Rorschach Theatre plots next immersive story, ‘Chemical Exile’
Following the achievements of Length Frequencies, Rorschach Theatre returns with a new period-extensive immersive practical experience, Chemical Exile. In it, a scientist boards a aircraft from Amsterdam to Washington, DC. Returning to a environment she imagined she knew, she discovers that absolutely nothing, and nowhere, is what she expects. From Oct 2021 to July 2022, Chemical Exile usually takes members to eight areas across the DC space as a advanced story unfolds about families, overlooked histories, and the uncharted frontiers of the thoughts.
Subtitled A Psychogeographies Undertaking, Rorschach’s visionary Chemical Exile requires participants to unforeseen spots all-around their town even though a period-long fictional narrative plays out in excess of layers of background and magic realism. Attendees obtain a box in the mail monthly that involves a new chapter in the tale. Each box consists of hand-crafted objects — letters, drawings, souvenirs, images, or even snacks — and a map to a site in their city. The season finishes with a live in-individual party that culminates the story.
Hundreds of DC-location audiences joined previous 12 months for Distance Frequencies, Rorschach’s first Psychogeographies job. Washingtonian Magazine named it Very best Theatre Pivot of 2020. Described The Washington Write-up: “Distance Frequencies sends audiences on month to month excursions to lesser-traveled Washington-spot web-sites, where by landscapes — together with the contents of curated mailed offers — enable conjure a mysterious overarching story that is partly established in these places.”
DC Metro Theatre Arts reviewer Kendall Mostafavi raved about the task, “Rorschach Theatre’s latest production is…an adventure of the mind and, if you would like, the body… Rorschach Theatre has strike the jackpot with this revolutionary form of artwork, incorporating literature, tunes, thriller, romance, and DC’s highlights and history, all steeped in a hope for a better entire world.”
The to start with chapter of Chemical Exile: A Psychogeographies Challenge releases Oct 24, 2021, but participants can sign up for at any time and will be sent the chapters they missed. Tickets for Chemical Exile are $175 and are on sale now at rorschachtheatre.
Security concerns: Most areas will be outdoor and avoid crowds. Individuals are needed to observe local and non-public small business mask prerequisites wherever applicable. Rorschach strongly endorses that all individuals be vaccinated from COVID-19. Rorschach asks non-vaccinated individuals to just take element in the expertise only from home. Proof of vaccination may be required to go to the final live performance in summer time 2022. Contributors who want not to depart their homes at this time can entry a video clip walking tour and will obtain an tailored edition of the instructions that can be executed from dwelling. The last effectiveness will be recorded and accessible to subscribers in the drop of 2022.
THE Inventive Team
Jonelle Walker is a Helen Hayes Award-nominated playwright, theater-maker, and academic centered in Houston, Texas. Her preceding function as a playwright includes Distance Frequencies (2020), TAME. (2016), Illyria, or What You Will (2018), The Theatre of Self-Loathing Offers … (2015), and a range of brief participate in initiatives. Jonelle is a doctoral prospect at the College of Maryland in Theatre and General performance Research her dissertation analyzes white femininity on stage, movie, and social media screens from 1865 to the present. She is also Co-Host and Producer of the RomCom Killjoys podcast.
Shayla Roland is a theater producer, administrator, and former phase manager. She served as the Affiliate Producer for Penumbra Theatre Organization in Saint Paul, MN from 2017-2019 and the Particular Programming Supervisor at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, DC from 2013 – 2016. In these roles, she worked along with inventive groups in time planning, casting, and curating new audience engagement initiatives. As a DC-based stage supervisor, she’s labored for Ford’s Theatre, the Resource Festival, Adventure Theatre, and Hangar Theatre (NY). Shayla was a member of Theatre Communications Group (TCG)’s inaugural Soaring Leaders of Coloration cohort in 2016. At present, Shayla will work as a PMP certified undertaking manager at a psychological well being association in the Northern VA.
Kyle “Kylos” Brannon is an Assistant Professor in the University of Conversation at American College and at this time the Interim Division Director for the Movie & Media Arts Application. For in excess of a ten years, Kylos has carried out as a VJ, or dwell video artist, at clubs, crafting dwell video clip mashups for DJs together with Moby, MSTRKRFT, Nadastrom, Jesse Tittsworth, and Will Eastman. He’s performed at 930 Club, U Road Audio Corridor, The Black Cat, Saturn Birmingham, Brooklyn Bowl, and other folks. As a business member with Rorschach Theatre, Kylos is effective as a video projection designer on the productions 410[gone], Reykjavik, Annie Leap & the Library of Heaven, She Kills Monsters, The Toxic Avenger: The Musical, and final year’s Length Frequencies. He has also been functioning as guide designer for the Heart for Environmental Filmmaking’s Media Report, alongside with the corresponding site. He has developed installations and stay video general performance items, together with immersive ordeals for Very little Salon DC, and Forgetting is Normal, a solo exhibit at the Anacostia Arts Heart. He was the co-director for the documentary An Impact: Dischord Data, and the co-producer on the web sequence Stage Fright, for American University and NBC4. Each individual Spring, Kylos makes and directs the Visions Awards, an annual student film awards ceremony held at American College.
