 Is this song? It's on. Okay. Michael, I think we're ready to get started. Yeah. Hi everyone. I'm actually really afraid of public speaking, but then I just saw so many people that I really love. And then I got, it's gonna be okay. No, good. It's gonna be good. So Andrew and Maddie, who curated Prelude this year, invited me to talk a little bit about my work to contextualize the bumps which you guys are gonna see tonight, which is such an honor and such a cool way to share performance work. So I'm gonna attempt to do that for like 10 minutes, and then you guys get to see the piece. So I was thinking about how I think about theater, and I think a good way to summarize it, is I was thinking about the Marina Bromovich idea that in theater, the blood is ketchup, and in performance, the blood is real. Right? That's her line. And I guess I'm interested in a kind of third option, where you're thinking about the person who's covered in ketchup on stage, and you're wondering like, is their skin really sticky, and who that person is, and who the person is who's gonna wash their pants at the end of the night, and how this elaborate structure, this like absurd structure that we create to create fiction, so often replicates structures in the world, which are equally fictional in a way. So that's a kind of overview to my work. This, let's see. This is a photo from my newest performance, which is a collaboration with visual artist Emily Mast, and it's called The Seed Eaters, and it premiered two weeks ago in Austria at the Styrisher Herps Festival, and basically what it is, it's this installation of theatrical sets that Emily built, and it's accompanied by scripts that I wrote, and each set can be activated by people, and by three people, any three people, especially not actors, and people who haven't rehearsed, and so the way that they choose to activate these stations really reveals something about them. So this is a scene called Orgasm, where someone picks a tablet off the wall and performs a monologue about being an orgasm. So you can just imagine like 50 different kinds of people doing this. This is Eva. I love this one, this one. Oh, so each station is about the idea of an end. That's kind of what holds the piece together, and as a whole it's a project that challenges the idea of order and hierarchy, so each station is about the end. It's about dramatically unfurling a toilet paper roll, the end of a toilet paper roll. And I love this photo because this woman who performed this station is a retired ballet teacher, and I think this to me is like my work in a nutshell. It's creating a frame through which you see someone for who they are in a way that hopefully is beautiful and where you maybe don't even notice that happening, but I'm telling you about it now because this is called a studio visit, so you're in my studio. Yes, Monica. Yes, so I'm really happy to see some participants from this project here tonight. Beth Griffith and Sandra Kingsbury are here. This is a project called A Quarter Century, which involves people over 65 and people under 25 swapping language. So what happens if you see people over 65 performing scenes about being really insecure and wondering if you're going to ever fall in love again, learning to live alone, having sexual fantasies about sitting on dicks on the subway? And what happens, and actually I think the future of this project is going to involve people in their 20s performing language from people of an older generation more, and so what happens because I've discovered from working on this project how radical people over 60 really are in ways that are often more radical than I think people of my age. So what happens if you hear someone like me speaking the political language of someone in their 70s and it's actually more impressive or more extreme, and what does that do? And I'm really interested in work that kind of disorients you to the point where you just start to see someone. I was trying to think of a good analogy for this and my roommate and one of my oldest friends who's here who's a neuroscientist might know this, but I was thinking about those beakers that you spin around and then you come up with an essence or something. What are those devices called? A centrifuge. I feel like performance is a kind of emotional centrifuge. That's what I'm trying to do. So I'm not at the bumps yet. I knew there was more before this, but we can look at this image. So yeah, so how to do this in a way that, how to disorient you, how to open you in a way that doesn't feel like I'm telling you what to think, but in a way that invites you to come to your own conclusions and in a way that you can enjoy. That's I think what I'm trying to do. And in 2013, I edited this anthology, which was published by Jennifer Baumgartner upstairs of the Feminist Press, and it's an anthology of essays and art that imagines what a feminist utopia would look like. Some of you guys in this room helped me edit this project to make it what it is. And so in here there are essays that imagine what would a classroom look like in a feminist utopia? What would healthcare look like? What would art look like? And I really see my role in this as thinking about the structure, the structure exposing the structure. So for example, maybe it's better with the mic. So for example, here you see a non-hierarchical table of contents. And this connects a lot to the way that I think about performance as well. And here you see in the front a description that explains how the contributors got paid and who designed the typeface in this book. And to me this is important because we should acknowledge that there is a typeface here that's designed by Claudia Kipp called Expansion. But I'm really interested in drawing attention to this to remind us that a typeface is something that someone designed and that literally everything we touch is constructed by someone. Usually in the case of typeface is usually by an Italian man. But yeah, to remember that because then we can remember that everything is a fiction. Everything is a fabrication by a person and therefore can be reimagined. So this connects directly to the bumps which is an act of structural imagination. Yes, so I want to say that I also know that we know this intellectually but I keep coming back to performance. I alter between writing and performance because in writing I think we can know this intellectually but I think in performance it's a space to feel this and I go through the world, especially these past few weeks and I know that I've been really numbed