 And I'm going to turn this, the moderation of the feedback over to Scott Horstein, our dramaturg who's been working with us on this project, and then here's Scott. Okay, so before we launch, and I'll just explain briefly for those of you who may not be familiar with the term dramaturg, my job is to be sort of the story analyst or story consultant for the production to sort of be a mirror back for the ensemble, tell them how I think what they're doing is going to read to the audience and dialogue about what are the goals of the piece and how can we get it to where they want it to be. So this is a big part of it. And as Ben indicated before the show started, what you saw tonight was not sort of what the piece will look like in the sense of we're not going to have all these pieces of things back to back necessarily. There was sort of a bunch of snapshots of different theatrical investigations that we've done into the notion of evolution in the circus and what that looks like in the theatrical setting. So there were some bits that you saw that very clearly had a story to it with the girl in the mining town and is she going to leave and the evolutionary wonderments and so forth. And then there were some sections that you saw that had no real story to them at all necessarily but were more sort of performance based. We don't know exactly how it's all going to fit together, if it's all going to be story, if it's all going to be not story with the performance bits or if somehow they're all going to fuse together. So for this feedback tonight we're less interested in hearing about whether it sort of thumbs up or thumbs down on different sections or whether this should go next to this or after that or we're really interested in just responses to the individual sections in and of themselves, something that struck you, something that might stick with you tomorrow if you thought back on the piece and it could be something just in the theatricality and performance of it or it could be something that happened to you intellectually or something thematically that you responded to and those insights will be really, really helpful to us and once all the cast is out I'll ask them to introduce themselves as well. So just to start, what was something that struck you in watching this performance? Yeah? Yeah, the way the last piece kind of evolved into umbrellas and riddens really struck me as like a primordial ooze or jellyfish type of image that I really liked and we'd love to see that explain. OK. And did it seem that way to you? You were the first person to give feedback with the soundtrack. And did it strike you that way because of the voiceover or do you think it would have struck you that way without the voiceover? The voiceover I think definitely looked me. So it helped you give a way to look at what you were saying? Yeah. OK. OK, great, great, great. Something else that struck you? Yeah? I was intrigued by the idea that there's with the girl having the glowing jeans and the idea that there can be something unusual and weird about someone that you don't see that's just kind of. That's a really lovely way of framing it, but I haven't heard it to me before. That's just an unsort of a character level, the idea of someone who's got something hidden that no one else knows about. That's really helpful. Thank you. Something else that might have struck you with one of the little scene lists that you saw? Yeah. Well, there's two really interesting instances of rehearsals. One is in the opening, and the aliens are the other sentient life are avoiding us. They tend to pretend to think we're pretty human-centric, like, oh, they want our planet. They want to make us sleep. Instead, it's like, you don't want to have anything to do with us. That was really interesting and compelling, especially since it comes to the beginning. It sort of seems to foreshadow what's about to happen, especially the second reversal, which is that the thing that makes her genetically abnormal makes her desirable. Whereas, typically, I mean, I would think that, like, the status quo is that she's a genetically abnormal, but it's undesirable. So I think those were two really interesting reversals. That's great. And the word reversal is really helpful in helping us understand that those are things that we started looking for or enjoying when they happened. So that's fantastic. Now that we're all here, I'll just ask the cast to briefly introduce them. Hi, I'm Michelle. I'm Caroline. I'm DeBora. Lisa. Kurt. Rob. And just a quick hand again for the cast. Yeah. Woo! Great. Other things that struck you, something that you saw and that you responded to and that sort of stayed with you? Yeah. I missed, I came in somewhat late, so I missed the whole storyline that was being delivered. But I did really enjoy the part that I've been narrated with the actors rising on the ground and going through the progression of the evolutionary possibilities. So yes, that was quite enjoyable. I'm sorry. It was just very engaging, every single one. It kind of had me captivated. I'm just watching the development of each person on the floor and what they were going to be taking on. And you made some great noises. Yeah, I enjoyed the participation as well. But so it