Randy Baker is a playwright, director, and the co-Inventive Director of Rorschach Theatre in Washington DC. Latest exhibits he has directed include things like Really Still and Difficult to See (Five Helen Nominations which include Greatest Director) and She Kills Monsters with Rorschach, and Hello there, My Name Is… with The Welders (Three Helen Hayes nominations which includes Finest Director) and a shadow puppet gamelan-inspired A Midsummer Night’s Desire at WSC Avant Bard. New plays he has penned consist of the world premieres of Overlooked Kingdoms and Real truth & Splendor Bombs: A Softer Environment at Rorschach Theatre and workshops and educational productions of The Burning Street (Arena Stage), Monastery (Theater J), and Rashōmon (American University and Spooky Action Theatre). The Legend of Cling Tuah will premiere at Pointless Theatre in 2022 (an adaptation of the Malay Legend with shadow puppets and martial arts). Randy is an adjunct professor at George Washington College and is faculty at The Theatre Lab University of the Remarkable Arts. He received his MFA in artistic producing from Goddard School and is the Washington DC regional rep for the Dramatists Guild of America.
Jenny McConnell Frederick is a Director, Producer, and solid believer in impossible theater. She’s the co-Creative Director of Rorschach Theatre which she launched in the summer season of 1999 with Randy Baker. For Rorschach, she has directed much more than a dozen shows such as the Helen Hayes Nominated Voices Underwater and God of Vengeance as very well as both of the bought-out operates of Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere. In 2015, she conceived and directed Reality & Splendor Bombs, an unique work primarily based on the Canadian webcomic, “A Softer Environment.” She co-designed Chambers of the Coronary heart and Shift!, two immersive dance/theater jobs at Phrase Dance Theatre. She served as Inventive Director of CulturalDC’s Source Competition and Mead Theatre Lab Application. In that capacity, she oversaw the range, advancement, and creation of additional than 200 will work for the stage over almost a ten years. Get the job done produced and manufactured by Jenny at the Supply Festival boasts numerous Countrywide New Participate in Network Rolling Earth Premieres, many American Theatre Critics Association Steinberg Award Nominations, and an Osborn Award Winner. Jenny has directed for Theater J, Catholic College, and University of Maryland. She’s at the moment a member of Theatre Washington Advisory Board and has served as a mentor director for the Theatre Lab’s Honors Acting Conservatory and for the Kennedy Center’s American College Theatre Pageant and was a highlighted speaker at the CityWrights Conference in Miami. She graduated cum laude from Virginia Commonwealth College with a BFA in Theatre and briefly joined Mensa for the no cost pencils. She life in Takoma, DC with her husband and their long-time period collaboration, a son named Thane.
ABOUT RORSCHACH THEATRE
By means of unheard of makes use of of atmosphere and intimate passionate performances, Rorschach Theatre seeks to entice its audiences past the restrictions of normal theatrical practical experience so that they might explore new factors of their possess humanity.
Rorschach Theatre tells stories that permit for revolutionary design and style and visceral performances. The firm treats productions as “installations” that encompass the viewers with the world of a play. Our perform facilities on the intersection of magic or impossible moments and day-to-day human expertise. With out proselytizing, it supplies a complicated, intellectual catalyst for self-exploration of challenging topics. Catalyzed by the instances of 2020, the company leveraged our one of a kind strengths to produce Psychogeographies, a groundbreaking challenge that combines heritage, fiction, magic realism, and real-world excursions in a new kind of theatrical experience.
Rorschach is a essential launching pad for rising artists. By trusting early-profession actors, administrators, playwrights, and designers with substantive creative duties, and encompassing them with recognized pros and enough assets, the company has come to be an crucial showcase for new expertise. In addition to the typical period, Rorschach provides “Magic in Tough Spaces,” an annual new perform development sequence “Klecksography,” an once-a-year new artist progress function (for actors, local playwrights, and administrators) and “Fight Camp,” a phase combat training program held every summer. The organization also organizes “Other People’s Ink: An Leisure Curation Modern society,” which hosts a regular urban journey that explores artistic get the job done in other genres that is very similar to the company’s aesthetic. (“Klecksography” and “Other People’s Ink” are on hiatus for the 21-22 season.)
Rorschach has developed a lot more than fifty plays observed by tens of thousands of individuals in the Washington region. The corporation has been nominated for above a dozen Helen Hayes Awards, won a Mary Goldwater Award, been a finalist for the Mayor’s Arts Award, and been the recipient of a number of grants and awards from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities. The company’s get the job done has garnered the awareness of The New York Times, The Washington Article, American Theatre magazine, and Countrywide Community Radio, as properly as many area publications.
SEE ALSO:
Rorschach’s enchanting ‘Distance Frequencies’ ends in natural beauty and like evaluation of the reside in-individual culminating celebration by Kendall Mostafavi
Rorschach Theatre hits the jackpot with immersive ‘Distance Frequencies’ critique of the collection by Kendall Mostafavi
