BRATTLEBORO — Author and performer Kali Quinn returns to southeastern Vermont to perform her double-billed solo performances, now a single work.
Quinn has blended two of her one-act plays into a unified, one-woman drama she says is a work of creative compassion.
On Sept. 25 and 27 at 7 p.m., and on Sept. 28, at 2 p.m., at the New England Youth Theatre (NEYT) in Brattleboro, Quinn unveils the world premiere of her two-act “Overture to a Thursday Morning.”
According to Quinn, the work “looks at the grief and gifts of family secrets and helps audiences to celebrate intergenerational ways to better take care of one another through the aging process.”
Quinn teaches movement, physical play, and creating solo performance at Brown University. She has been trained as a physical ensemble-based theater practitioner and has worked with people of ages and professions, from circus artists to healthcare professionals.
Written and performed by Quinn, “Overture to a Thursday Morning” explores the relationship of a grandmother, mother, and daughter, beginning in a 1950s home and ending in a contemporary nursing care facility.
As she weaves a tapestry of music, physical play, and imagery into a virtuosic piece of theater, she takes audiences on a musical journey that tells a tale of three generations of women in a troubled family.
“The play concerns issues around aging, grief, and dying, and the complexities of caring among family relations,” says Quinn.
Quinn tells this story through the innovative use of household objects, a live violin composition, and old slide show projections. She plays all the characters. With her special gift to voice both young and old, angry and kind, Quinn presents a theatrical experience that combines autobiographical and fictionalized material.
Quinn says her play is about the troubles caused by a lack of empathy: When a girl's mother dies, the daughter finds “some stuff” from which she learns that she was the product of her mother's teenage pregnancy in the 1950s.
Furthermore, she discovers that, because of it, her mother had been thrown out of her home by her own intractable mother.
In the second act, we meet the grandmother, who is now dying in a nursing home.
“It's amazing how much we all don't know about our own births, along with our parents' life experiences and their needs when aging,” says Quinn.
She adds that in this drama she is interested in creating a space for people to practice empathy and compassion creatively around intergenerational care, and hopes that the performance will encourage audiences to celebrate family stories and secrets - and, as Quinn puts it, “to share some of your own, and dream up better ways to take care of one another.”
Quinn performed earlier versions of parts of “Overture” at both NEYT and Sandglass Theater in Putney.
A labor of love, back where it started
Bringing the expanded work back to Vermont has been a labor of love, she says. Vermont remains an area close to her heart and is a place where she often returns for creative rejuvenation.
Quinn had lived in southeastern Vermont for several years. During her time here, Quinn was the first events coordinator of the Bellows Falls Opera House after its renovation a few years ago.
She also was a founder of the Gutwork theater company, which operated out of Vermont Academy, a private, co-educational, college preparatory school.
“When I was touring around the country with earlier versions of this work I would tell my audience that what they were seeing was a product made in Vermont,” she says. “And that's no exaggeration: Even the props I use in the show were collected from antique stores in the area.”
Over the years, Quinn has presented versions of this continually evolving drama through performances on Off-Off Broadway at Theater Row, PS 122, HERE Arts Center, and The Tan in New York City.
Quinn also developed the piece with the Ko Festival of Performance and in schools and festivals throughout California, Maryland, Mississippi, North and South Carolina, Pennsylvania, and at Brown University.
But here at NEYT is the first time Quinn is presenting all the elements of “Overture” combined as one fully realized theatrical production.
Putting what was initially two separate one-act plays together was not that simple, as they were very different kinds of staged productions. Quinn explains the first act is more traditional theater: “It contains so much music that it is almost a concert.”
She describes the second act as more experimental. For instance, what had been the violin's loop pedal in Act 1 becomes in Act 2 the grandmother's medical call button.
The power of theater
Quinn says she feels that theater is a powerful way to help change people's way of thinking:
“I always loved making things and bringing people together. Theater is the best place to make both of these happen. I now give live shows to help us all practice empathy together.”
And Quinn is more than an author and performer. This year she opened a nonprofit to encourage people to develop creative empathy. Meliora, Center for Compassionate Creativity in Providence, R.I., presents performances, workshops, coaching, and online community resources.
Quinn explains that Meliora is Latin for “ever better,” the motto of the University of Rochester, her undergraduate alma mater. The center's events include everything from film screenings and play readings to story circles and backyard barbecues.
Earlier this month, Quinn began a new project of compassionate creativity, connecting with 111 people around the world to celebrate the final 111 days of 2014 together.
Starting on Sept. 11, and going through the last day of this year, Quinn is emailing one of her “Values and Their Connected Stories” to participants in hopes of providing insight that sparks compassionate creation.
Participants are asked to share three of these pieces a week online or in person with the other 110 people involved.
A new session starts Jan. 1, 2015, for the first 111 days of that year. For more information, visit www.kaliquinn.com.