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stories around the history and needs of specific
communities, involving the local people and landscape
in the performances.
I'm the producer and director for PlaceBase
Productions and PlaceBase Productions is a,
is a theatre company that does site-specific
community based works of art,
interactive in nature, based on the stories of an
area, the history of the area,
and the kind of current climate of a community
looking, looking backwards in order to look forward
is the kind of goal of, of the productions that we
create.
We want to create places in small communities where
people can gather to tell their stories and reenact
their stories and find how their stories are just as
relevant to their lives today and their lives in
the future as in all of their potential futures
as, as those stories were to the past.
PlaceBase Productions comes into these small
towns is because it's, it's a passion of both
Andrew and mine to share these stories in the hopes
that we can, we can pass on that love of community
that existed in previous generations,
to highlight some of the resources that I think
oftentimes just get forgotten about to,
to reinvigorate that life force of the small town
America.
So PlaceBase has a three stage model that we follow
that we've developed over the past year and a half.
The first phase is the community research and
script development phase and at that point it's
really where we're embedding ourselves in
this community where we're talking to people that are
already gathered, and then we also hold these story
swap workshops to gather and generate as much
material as we can, so by the time that the research
phase is done, we have way more stories than we know
what to do with.
So really the hard part is whittling that down and
really picking the hour, hour and a half of stories
we want to highlight and stringing that narrative
together, which is in the script development phase
and at that junctior we are in constant dialogue
with each other, Andrew and I,
as well as with the community.
We share the script with a few folks that we've
gotten to know really well and that have a lot of the
facts in place that we can say,
"Are we accurately representing your
community" is what we're saying completely
factional, you know did we get the names right or
fictional you know how are we representing this in a
way that is true to the voice of the community and
take that feedback and some of it we apply and
some of it we, you know take artistic liberties
with.
You couldn't name your child after me?!
She's a girl captain.
Well, that's okay then.
Captain, she's beautiful!
I'm so glad we came on this trip,
even against the advice of my doctor.
I love you dearest.
We send out a call for auditions to papers all
over the area and we have two days.
I picked a different song.
Good, good!
I like different songs!
Cause it was, it was from Wicked and just like when
I heard it, it made me think of you guys so.
Yay!
Okay.
[Singing] I've heard it said that people come into
our lives for a reason.
It's a rebel or a poor pie,
or a slouch, even a fascinator long as you can
see it, because you will not catch me dead without
a hat upon my head and if I turn a couple of heads
my way, so be it.
Awesome.
Once the rehearsal process begins,
then that's the mode that I enjoy most,
time just flies by and it's,
it's working with people who I love and challenging
people and being challenged in return and
its lots of dialogue, its lots of just,
just very powerful human interactions.
[music]
I think that this, this process is
transformational in a way that is really hard to
convey.
I think in some respects me being in the position
that I'm in with the newspaper,
I'm able to get a bird's eye view of the community.
And, and you can see the ripple effect.
And I've been through it you know this again my
third time, I've seen it enough where,
where I know that the effects are going to be
profound and they're going to be positive and,
and it's going to leave the community better.
I'm excited to, to see how it manifests itself.
My name is Barb Benson.
I was Barb Lundel and our family is in the play.
I mean my dad, my grandfather even they're
quoting, or they're having be part of the play,
and my mom and dad and my sister and I.
Ashley and Andrew are great,
they just really are.
They get everybody excited and you know make it fun,
and that's good.
I think we work well together because we share
the same goals for what we're doing and our goals
relate to creating community,
building community, making great art,
working in a dialogical way.
With each production the partnering organization
that we work with has full rights to the script.
The community can access the script.
If they wanted to produce it again without us that
would be absolutely awesome and encouraged so
it belongs here because we can't mount this show
somewhere else you know it is,
it is of the landscape and it is written for the
landscape and for the people that walk through
the door at auditions, so it lives here.
This is what I want to do, I want to create theatre
in small towns and I want to tell stories and I want
to bring people together and I want to remind them
what they have and help revitalize these
communities because they can't go away.
[music]
[music]