[Applause]
why are you here no seriously why are
you here in a couple of weeks we could
all be at home in our pajamas watching
these online right for free why did we
choose to gather to show up and hear
these live live theater is dangerous
it’s dangerous like breaking up with
someone in person rather than by text
it’s dangerous like the guy sitting next
to you could start to cry I was in
middle school the first time I saw my
dad cry in a theater it was during a
production of a new play called the
piano lesson by August Wilson and this
is significant for a couple of reasons
first of all my dad usually sleeps in
live theater and secondly it was a
really dark time in his life and the
only emotion I had seen from him for
months had been anger and rage what was
my teenage self supposed to do sitting
next to a weeping dad driven to a
catharsis that he had no idea was
waiting for him at the theater that
night what a film or a TV version of the
piano lesson have done the same thing
possibly but I wouldn’t have seen it and
I wouldn’t be talking about it 25 years
later live theater activates the mirror
neuron system in our brains in the 90s a
couple of Italian scientists discovered
these neurons that activate whether we
perform an action or watch someone else
perform that same action it’s the reason
why we cringe when somebody stubs her
toe or we giggle when someone near us is
laughing they are empathy neurons and
live theater inspires empathy now as
humans we are all predisposed towards
empathy right but like any skill empathy
can grow with practice or it can wither
from lack of experience and as humans we
need practice
especially as we get older because our
worldview gets more and more narrow so
to give you a little context the play we
were watching was the piano lesson by
african-american playwright August
Wilson now August Wilson’s great
contribution to American theater is
something called the Pittsburg cycle and
in the Pittsburg cycle he chronicled the
life of black families in Pittsburg for
a hundred years so for each decade of
the 20th century he wrote one play and
the piano lesson was his play that he
set in the 1930s it was about a
sharecroppers son and daughter and the
second act they get in a huge fight
about what to do with the family
heirloom a piano my dad was a carpenter
and an artist raising his hippie family
in Venice California in the 1980s and
90s and yet their piano made him cry his
circumstances could not have been more
unlike the characters in this play and
yet their piano brought tears to his
eyes their piano sparked a conversation
in my family about family alliances
about legacy that we talked about in the
drive home their piano revealed
something to me about my dad which was
that he wasn’t angry he was grieving and
it wasn’t just my dad’s tears over the
course of 15 years the Center Theater
group produced seven of the ten plays in
the Pittsburg cycle and somehow my mom
and dad particularly my mom managed to
get tickets at half price or preview to
all of the plays so by the time I
graduated from college I had experienced
seventy years of an african-american
families life on stage I lived seven
decades with these characters and we
talked about them for years we talked
about the stain of slavery on families
and on this country continuously I grew
an empathy for people and for
circumstances different than my own and
I loved TV and I loved film but I have
to tell you it was the proximity to the
actors to the live performers that
heightened the emotional experience and
deepened by under
ending of American history because see
theater is immediate from the moment the
lights dim and the actors come out on
stage there’s this sort of awkward time
in which we adjust to being in a room
together
it’s full of possibility it’s strange
because you never know what’s gonna
happen on any given night in live
theatre right and every performance is
different what if a performer forgets
his or her line or comes out on stage
and trips but I think what is most risky
about live theatre is that it relies on
strangers to do its job know you may not
have realized this walking in today but
you probably hope the auditorium would
be full right or at least not empty that
would have been way too much pressure
would you have felt that way in a movie
theater or on your couch at home
probably not that’s because you know
that your energy affects all of us up
here on stage and in live theater unlike
digital storytelling you can affect us
in digital storytelling there are no
awkward moments because it’s edited it’s
polished it’s finished a couple of years
ago there was a study that was published
by the University College in London that
kind of rocked the theatre world they
were interested in what actually happens
to an audience when you experience live
theater so they decided to measure the
heartbeats of audience members when
they’re watching theater so they were
watching a production of Dreamgirls in
the West End and what they discovered is
that in moments of heightened emotion
the audience’s heartbeat begins to
synchronize so despite our differences
our political leanings our demographics
live theatre actually has the power to
unite us even if only briefly on a
