. I enjoy the heightened language of Shakespeare and figuring out ways to make the most poetic lines sound like everyday speech (it's hard, but fun - yes, I'm weird). With my work with Babes With Blades Theatre Company, I've been doing a lot of new script development. I'm learning to be more comfortable with the 'creation' of a character, but it's still very much a learning process for me. Being able to play with a different group of people helped me see how their process worked - the bravery required (especially with a broad comedy) to just go for it; try something; go BIG; take risks. All those cliches came alive. And it was amazing!
So my second donation is to The Factory Theatre's capital campaign via IndieGoGo. Not only is it supporting a great artistic endeavor - a theatre company with a proven history of producing original works - but it's creating a space that will help reinvigorate the local economy of the Howard Street corridor in the Roger's Park neighborhood of Chicago. Countless studies show that the arts and economy are closely related - here's hoping that The Factory Theater's return to Roger's Park will be just the beginning of the creation of a safer, more welcoming neighborhood.
(Plus - maybe the folks at The Factory Theater will let BWBTC rent the space at a special 'friends' rate once they get up and running! <wink-wink; nudge-nudge>)