so I really appreciate all of the work this weekend because I remember feeling. So The Bumps is a play that is made for a cast of three pregnant actors at three different stages of pregnancy. It's meant to be performed for an extended period of time so that you watch one actor over the course of their pregnancy and so that over the course of their pregnancy they would play all three parts and then graduate from the production and then a new actor would enter the process. And so in this way it creates a small ongoing economy for pregnant actors and an ongoing community. It also creates an ongoing way of inviting new people into the project so it's continually evolving. I'm continually saying goodbye to people too. That's the hardest part but it's starting to feel like a real metaphor to me about how to be in relationships with people in the sense of like I know that I can't hold on to anyone for too long in The Bumps but how do you connect with someone knowing that, right? And that to me is what any human connection is. It's always worth it to connect with someone even when you know. It's not forever necessarily. So I want to... I keep trying for my notes. Yes. Yes, I want to take a moment to just acknowledge all of the artists that have been involved in this process because Dina and I, Dina Salanao the director and co-creator of this piece and I have been working on this for two years and so many amazing artists have passed through it and so I want to just take a moment to nod to Jennifer Page, Emily Albrin and Serena Kennedy who are in our very first iteration and then so you see Jennifer Page... Okay, so actually let me back up. So Jennifer is playing the three-month character. Serena is playing the five-month character. Emily is playing the seven-month character. Emily gives birth. We love Emily still but she's not in The Bumps anymore but then I want to write a play for Emily and her newborn so that's part two. Okay, so then Jennifer is playing five months. Serena is playing seven months and then we have Sarah Garcia playing three months and I love this photo. This was also in LA because we also see some members in the audience that have brought their little ones with them because even though we offered free childcare for the audience these women chose to come and not use that service but they felt able to come because that was a part of the PR for it. So I love this image because of that. And then we did an iteration at the Skirball Center. So this is Christina Fernandez, Jean Secchia and Diana Barone. And in this iteration our choreographer, Jenny Lu, was also pregnant totally coincidentally and our set designer had just had a baby. So we were sort of this like utopian pregnant collective. That was a really special way to work. And then this summer we had a version where we did a reading at Issue Project Room that was actually a fundraiser for Planned Parenthood which is so cool. This Broadway actress Jennifer Blood produced it and that's Taifa Harris and Jessica Luck who played one character and now she's graduated to the second role and will be joining us tonight which is so exciting. So yeah, the next image is the one that you guys are about to see live. Get ready for that one. That's the best part of this whole show. So what do I want you to know before you see this? I want you to know that this play comes from a personal place for me in terms of what I wish that I could have seen. Experiencing pregnancy at a young age myself but it also just comes from being an American from being a person with a body and seeing how the theater so often replicates the discrimination and erasure against women, against families, against people without security. Yeah, against anyone with a body with needs pretty much. And so by reimagining the theater for a population that it excludes entirely how does that improve the theater but also how does that help us think about the theater as a metaphor for everything that can change. So with the bumps specifically those questions behind the scenes for me looked like how do you make a play where characters can... where an actor can play multiple different parts where it's not about naturalism and a perfect match. How do you make a play where it's natural for a character to sit a lot? How do you make a play where... how do you approach costumes with a constantly changing body? How can you structure a line item in the budget for childcare and stipends? How do you make a culture of the rehearsal room? This is like a big question that Dina has had to work through and I'm so impressed with her. How do you make a culture of the rehearsal room where it's always appropriate to ask for a pee break or to have snacks where that doesn't take away from something but is a part of it? And I think that's been a really important part of our process. How do you build a set while you're holding a baby? What kind of set do you have? And what about the audience? How do you care for the audience? And what if these needs, all of these needs don't feel ancillary but they feel like the starting point for the imagination. How do you see needs as a serial? Which I think we've seen a lot of this weekend and it's been pretty inspiring. So just to contextualize, tonight you're going to see just the first act of this play. There are three acts. The first act takes place in a waiting room in the 80s. The second act replays the first act but from inside the perspective of the bellies of the first act. And that one is kind of outside of space and time and that bleeds in throughout the whole play so you'll see moments of that. And then the third act takes place today, a generation later. That's it, so thank you all so much for being here for listening to me and for watching the bumps and I can't wait to talk with you guys about it after. Cool. I think they're running behind. They were looking for someone so hot. We had just said, pregnant. Oh no, the casting called specified. It specified they were looking for, you know, classically pregnant. Yeah, classically pregnant. Classically pregnant. At least that's what I think they were. Well, the guys saw me out here so they had me wasting my time. I'm seriously going to whack someone with this. Yeah. I just watched one of them travel agents in the office. Everything here looks so similar. Did you know that on a Boeing 747 you can leave after dinner and get there in time for dinner in Mexico? I wonder if he just stayed on that airplane and what if he just kept going in that direction here and had dinner, dinner, dinner. Everything