Show Report 50: Sedition Books

Turn out: 14

Monetary Votes of Support: $112 ($82 hat, $30 merch)

Personal Injury Report: Kate pinched me uneccessarily at least 5 times, once when I was supposed to be unconscious and therefore could not yelp.

Show Description: Great show! The evening started with good spoken word about shooting Shakespeare from a poet named Alex (we lost his last name and contact info), followed by strong political songs from The Deconstruction Crew. Then we performed. Then there was an involved and unique discussion.

It's generally hard for me to get really excited about spoken word and poetry, but Alex surprised me with some really great lines, interesting ideas and powerful delivery. I really enjoyed the fact that Alex and the guys in Deconstruction Crew introduced each of their peices in something like the same manner we do. There's something about art that explains itself or prepares the audience that I really like. Many artists object to this insisting that the work should speak for itself, or that their work needs no introduction, or even that they don't understand their own intentions and therefore can't explain their work. I can see the attraction of that kind of approach, but I can't help but feel like it's often a posture adopted to mystify art and fetishize artists. I recognize how introductions can be pedantic, or hierarchical, telling the audience what they're supposed to think, too. I hope we can instead try to explain ourselves, but also remain open to others' interpretations and understandings.

Anyway, we really enjoyed the show and the discussion afterward. The performances felt good, but different. It's always interesting performing after a few days off, some things get missed, but others get discovered, or re-discovered. This was the 50th performance of this play, and we're really happy to see it continuing to develop and grow. We've got a few dozen more shows booked already, and will probably be doing this play through next fall. This kind of extensive touring with performances in very different spaces and different cities highlights theatre's living and growing character.

Did you see this show? If you did, write a review, comment on it or ask us some questions. We'd love to hear it because we believe in artistic transparency.