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Notes from the Field (Online Only)
Introduction: Devising in Chicago—Interviews with the Artists
By Heidi Coleman
While attempting to write a love letter in middle school I discovered the limits of language, or at least of nouns, love being at the top of the list of the deeply problematic and highly reductive. All the feelings, the energetic messiness, the profoundness of my unique angst could not be scooped into letters. Perhaps my frustration with language led me to the continual staging of the ephemeral, the immersive experience of engagement. While devised work extends beyond a four-letter word, I resent the reductive limits only slightly less than my fifth-grade self; and yet, for a process to extend beyond the temporal, we are left to our clumsy linguistics. Chicago currently delights me in Wittgenstein’s language game of pointing to the thing in the attempt to create shared definition, as numerous performance companies actively wrestle with the process of making work.
Moment Work: An Interview with Tectonic Theater Project
By Lisa S. Brenner, Moisés Kaufman, and Barbara Pitts
Tectonic Theater Project teaches a devising method its calls “Moment Work.” Theatre Topics coeditor Lisa S. Brenner sat down with artistic director Moisés Kaufman and company member Barbara Pitts to discuss the Moment Work process and their upcoming book to be published by Random House.