else starts like a table. Oh, like it's work. Keep his blood flow to the brain. Wash and dry all in one. Just freeze, freeze. Appliances for busy ladies. I'm a busy lady. Very great. I can be here for you. Is it supposed to be a song? No, my husband and I were just making it up last night. And then when we were joking about it, it would be fun to work and advertise them together. Problem is, you're just going to notice your situation. The casting call just said pregnancy without any specifications actually, so maybe she's fine. She looks like a bloated person, but it's just me. That's funny because to me, it's so, it's so... I feel it so much and I have to keep reminding myself that this is a tiny fist inside me that no one else can see. Just me. Which reminds me, maybe other people are experiencing something that I can't see at all. And isn't it beautiful? I just think if they were looking for someone at that stage, they'd probably just hire a fat model. I just think they need something big, you know? Something you can't fake. I didn't think of a fat model. She's actually very beautiful. She's not even fat. Isn't this an exciting experience? Something we can only do at this moment. All six of us. At first, audition. Have you read about how sugar is a used smoking? People are talking about sugar now? Oh, sugar and smoking, you'll see. Well, this place had a peanut hole. That'd be great, but... Do you want this? You don't want it? The thought of eating anything is making me... Yeah. The beginning. Totally ruins food. But then it gets better. It ruins your entire future. Right, bananas. What about bananas? Really bad for boys. What did you learn about? My OB says I know more than he does. Wait, are you having a boy? Better be. Oh boy. You? We'll find out when it's time to meet you. I'm hoping so that my other one, she can have a brother. Oh, brother. Nice girl. Oh, a girl. What are you supposed to do? My husband. He's doing research. Right. Right. Are you from here? Two generations and we all love pizza. Hardly ever eat it though. You got it. How do you not? The lines. Oh, the lines. But maybe it makes it even more delicious when you're starving, you know? Yes, maybe. That's why I love it. Maybe I should wait for all of my food. No. No, you got to eat a sandwich before you go. That's the only way. I should probably pick up a couple of t-shirts from some of the spots before you. Wow, where are you going? Florida. Well, we're talking about it at least. No more driveways to shovel. And the beach. Oh, I think the beach is here. So beautiful. The beach is here. The rocky beaches. Have you ever been to a real beach like the beaches in Florida? No, but the fishiness. Doesn't that feel like the real ocean? It's like the breath of someone in the morning. And then realizing that's them. The specific, original breath of someone I love. No. The white sands and the pools and the backyard. That's got the lights and the jets. And that couple is now free of fear. Oh. Fear. I'm going to have to stand. And the backyard. And the pool. I'm rooting for you. So you're from around here. We moved from the city. My husband's trying a new business venture. So, she's here. What is your husband? Soy. Soy. He's in the soybean business. It's apparently going to be the hot potato. In China, they already drink it for breakfast. Oh, yeah. I heard some guys at the gym talking about this. It hasn't taken off quite yet, but just a matter of time. And then we'll move. Or maybe I'll become infomercial mom and we can move back tomorrow. Right, baby? Oh, let's be good, baby. You're going to be a star. A little starlet. Very good. Anyone deals with parking in the city? Where are the people? The city in the fall. They smell of nuts. They have beautiful coats. And you'll be all the girls. And I'll take you to the ballet. Okay. I'm so sorry about the delay. We're off to the 315 slot. 315, we're ready for you now in room 34A. 3-4-A. 315, we're going to move right along toward 320 slot. If we don't see you. Okay, shit, shit. She looks so great. I'm so energetic for someone that far along, you know. I should ask her. I should ask her if she has any tips. Oh, good. Can I towel that today? Can I give you my card? In case you want to do Lady Fun, do night or carpool in the future. Thank you, yes. Actually? Actually? Yes. Yes. I would love that so much. Is that a formal anything? No, wait, sorry. It's just an idea of being rooted somewhere. Finally? So much is going to change for me. Cheryl. Cheryl. And this? This is the beginning. It's a community. And our 320 slot, we are ready for you now. Fuck, Tards. They didn't even let me talk. They just looked at me like little dick jerks when they saw me out here before. I was just saying how energetic you are. It's just common currency. The least you can fucking do is listen. You wouldn't mind not using language. Okay, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Take two minutes of your fancy time. I can't. All in one, wash and dry. Please lower your voice. What if you don't always get what you want? It's very possible. They saw you and knew right away that you were right. You would be right for another one of their products. A loud product. Like a coffee grinder. Oh, you'd be a wonderful model. For any kind of more, or maybe even a long hour. Oh, oh, oh. It's probably going to be my turn soon. Right. We're going to be fine. They're going to love you. I don't know about that. Probably just want someone who looks like she hasn't seen shit before. Did you? Oh my, oh my god, it's my turn. Oh, okay. Everyone, it's my turn. And 325. Actually, we're going to move to 34B. We'll see you in studio B. Just give us one second. I'll be back soon. Probably not too soon, but for these people. I mean, you had that little song and everything. Here. I wish you on the bathroom feels like a hard one. Thank you. It's hard to run everything. Do you notice that? I ran out of paperwork, so they weren't very happy. Sorry. Okay, their product, their empire was built off the mess you made in there. That's true. You know what? That's true. Someone's got to wash their pants. You know why? Because of you. You should start your own business and be the boss. Did you park them a lot? Oh, no. I'll come outside and wait for you. Some fresh air. Wonderful. Cheryl will send you. Build out the Cheryl. Well, everyone, please stand up and follow Maddie. It's not really an adventure, we're just switching rooms. But we're going to do it in an orderly fashion because, you know, we're in a theater. We'll be safe.