Pcc Project 50 - From the ground up

>>Voice of PCC STUDENT, SEVEN: Devised theater is the style. However it is much different from traditional theater, Shakespeare, etc. where there was definitely not a script when we started. We just had an idea and the script certainly doesn't write itself, but the story kind of tells itself because you go out with an idea and you formulate questions or certain aspects that you're researching. All the actors go out armed with that, come back with information, and then we improv or make small skits and scenes to see what comes out of it. Then as those accumulate over time, we start to look at them together as a whole. We say, "oh this is the story that's being told" and then we discover what story wanted to be told rather than saying, “we're telling this story.” >>PCC STUDENT, ELAINE: This last part of rehearsal, we really focused on trying to get together this chair dance. We had an idea where we wanted to move chairs around stage and show a movement and passing of time. There are so many different rooms and so many different people, my mind just exploded when they asked me to choreograph this because I was like, "Oh, okay." I have this whole sketch up of where these chairs will go here, where they'll move, and when. You're not just an actor. You're a writer. You're a choreographer and this whole creative energy that comes in, it soothes my soul because I'm a science geek. I study hard-core science and I'm going to be a Physician Assistant. This artistic side of me comes out and it just balances me and makes me whole. >>DIRECTOR, JONATHAN WALTERS: I think the whole production tells the story of many, many, many, many lives and experiences that passed through here. We talk about how there is a residue; there is a ghostly air around of all the voices and places and people that have passed through here. It's very transient. People come here for a while and they move on; "transient" not as a negative word. So many of those stories come out of the ether. We can't tell them all, of course, so this show lets these stories come forward and suddenly a face and a human being appears and tells this one particular experience they had here and how this institution touched them in this way and then they went on to do everything else. That's paired with a little bit more of a dramatic struggle between this growing monstrous institution and all the machinery and all the money and all the complexity and all the bureaucracy and all of that and then, the very core drive of why it was founded to make people's life have more dignity through education.