Re: RAT Intro from another Eye

["William Houts" <houts.w@ghc.org>]

Hey, your project sounds amazing.  I'm a big Sumeria buff, if you can feature such a thing.  Our own Mr. Jeffries up here in Seattle wrote a luminous musical based upon the Descent of Inanna to her sister Ereshkigal. in hell.  What was your piece about?

    --Bill
 


>>> <P1d2o3b@aol.com> 12/27/99 11:57AM >>>
Response to 
>another voice, from Elizabeth bards@independenteye.org (The Independent Eye)
> Our last production in Philly, based on sacred Sumerian text, never set a 
ticket price ..
> Me, I want the butts in the seats, and ..
>  I want that work to connect with individuals, and connect with the best 
energy possible ..
> see faces, hear voices, and find out something of what happened side..
 >three performances for three different groups, for free, in the area to 
which we moved... .
>  Over the following two months, we got, in contributions from people who 
came onto the >mailing list in that span, a total of about what we'd have 
needed to get from tour fees. ..  
>we got a flood of ...responses of how personally important that witnessing 
was... 
>   Cheers - Elizabeth

Shortly after finding RAT list, this appeared on my screen:
>>"Set:
Guests are invited to A Performance in a place small neighborhood productions 
have been staged before.  It is best if it has something resembling a 
proscenium stage, which could be the raised front part of a church, synagogue 
or temple.  A tent is set up outside the building, with a table staffed by 
volunteers from supporting organizations which have provided goods and 
services to make it possible to perform the play.  These volunteers have 
posted signs at the table and possibly in cyberspace recruiting audience 
members and soliciting barter goods and services they will accept in lieu of 
monetary value specified on tickets of admission.   
... the audience enters a space ...designed by a member of the Sierra Club 
who has a thing about storm water and a member of the local Garden Club of 
America.  [blah blah...]
and passes ..among the props and actors who skillfully (meaning they are 
quiet but pleasant, or pleasant but quiet -  the point  being  to negate the 
negation of teatro seis ocho) set them at ease and help them find their 
seats, which are on the stage.  The audience should not" [be expected to] "be 
larger than the number of volunteers given roles to perform and those coming 
at their behest, for whom they have made place cards and will have to pay if 
they don't show, plus ditto for friends and family of the cast.  When all are 
seated  (the name of the play is "No Empty Seats") the play begins."

...
"If you want them to participate, give them a role to perform."  I would like 
to credit discovery of this law to Marion Woods,  aka wife [of the]  Rev. Dr. 
Abraham Lincoln Woods, president of the Birmingham chapter of the Southern 
Christian Leadership Conference, and pastor of St. Joseph Baptist Church.