Audience members are pictured at Pioneer Courthouse Square June 1, 2022 awaiting the opening of Artists Repertory Theatre's Mercury Festival of new works.
Courtesy Artists Repertory Theatre
During the pandemic, some concerts, theatre and other artistic expression pivoted to online performances, but there is no replacing an in-person audience. Luan Schooler, the interim artistic director for Artists Repertory Theatre, says that before the curtain rises in a finished production, playwrights need an audience to develop their work. That’s the idea behind the free public performances in the Mercury Festival, which runs through Sunday. Schooler joins us to talk about this first in-person festival of new work, and why it’s debuting in a public space free of charge.
The following transcript was created by a computer and edited by a volunteer.
Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. A free five day theater festival started last night in Portland’s Pioneer Courthouse Square. It is the Mercury Festival put on by the Artists Repertory Theater. It features stagings of new plays that were developed by ART during 18 months of pandemic shutdown. Luan Schooler is the interim artistic director and director of new works for Artists Repertory Theater and she joins me now. Welcome.
Luan Schooler: Thanks Dave.
Dave Miller: How did this Mercury Festival start originally?
Luan Schooler: Well, when COVID shut down producing live theater in May of 2020, we kind of pivoted to creating a lot of work for artists to develop new projects that were plays or sort of theater adjacent projects. So for the last two years we’ve held three different sessions where we hired a bunch of artists just to do development work on ideas and we created audio plays and short films and theater-in-a-box and experiential things and sort of supported artists through whatever creative leap they wanted to take. And so over the course of these three sessions, we employed 241 artists and provided development support for 53 projects. So the Mercury Festival, which started last night, as you said, and runs through Sunday, celebrates and presents live for the first time several of the plays developed as well as some films that were developed during Mercury Festival.
Dave Miller: The performances are going to happen starting, as you noted, last night in this big white dome tent in Pioneer Courthouse Square in downtown Portland. Did you seek the venue out or did they seek you out?
Luan Schooler: It was, it was a happy coincidence that just at the time we were thinking, ooh, COVID is coming back again. Is there an outdoor space where we could present the festival? Just at that moment, the square happened to reach out to us and say we have this dome and we’re trying to bring artists into Pioneer Courthouse Square. And so, and you know, a little moment of kismet, it happened that this dome, which is a perfect kind of indoor outdoor space. There’s great air circulation, but it’s also protected if we get rain, made itself available. And it gives us an opportunity, since we are out of our building at present, to be in Portland’s living room and talking to people about ART, and sharing the news that we’re, we’re still making theater. And we’re there and come see the free festival.
Dave Miller: Free is a fascinating part of this. Can you explain the logistics and you don’t need a ticket. You just show up, get a free beer and you can watch a play and a short film festival?
Luan Schooler: Exactly. We have, during the week, the readings start at 7p.m. And then we have four short films that we’re viewing, starting at 9p.m. And if they come for the readings or the films they get a free beverage to enjoy while they’re there. Yeah, ipart of the Mercury was funded with stimulus funds and so we really wanted to sort of spread that sense of ‘theater is for everybody’. We are here to share this great, these great works of creation and make it as easy and enjoyable for people to come and and be a part of and for the, for the playwrights and the artists, this is the first time that they are able to see their works or hear their works with a live audience, because as you probably know, a lot of work was shared over Zoom over the last couple of years, but writers can’t hear how audiences are responding to that work. So there’s nothing that replaces having a live audience that helps shape and support the creation of new work.
Dave Miller: You know, essentially. I had thought, I mean from just from an audience’s perspective, the sense I get is that especially for something like a live theater, a Zoom thing, there could be good things about it, I suppose, but it’s, it is almost always going to be a pale imitation of the real thing. But I’ve, I guess I’ve just thought about that from the audience’s perspective. I hadn’t reckoned with the idea that a playwright or a director, they too might not really get a sense for whether or not their work works if they can’t feel the audience’s experience of it.
