Equipment for Living

Performance always has been for me a natural fit and a means for which to escape—becoming someone else momentarily. It started out that way in my first high school theatrical performances. Eventually, though, performance served, referencing Kenneth Burke’s early 1930’s work, as my “equipment for living”. Burke discussed how literature is used to understand human situations and offer a therapeutic purpose. Creating and performing characters and writing my own performances very much became my equipment for living—a way to process complex human experiences.

I wrote creative expression pieces during high school speech, but my writing took a more reflective approach when I wrote my first full-length one-person production, Hurricane Andi, for my 1996 M.A. thesis show. Through integrating poems, excerpts from interviews, and social drama theory, I examined the short, but tumultuous life of a local poet. In my Ph.D. program, I continued to write original performances that served as equipment for living—for myself and my audience. Shorter one-person pieces—Danceteria and Evidence—examined sexual objectification and sexual assault. Moreover, I performed in a few Ph.D. candidates’ original shows--Last Words, for example, was a show created by the cast members about our experiences with death and dying—a way for us and our audience to connect to and process an uncomfortable subject. When I moved to Pennsylvania in 2001, I got involved with Theatre Outlet in Allentown and performed in Laramie Project and The Cradle Will Rock because their subject matter—sexual orientation and hate crimes and a critique of capitalism, respectively—were important human experiences to address and discuss.

I moved back to Minnesota and, due to family commitments, I performed only in a few productions from 2005-2010 and then left theatre till 2017. After my divorce and move in 2017, I found myself in a new creative community in St. Peter via the Arts Center. Through this community, I performed in pageant sing-alongs: Jesus Christ Super Star and Rocky Horror Out of Hell. Having just lost my marriage, business, and home, these sing-along pageants served as my own theatrical resurrection—connecting with characters and songs that emphasized being an outcast and finding one’s identity.

Recently, I returned to writing and performing one-person shows. Dead Mother’s Underwear was created after my mother’s death and provided an opportunity to examine what I inherited from my mother and her family and the cycles I want to break. I intend to run DMU through 2023 and create in the next two to four years additional shows: Rural Therapy: highlighting rural Minnesota’s mental health crisis—breaking the stigma and advocating for increased mental health services; Trauma U.: examining trauma faced by students and teachers/staff and emphasizing a need for a trauma-aware/informed lens that offers a more compassionate university/workplace. My current performance work provides an aesthetic, theatrical focus on cultural and societal issues. These performances are not only my equipment for living, but also intended to help audiences navigate through their own personal trauma and life challenges and, through post-show discussions and community/campus resources offered, help them transform and heal.