The Rake Magazine

Hi, this is Steve Hendrickson, a local actor living in the Twin Cities and an Artistic Associate of Ten Thousand Things Theater (hereafter known as TTT). I've been asked by The Rake to do a blog on TTT's upcoming production of Eurydice. TTT is the brainchild of Michelle Hensley, who founded the company in LA and then moved it here to the Twin Cities. TTT is distinctive in that is has no permanent theatre venue. Instead, TTT takes it's productions to people who might otherwise never be able to experience a live theatrical performance. We tour prisons, homeless shelters, drug rehab facilities and other sites who minister to the poor and otherwise disenfranchised of our society. (We also do two weeks of paid public performances. These occur the first two weekends in March at the Open Book and Minnesota Opera Center. Check the website below for dates and move fast, these performances sell out fast.) We perform for these audiences, not out of charity or pity, but to acknowledge our common humanity and facilitate a wonderful barter: our audiences participate in the wealth of a live performance and, through them, we re-explore, re-imagine and re-invigorate theater.

OK, lofty grant-proposal words. In common parlance, here's how they translate:

Being a TTT actor is hard. TTT shows tour and must play in spaces not designed for performance- gymnasiums, cafeterias, lobbies, etc. Of necessity then, the productions must be spare. There is no theatrical lighting- we perform in whatever light the room offers, frequently fluorescent. Everything we bring, sets, props, musical instruments, etc. Must fit in the back of one small rental van. The company (frequently at 9:30am) unloads the van, sets everything up, get dressed in a classroom or bathroom or no room at all, plays the show, stays and talks with the audience if they're willing and able, takes down the set, packs it back into the van and heads home.

But because TTT shows are spare, they focus almost exclusively on the text of the play, it's characters and their relationships. TTT presents theatre at it's most essential, reductive level. There's an old adage: you need four elements for a theatre: an audience, a player, a passion and a place to stand. There can be no disguising the shortcomings of a TTT production through dazzling scenery, lighting and special effects. It's just the actors and the audience, an arrangement at once terrifying and exhilarating because...

Our audiences are smart. Not educated, perhaps (though you would be surprised at how often they'll quote Shakespeare back at you), but you can't survive on a poverty level income without knowing a bit about the world, the people in it and how they think and engage with each other. They recognize dishonesty, deception and plain bullshit five miles away whether upwind or down and have no reservations about letting the characters in a play (or the actors playing them) know when something smells. These audiences are used to dealing with officials in power, where the wrong form or the wrong word could mean the difference in getting a hot meal or a warm bed on a twenty below night in St. Paul. In non-prison venues if they don't like the show, they leave, usually with a "this is bullshit!" for us to remember them by. On the other hand, true kindness, compassion, generosity and love are also quickly noted, prized and embraced. TTT audiences can be openly engaged, enchanted, enthralled. With the intelligence of adults but seldom any of the reserve of traditional audiences, they are the closest modern equivalent we have to the groundlings of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre. Hamlet, sword in hand and pondering the killing of King Claudius as he is praying asks "and so he goes to heaven, And so am I reveng'd?"

Audiences at the Guthrie may think things like "No, wait!" or "do that motherfucker!" TTT audiences will say them, no, shout them. And, gentle readers, let me say when that happens there is no situation close to it. It is one of the most exciting, visceral theatrical experiences anyone, actor or audience member, can undergo.

Which is why, for most local actors, working on A TTT production is a highly prized gig. TTT attracts some pretty impressive talent: Sally Wingert, Bob Davis, Sonja Parks, Richard Ooms, Kate Eifrig, Jim Lichtscheidl, Kevin Kling, Norah Long and Bradley Greenwald, to name only a handful, have all been tapped by TTT and I suspect are eager to return.

So TTT is something extraordinary among extraordinary theatres. Next time, I'll write about our current production, Eurydice by Sarah Ruhl.