Luan Schooler: Absolutely. It is such an important part. It is really that sort of the last crucial piece of developing a play or, something to be shared live is getting that live experience of it, and Zoom, it’s just a slightly dead experience of the play. You have no idea how people, are people going to the kitchen to make a sandwich during the play or are they super engaged? You have no way of knowing.
Dave Miller: Right. The same could be said of a business meeting too.
Luan Schooler: Of course.
Dave Miller: I hope my boss is not listening
Luan Schooler: We’ve all made sandwiches during meetings.
Dave Miller: Yeah, So, well, let’s hear about some of the actual works in the festival. Tomorrow night, there’s a play called ‘Why This Night?’ What is it?
Luan Schooler: ‘Why This Night?’ is a play by Dan Kitrosser. And it’s a wonderfully funny, zany play. And it’s the subtitle of the play is ‘A typical 19th century queer shtetl seder murder mystery’. And I think that kind of sums it up. So folks who are, who love, who have ever been to a seder, who sort of loved Jewish queer humor, who just love, wacky things, come and hear this play, because it is a delight and it also is a lovely warm piece that, that you go on this zany ride and you end in this really warm, lovely place. Showing of ‘Why This Night?’ starts at seven and then at nine o’clock again, we’ll have, we’ll show the four short films that were either created during Mercury Festival or commissioned for this festival.
Dave Miller: One of them is a film called ‘Forget Me Not, America’. I’d love to play a little bit of audio from the beginning of it. But before I do, can you describe what it is and what it looks like? Because it is beautiful.
Luan Schooler: Yeah, it is really beautiful. ‘Forget Me Not, America’ is a short animated film that was made from a poem by Josie Seid. And the poem is from the perspective of a black person and sort of goes through the history of America and has hope and fury and love in it. And we put Josie with the sand artist Katy Bredemeier who, it’s a little hard to describe the sand art, but sand is sprinkled on a screen and then she uses her hands to draw in the sand, these various animations, which are incredibly beautiful and it’s striking to see how with just a few strokes in the sand, she creates such a strong visual image that really resonates with the poem. So it’s a short film, it’s about eight minutes long and it covers a wide span of history, but it’s, there’s just something so remarkable about the sand illustration describing history that, it is hard to describe, but it’s so worthwhile.
Dave Miller: Let’s listen before we say goodbye to one minute of the beginning of this piece.
“Forget me not, America, the contribution that I made that was in the form of servitude for the guise I wore, a slave. It was my sweat that nourished this nation. My blood cultivated the land. I too helped build this country in spite of chained down hands. Forget me not, America. I’m a train that few could see. We traveled underground with the cover of night to a land where we could be free. Our music led the way to the station. We followed the drinking gourd to a place where our bonds were broken, has strengthened with our bond with our Lord.”
Dave Miller: That was the first minute of the short film, ‘Forget Me Not, America’. We heard the voices of Josie Seid who wrote the poem and Vin Shambry. It is one of the short films and new theater works that you can see over the next four nights as part of the free Mercury Theater Festival. It’s through the weekend at Portland’s Pioneer Courthouse Square. Luan Schooler, thanks very much.
Luan Schooler: Thank you, Dave.
Dave Miller: Luan Schooler is the interim artistic director and director of new works for Artists Repertory Theater. Tomorrow on the show, water is the lifeblood of the Klamath Basin and it remains in critically short supply right now. In March, for the third year in a row, Oregon Governor Kate Brown declared a state of drought emergency in Klamath County. We’ll get a variety of perspectives on how the region is grappling with the crisis on the next Think Out Loud.
Our production staff includes Elizabeth Castillo, Julie Sabatier, Rolie Hernandez, Senior Producer Allison Frost and managing producer Sheraz Sadiq, Nalin Silva engineers the show. Our technical director is Steven Kray and our executive producer is Sage Van Wing. Thanks very much for tuning in to Think Out Loud on OPB and KLCC. I’m Dave Miller. We’ll be back tomorrow.
Think Out Loud is supported by Steve and Jan Oliva, the Rose E. Tucker Charitable Trust, Ray and Marilyn Johnson and the Susan Hammer Fund of the Oregon Community Foundation.
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