This is definitely something I’ve been thinking a lot about too, Clay. After working with the SITI company, it’s very clear to me that there is so much to gain from building outside of our own hometown, and this is something I’m really looking forward to exploring and discovering. One of the things that made SITI so interesting to me was their truly diverse ensemble. It made watching their piece ‘Who Do You Think You Are’ that much more interesting.

Speaking of which, I don’t know if anyone is familiar with SITI, but if not, definitely read up on them, check out their work, etc. We Illini boys got a chance to work with them in an intensive workshop in the past few weeks, and it was a really great experience. We got a taste of Japanese Suzuki training as well as viewpoints. Lots of fun. Really intense, grueling work (Suzuki), but something I really connected to as far as fusing the physical and mental into one being onstage.

‘Who Do You Think You Are,’ like SITI’s other shows, was developed through a process utilizing viewpoints and Suzuki, and made for a really fascinating piece of theatre. It explored a fairly recent scientific discovery known as mirror-neurons, and also how the brain works and the connections that we as humans make. In all the literature about it, the play is billed as a ‘theatre essay,’ which I found really fascinating. After seeing the piece put up, I completely understand what they meant by that. It had elements of theatre, movement, lecture, science, etc. It was really compelling to watch it all come together. I didn’t always fully understand it, but throughout the night I found myself asking some really interesting questions, and after the show was over, engaged in some great conversations about what we had just seen. In the end, isn’t that what art is all about?

I was just writing about this today for a class. I’ve been reading about different groups that do community based work and have had a chance to talk to some people who work with those groups. The most interesting groups have been Cornerstone Theater, Hand2Mouth and Sojourn. You should check them out. Cornerstone especially creates work with different communities around America. They spent their first 5 years traveling around America and going into different cities and towns creating theater with/for the community, they are now based in LA and work on bringing in different ethnicities, beliefs, societies, etc.

On a more practical level we could think about for next season creating shows that involve the diversity of Skokie. Or rather they could just be projects, working with people from our hometown. It could be cool.