After more than 18 months of downtime due to a pandemic, live theater appears to be making a comeback around the world, stage lights come back on in dark theaters, and artists are once again creating new works for audiences who calls for entertainment and enlightenment. For David Ian Lee and Karen Sternberg, co-founders of the Nashville-based Pipeline-Collective, returning to production has meant finding a safe passage – a creativity that ensures continued good health for everyone involved – not just for the actors. and other artists with whom they collaborate, but also for their loyal audience.
The result is Out of here – a work that evolved from conversations between Lee, Sternberg, Melinda Sewak and Claudia Barnett – which premieres this Saturday, October 2 on NECAT, the Nashville Education, Community and Arts television network. For 12 hours, a performer (Sternberg plays “Her”) will live a story dozens of times with over 30 different actors, who constitute a veritable who’s who of the Nashville theater community.
It’s an intriguing endeavor that brings all kinds of technical challenges on top of the usual processes to bring any show to life for an audience. While the creative team (Lee and Sewak are co-directors) have a lot of experience in this area, Out of here is something entirely different – and in a world of cookie-cutter theater, where just about every production imaginable has an ancestor – and perhaps even unique.
And while they admit that the process has been somewhat chaotic at times, they are eager to present their finished product which they hope audiences will find goes beyond the planned theatrical event to come to life.
“It was a slow and evolving process,” explains Lee, artistic director of production at Pipeline-Collectif, in an interview with Zoom. “We had envisioned long-running artistic performances inspired by the pandemic – like the work of Marina Abramovic or The Hypocrites, but the real starting point was the film by Bill Murray. groundhog day. “
Determined to find a new form of creative expression within the parameters of the Pipeline-Collectif’s stated mission to present original guerrilla-style theater. At the same time, Pipeline-Collectif wanted to build on the relationships and virtual storytelling techniques developed through the company’s new work program, Le Salon.
With the entire world the past 18 months and more like something out of a movie script, with each day like the one before or those that follow, Lee and Sternberg began to discuss their idea of ​​a new form. performance with playwright Barnett. , an English professor at Middle Tennessee State University, who eagerly accepted his challenge to create a storyline that somehow captures the spirit of creativity that reverberates even during a global pandemic, while launching an entertainment hybrid to challenge Pipeline Collective’s talent pool.
At Barnett Out of here (which, she admits, has probably seen 15 iterations in the lifespan of a piece that began with those conversations in early spring) Pipeline-Collective begs the question: what does it mean to go back to the world when every day has been the same as the one before?
Barnett’s story, according to a press release, is deceptively simple: A woman receives an unexpected guest. When the woman refuses to leave her home, the guest draws her in with poignant and joyful visions of the outside world. The departure of one guest leads to the arrival of another – and the scene repeats itself, with almost imperceptible changes in text and tone. Yet the play’s ritualistic twelve-hour duration requires rethinking what it means to belong to a world that is both dangerous and spectacular.
“Karen and David called me at the end of April and told me they had an idea for a show – a 12 hour show – and they asked me to write it,†Barnett recalls. “I was immediately intrigued by the impossibilities, and of course I said yes. The two pieces that stuck in my head the whole time I was writing are those of Samuel Beckett End of Game, with his characters apparently trapped at the end of the world [and which includes the line ‘Outside of here it’s death’], and that of Eugène Ionesco The bald soprano, with its incessant and absurd repetitions.
“And while there are many plays in which an actor plays multiple characters, who’s ever heard of multiple actors playing a single character? That’s basically what we have here. A role, ‘She’, will be played. by Karen Sternberg, but the other is an evolving (r) role written for 32 actors. One-character plays are eminently practical. This project is exactly the opposite, which is another reason why it appealed to me.
“I’ve read a bunch of articles that compare the experience of the past year and a half to being in a time loop,†Lee said. “You’re stuck in the same place and every day is the same and nothing you do seems to matter. It’s something we wanted to explore.”
Subsequently, as the project gathered momentum as Barnett worked on his screenplay, Sewak joined the team: “David and I sat in my garden and talked about the project,” recalls. -she. “I had first-hand experience with the creative process of Pipeline Collective [she appeared in the company’s production of Mac Rogers’ God of Obsidian]… so I was grateful to have been invited to participate.
“This piece is a nod to community. It is a recognition of the loss of unity that we have all experienced in various forms in the recent past, but also a celebration of life and the love that have persisted. With this project, we hope that audiences see themselves – and in doing so, feel joy in the diversity of stories and experiences that theater, at its best, raises. “
Outside of Here was the subject of a workshop over the following months with Collective Pipeline collaborators from across the country, says Lee, because the creative team knew they wanted the finished product to be interpreted. by actors from the local theater community.
“The past year and a half has been clarified for Pipeline. The performing arts have simply been decimated by this pandemic,†suggests Sternberg. “We brought The Salon online from the start and focused on building a local and national community with playwrights, directors and actors. It’s this community of over 300 people that inspires us, inspires us creatively, and gives us more support than we can ever get back. Being able to complete this massive but safe project with dozens of local artists and technicians after so much time physically separated is deeply gratifying. “
One of the most important aspects of the project is the fact that the nearly three dozen participating actors will never rehearse the entire piece at the same time – instead, they will meet first in the studio of NECAT television this weekend.
“It’s part of the magic, the unpredictable element,” Sternberg admits. “This is where planning and inspiration meet and create something compelling.”
Rebekah Alexander, Matthew Benenson Cruz, Rona Carter, Joel Diggs, Rosemary Fossee, Galen Fott, Diego Gomez, Denice Hicks, Josh Inocalla, Jonah Jackson, Josh Kiev, David Ian Lee, Ang Madaline-Johnson, will join Sternberg for the performance. Leslie Marberry, Mary McCallum, Kate McGunagle, Nat McIntyre, René Millán, Sabrina Moore, Beth Anne Musiker, Gerold Oliver, Eric Pasto-Crosby, Eve Petty, Taryn Pray, Natalie Rankin, Elliott Robinson, JR Robles, Jordan Scott, Melinda Sewak , Tamiko Robinson Steele, Shawn Whitsell, Garris Wimmer and Sarah Zanotti.
Faced with the coming together of a large number of actors, the health and safety of all involved has been of paramount concern and Pipeline-Collective has adhered to the latest guidelines issued by the Centers for Disease Control, the government of Metro Nashville and performing artists unions. As a result, all who work on Out of here will be fully vaccinated and tested, and everyone in the building will be masked for the duration of the 12-hour performance, unless it is videotaped. There will be no live studio audience; The pipeline limits access to the space and minimizes the number of people who will be there at any given time.
Out of here is produced in conjunction with Cameron McCasland, who is Director of Content and Member Relations for NECAT (Nashville Education, Community, and Arts Television). Out of here will broadcast live on NECAT’s Public Access Channel (Comcast Channel 9, ATT U-verse 100) from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. CST on Saturday, October 2. Nationally, viewers can access the live stream through the Pipeline-Collective Facebook page or the NECAT live stream. The performance is free, although donations are shared between the artists working on the piece.
For more information and to support production, visit www.pipeline-collective.com.
