Milton
Terrible Things and HOW TO BUILD A FOREST-Paula Court; Bird Eye Blue Print-Miguel Lopez
3 actors, speaking and singing, search for a shared inner life found in towns named Milton across the U.S. Rich and textured, complicated with challenges, hopes, fears and dreams, Milton’s inner life shifts, accumulates, and floats by much like the clouds in the sky. With the actors performing among and around the audience, Milton might feel like you are visiting the opera, or sitting in a planetarium, or hanging out at a family barbecue, under a big sky.
Artist Statement: PearlDamour has been making experimental performance in big cities for the past 16 years. With MILTON, we wanted a change. Over 2 years, we are traveling to 5 cities named Milton across the U.S., talking to people about their towns and asking questions like: “If you could change one thing about the world, what would it be?” The Miltons stretch across the United States, forming an earth-bound constellation. The constellations we see at night are imaginary entities, constructed by humans to give meaning and order to the vastness of the night sky– they provide us with direction and make immensity graspable. We’re creating our constellation to revise any general ideas we have about small town life. We look to our constellation for guidance and wisdom as we attempt to orient ourselves and our audiences within the vast idea of “being American.”
Collaborating Artists: Director/Co-Creator: Katie Pearl; Writer/Co-Creator: Lisa D’Amour; Composer: Brendan Connelly; Video Design: Jim Findlay
About PearlDamour: Katie Pearl and Lisa D’Amour have a 15-year history of creating performance for theaters and non-traditional sites as PearlDamour. With works ranging from intimate (15 people in a Manhattan basement) to large-scale (a 24-hour performance at the Stone Arch Bridge in Minneapolis for over 1,000), the duo is known for mysterious and often interactive productions that combine theater with installation and is attentive to the performer-audience relationship. PearlDamour has been presented at venues such as Here Arts Center, PS122, The Kitchen and The Whitney Museum of Art (New York), Walker Arts Center and Intermedia Arts (Minneapolis), FuseBox Festival (Austin), Contemporary Arts Center and Artspot Productions (New Orleans), Duke University (Raleigh-Durham) and Brown University (Providence). In 2003, they received an OBIE for Nita & Zita, created with Kathy Randels of ArtSpot Productions. In 2011, PearlDamour received the Lee Reynolds Award from the League of Professional Theater Women, given annually to a woman or women whose work in the medium of theatre has helped to illuminate the possibilities for social, cultural, or political change.
Upcoming for Milton: Sep 28/29th at JACK in Brooklyn: workshop sharing and weekend of events surrounding Milton, including a ‘sky walk’ across the Brooklyn bridge, panel discussions, and a tasting of foods from 5 cities named Milton across the country. April 2014 – Work In Progress Showing, ACT Acting Conservatory, San Francisco.