physiological level so community is one
of the reasons I started local theater
company here in Boulder a few years ago
we produce and develop brand new
American plays and we’re interested in
diverse stories by playwrights and our
from all over the country we’re called
local theater company because all
theatre is local our hope is that our
audience members will enter as strangers
and over the course of a performance
they will become locals in a new
community even if that’s just for one
performance when I started out as a
theater director I remember I was
walking down the street in New York with
a friend of mine and she said hey pesha
why theatre wouldn’t you make a whole
lot more money in film or in television
and the answer is yes probably but like
those of you who are climbers or surfers
or restaurant tours or those of you
who’ve started your own business I love
theater because it’s dangerous it is
dangerous and transformative to sit next
to your parents and see them as human
and sad it is dangerous and humbling to
rely on strangers to create a community
it is dangerous and necessary to walk in
someone else’s shoes someone who may be
from another time in history and may
just trip coming out on stage it is
dangerous to unplug from the matrix and
see what has become of the real world or
the theatrical world right because in a
really good play your brain won’t know
the difference we keep reading the
headlines that social media is making us
sad and it’s making us apathetic and I
don’t know what’s worse I don’t think
that theatre or live performance is
going to save the world
but I do think that theatre creates
empathetic and worldly and engaged
citizens and I think that this is the
bedrock of a healthy and a thriving
democracy it is no wonder that 2500
years ago in Athens Greece theater and
democracy were born at the same time in
the same Society right however when I
started out I did not know at all about
the synchronized heartbeat business is
this just blow your mind as much as it
does me
can we try and experiment because this
is the experiment time all right take
out your right hand and or whatever hand
is available to you I don’t want you to
go ahead and find your pulse and I can’t
see you so you gotta help me out here
once you find your pulse go ahead and
tap it out in your right arm or your
other arm thank you and now that you
have some sort of rhythm go ahead and
pound it out on your chest as well some
of you are doing this all of you I need
to a little louder but not faster you
good cool that is the live heartbeat of
[Applause] Oh
why are you here no seriously why are
you here in a couple of weeks we could
all be at home in our pajamas watching
these online right for free why did we
choose to gather to show up and hear
these live live theater is dangerous
it’s dangerous like breaking up with
someone in person rather than by text
it’s dangerous like the guy sitting next
to you could start to cry I was in
middle school the first time I saw my
dad cry in a theater it was during a
production of a new play called the
piano lesson by August Wilson and this
is significant for a couple of reasons
first of all my dad usually sleeps in
live theater and secondly it was a
really dark time in his life and the
only emotion I had seen from him for
months had been anger and rage what was
my teenage self supposed to do sitting
next to a weeping dad driven to a
catharsis that he had no idea was
waiting for him at the theater that
night what a film or a TV version of the
piano lesson have done the same thing
possibly but I wouldn’t have seen it and
I wouldn’t be talking about it 25 years
later live theater activates the mirror
neuron system in our brains in the 90s a
couple of Italian scientists discovered
these neurons that activate whether we
perform an action or watch someone else
perform that same action it’s the reason
why we cringe when somebody stubs her
toe or we giggle when someone near us is
laughing they are empathy neurons and
live theater inspires empathy now as
humans we are all predisposed towards
empathy right but like any skill empathy
can grow with practice or it can wither
from lack of experience and as humans we
need practice
especially as we get older because our
worldview gets more and more narrow so
to give you a little context the play we
were watching was the piano lesson by
african-american playwright August
Wilson now August Wilson’s great
contribution to American theater is
something called the Pittsburg cycle and
in the Pittsburg cycle he chronicled the
life of black families in Pittsburg for
a hundred years so for each decade of
the 20th century he wrote one play and
the piano lesson was his play that he
set in the 1930s it was about a
sharecroppers son and daughter and the
second act they get in a huge fight
about what to do with the family
heirloom a piano my dad was a carpenter
and an artist raising his hippie family
in Venice California in the 1980s and
90s and yet their piano made him cry his
circumstances could not have been more
unlike the characters in this play and
yet their piano brought tears to his
eyes their piano sparked a conversation
in my family about family alliances
