Pi Theatre

DAY FOUR

Today I moved to my new apartment in Foggy Bottom. As part of my Dramaturging DC effort, I felt it was necessary to stay in a couple of neighborhoods.

After I deposited my suitcase in my new flat, it was off to Woolly Mammoth theatre, to register for the conference proper. The theme of the conference was “Out of Bounds: Inspiration from Outside Theatre”. The first session was the university caucus, which I always enjoy. The second was entitled “Dramaturging Politics” which presented three young individuals who were involved in writing the narrative of the nation. One of them was on the rapid response team in the White House during the last year of the Bush administration, one was a campaign specialist and one was a grass roots campaign worker on the Obama campaign.  I was struck by the commonalities of the language of narrative and the power of rhetoric - something Shakespeare and the Elizabethans knew intimately.

Their advice? Turn negatives into positives – an attitude that the theatre can certainly use.

The evening reception was at Woolly, after which the Canadian contingent went off to the conference bar. Canadians were the only LMDA reps there.  A phenomenon that repeated itself on more than one occasion.

How should I make sense of that?

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