Hunting & Gathering and Finding "Alice"

There might be folks out there who think Pittsburgh is some kinda wasteland of culture.  They may think of soot and smoke stacks and a city covered in grime and smog, dirty, smelly and grey.  

But they’d be wrong.  Oh, sorely wrong.

Other than the fact that the city has been written up by Forbes as one of the best cities to live in the country, it also has several theaters and museums of note (and for a boy who grew up in Reno which is a city that definitely has a cultural deficit), I surely appreciate it.

Tonight I’ll be heading to Bricolage yet again (I know, but I like their stuff, what can I say!) for the opening of Hunter Gatherers by Peter Sin Natchtreib.  I’ve seen a production of this before out in Seattle, so am curious to see what Jeffrey Carpenter, also Artistic Director, will do to it.  True to their aesthetic, the play is a brutal satire, but also darkly funny.  

This video by Matt Hildebrand might scare you or entice you, but gives you an idea of what's in store.

Hunter Gatherers - Actors from Matt Hildebrand on Vimeo.

Will there be a different sensibility and aesthetic between da ‘burgh and the Pacific northwest? I'm curious.

Speaking of curious.

"Curiouser and curiouser..." as one young lady said...

"The Alice Project"
(photo: Louis Stein)

Opening this week is “The Alice Project” at Carnegie Mellon University School of Drama.  

Developed as a collaborative piece over the past year by director Marianne Weems with designers, dramatic writing student and technicians, this multi-media performance tears apart the Alice character from Lewis Carroll and examines identity through a prism of technology.  This is just what you’d expect from such an innovative research university that houses such diverse programs in performing arts, the fine arts, computer science, robotics and media arts.  

Read more about it here.

"The Alice Project" also marks the CMU directing debut of Marianne Weems, co-founder of The Builders Association (which has been compared to The Wooster Group but only with even more technology).

Of course, this is how I spend my days off, when I’m NOT rehearsing…more about that process later.