I consider myself a theatre artist working in the genre of pastiche (but isn’t all theatre the genre of pastiche).  This is a fancy way of saying I do a lot of different things.  I’m a playwright, an actor, songwriter, director, visual artist, and activist.  I create work for others that I don’t perform in, perform in other artist’s work, create performance art parties and huge theatrical extravaganzas (with at least a dozen performers, puppets, and musicians), perform solo, and sometimes squish all of these hats together and come up with what most people in academic circles would call a postmodern theatric (meaning I draw from many sources, throwing high and low art forms together, juxtaposing ideas and images to create new meanings).

 

Imagery plays a huge part in all of my pastiches. My aesthetic comes from a technique I’ve been developing for a number of years:  I pick a topic, e.g. “The War on Terror” and write down all of the things I feel about it:  anger, frustration, sadness, ironic amusement, among others.  I’ll explore how the topic is messy, exact, demonstrative, hopeful, chaotic, controlled, feminine, masculine, ugly, and beautiful.  Using this list I then create a “look” that encompasses all the descriptions at the same time.  A set piece or dress may be a jagged-sparkling-frayed-flowing-gorgeous-organized mess.  If it is a dress, I make sure, when wearing it, that the look acknowledges I am both masculine and feminine.  My hair and makeup will also reflect the myriad of impressions:  perfect glittering lips accompanied by a matted wig and didactic eyeliner.  Deliberately "squashing" these elements together, I (and/or my performing collaborators) become a heightened, theatrical, and physical expression of the topic.