sounds like there was maybe even a little bit of suspense in sort of seeing what was going to happen and how it was going to evolve? Yeah, yeah, sure, for each individual. OK, that's great. Along with that suspense, were you surprised when Brian got up and was walking and started talking, or was that something that you sort of saw coming? I did not see it coming, even though I was kind of watching when it courted my eye and watching his response to what was happening. But no, I did not anticipate that happening. OK, very good, good, good. Another response, yeah? In the same scene, I think it was really striking when Brian starts talking about trying to see the beauty of things while there's some kind of predation or sexual act going on. That seems like a little base or whatever. I had a really cool, interesting contest. It was very striking. Great, great. Perhaps a reversal, perhaps not, but just going with the lovely word that you gave us to begin with. Something else that might have struck someone up, it could be a moment, it could be a line, it could be a thought. Yeah? I was very fond of the freezing in a tableau, doing something totally different than coming back and getting to it. I haven't quite figured out in my head how that's connected to the theme, but it felt very, very much evolutionary. That's interesting. I just thought of it as a stage device and bring us back to the scene. Now, that's great. And the thing that's nice about this workshop presentation is we throw some things next to each other, and we don't know if them being next to each other will wind up being meaningful or not, but you're suggesting to us that we should pay attention to how the things butt up against each other, which I think is really valuable for us. Thank you for offering that. Yeah? The whole child routine, which was just phenomenal, and also contrasted with Lisa's discomfort around this writing one-off story. Pretty fantastic. And I also really liked the Apple theme the whole offensive story before he was even said about the Bible. There was a tweet that went out over the interwebsk today about how somebody had seen this last night and decided to never have children. I don't know. It's her own guess. It's her own guess. It's her own guess. It's her own guess. Thank you for what you're saying. That scene, that image of the apple in the mouth three feet in the air, in the quote from Genesis just made me enraged by the way that I'm mad that it's in the play, but it, you know, yeah, I think you get it. Right, right, right. But it was potent for you. Yes. Right, right. It was more, I saw it as Friday, and it seemed to me almost even more individualization of each creature. I don't know what you mean. Each creature. And that was interesting. That they're more delineated as different. Right, right. But creatures do mean ones in the mind-times scenes as opposed to the, is that a point you're talking about? Any of them. Especially the rioting ones. So the great value of it actually performing something a couple of times. But that's great. That's very useful for us. It's definitely something that we were striving for, so that's good. Other things that people have to offer, something that struck you, yeah? Getting back to the childbirth scene. I mean, it kind of struck me that Lisa looked like she was going to push her away. I wasn't sure if she was going to push her away or comfort her. And that's kind of what our attitude is towards women in childbirth now. And I thought that was, I mean, it was just a tiny little detail, but I thought it was very powerful. That's particularly helpful, because that kind of uncertainty and that kind of tension is the kind of thing that you can build some theater around. So thank you for pointing that out. And she had told me, I'm Lisa's roommate. No favoritism here. She had told me yesterday that somebody said that they felt that that scene was too aggressive. And I can see where that's coming from, but I also think that that particular attitude is sort of encapsulated in that gesture that's either pushing her away or comforting her. We don't know how to handle the reality of it. I do have to say that the person who felt it was too aggressive was my mother. She felt it went on too long. The two-minute labor. Is that how she felt about it when she was... Excellent. Any other thoughts that you would like to offer, something that struck you? I disagree with Ben's mom and I thought it was just fine. I also enjoyed the texture of the scene and the basic feeling of the ensemble versus the more individualized moments that came out. I thought that was a fun interplay for me to have that richness that the ensemble brings. And they have a richness, but then they clear out that richness every once in a while and just be able to focus on something very simple, very small, very individual. So that's a balance perhaps for us to continue to pursue. That's good. When we introduced the Sky Harbor story, there's a few different things going on. There's a voiceover and there's music and there's very energetic dancing going on. For me, they weren't syncing up with each other. The Sky Harbor story was... I like the pitch tone of it. It's really cool. The music just wasn't matching for me with...