about legacy that we talked about in the
drive home their piano revealed
something to me about my dad which was
that he wasn’t angry he was grieving and
it wasn’t just my dad’s tears over the
course of 15 years the Center Theater
group produced seven of the ten plays in
the Pittsburg cycle and somehow my mom
and dad particularly my mom managed to
get tickets at half price or preview to
all of the plays so by the time I
graduated from college I had experienced
seventy years of an african-american
families life on stage I lived seven
decades with these characters and we
talked about them for years we talked
about the stain of slavery on families
and on this country continuously I grew
an empathy for people and for
circumstances different than my own and
I loved TV and I loved film but I have
to tell you it was the proximity to the
actors to the live performers that
heightened the emotional experience and
deepened by under
ending of American history because see
theater is immediate from the moment the
lights dim and the actors come out on
stage there’s this sort of awkward time
in which we adjust to being in a room
together
it’s full of possibility it’s strange
because you never know what’s gonna
happen on any given night in live
theatre right and every performance is
different what if a performer forgets
his or her line or comes out on stage
and trips but I think what is most risky
about live theatre is that it relies on
strangers to do its job know you may not
have realized this walking in today but
you probably hope the auditorium would
be full right or at least not empty that
would have been way too much pressure
would you have felt that way in a movie
theater or on your couch at home
probably not that’s because you know
that your energy affects all of us up
here on stage and in live theater unlike
digital storytelling you can affect us
in digital storytelling there are no
awkward moments because it’s edited it’s
polished it’s finished a couple of years
ago there was a study that was published
by the University College in London that
kind of rocked the theatre world they
were interested in what actually happens
to an audience when you experience live
theater so they decided to measure the
heartbeats of audience members when
they’re watching theater so they were
watching a production of Dreamgirls in
the West End and what they discovered is
that in moments of heightened emotion
the audience’s heartbeat begins to
synchronize so despite our differences
our political leanings our demographics
live theatre actually has the power to
unite us even if only briefly on a
physiological level so community is one
of the reasons I started local theater
company here in Boulder a few years ago
we produce and develop brand new
American plays and we’re interested in
diverse stories by playwrights and our
from all over the country we’re called
local theater company because all
theatre is local our hope is that our
audience members will enter as strangers
and over the course of a performance
they will become locals in a new
community even if that’s just for one
performance when I started out as a
theater director I remember I was
walking down the street in New York with
a friend of mine and she said hey pesha
why theatre wouldn’t you make a whole
lot more money in film or in television
and the answer is yes probably but like
those of you who are climbers or surfers
or restaurant tours or those of you
who’ve started your own business I love
theater because it’s dangerous it is
dangerous and transformative to sit next
to your parents and see them as human
and sad it is dangerous and humbling to
rely on strangers to create a community
it is dangerous and necessary to walk in
someone else’s shoes someone who may be
from another time in history and may
just trip coming out on stage it is
dangerous to unplug from the matrix and
see what has become of the real world or
the theatrical world right because in a
really good play your brain won’t know
the difference we keep reading the
headlines that social media is making us
sad and it’s making us apathetic and I
don’t know what’s worse I don’t think
that theatre or live performance is
going to save the world
but I do think that theatre creates
empathetic and worldly and engaged
citizens and I think that this is the
bedrock of a healthy and a thriving
democracy it is no wonder that 2500
years ago in Athens Greece theater and
democracy were born at the same time in
the same Society right however when I
started out I did not know at all about
the synchronized heartbeat business is
this just blow your mind as much as it
does me
can we try and experiment because this
is the experiment time all right take
out your right hand and or whatever hand
is available to you I don’t want you to
go ahead and find your pulse and I can’t
see you so you gotta help me out here
once you find your pulse go ahead and
tap it out in your right arm or your
other arm thank you and now that you
have some sort of rhythm go ahead and
pound it out on your chest as well some
of you are doing this all of you I need
to a little louder but not faster you
good cool that is the live heartbeat of
[Applause] Oh
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