An interview with the Philly-based director and theatre-maker
Creator Brenna Geffers is one of the co-founders of Philadelphia’s Die-Cast, a company dedicated to creating immersive work that is tailored to specific non-traditional venues; Die-Cast was founded to address the needs of a changing modern theatre audience. Brenna has also worked with Tennessee Williams Festival in Provincetown, MA as well as the Troy Foundry Theatre in Troy, NY. We caught up with her over email as she prepares to open The Prohibition Project: Illium Was next month, in collaboration with the Troy Foundry Theatre.
No Proscenium (NP): Can you tell us a little about yourself and your background in the immersive arts?
Brenna Geffers (BG): I am a director and theatre-maker based in Philadelphia where I freelance and also create my own new work.
The first time I created an immersive piece it was by accident, in a way. I was an undergraduate at Indiana University of Pennsylvania and I was signing out the studio theater a lot to make pieces. The faculty (who were amazing) said I had to let someone else have a chance and wouldn’t let me use it my last semester. So I went to the university art gallery and asked if I could use their space. I and three other students, one of whom I still work with, staged Savage Love by Sam Shepard in the many rooms like little installation pieces. It was incredibly satisfying to make work that was more three-dimensional than the standard proscenium fare. So I was hooked.
NP: What is Die-Cast?
BG: Die-Cast was founded by myself and designer Thom Weaver. We had worked together for a few different companies and were pushing further and further into extending the design of the world around the audience. Instead of waiting for other companies to hire us together, we decided to create a company of our own that would allow us to create the immersive work that we were really interested in. I did an adaptation of La Ronde staged immersively in a historic mansion with 11 performers. We decided that was going to be our model moving forward.
One of the unique elements of Die-Cast is that we treat the actual space we are in as an essential source material. The story is built from the space not the other way around. So we don’t look for spaces to fit a type of story we are interested in.
The word “die-cast” refers to pouring molten lead into a mold. The lead takes the shape of the mold by filling it entirely. That is how we think of our work; we look to fill the space we are in the narrative and have the narrative be shaped by the space.
NP: Can you tell us a little about the Die-Cast manifesto and your approach to making work?
BG: When we decided to create a company, we knew there were a lot of elements of a traditional theater company that we did not want to incorporate. So instead of trying to write a mission statement for a board-driven non-profit organization, we decided to create a manifesto that stated our beliefs. It was one of the first actions we took as a company and we rely on it to guide our choices. We also have a code of ethics for artist working with us, but that is an internal document.
In terms of how we create our work, I like to use the term “collective creation” rather than “devising.” Each artist contributes differently pending on their strengths and interests. Not everyone writes and not everyone researches and not everyone creates movement vocabulary. But all are involved in the creation of the piece in some way. We have a warm up that we do that focuses on group breath and listening that feels essential to how we make work. We use private Facebook groups honestly and it works really well for sharing research and documenting work as we make it.
We are ensemble driven and have a group of actors that we rely on. However the ensemble is rotating and always growing. I imagine that it always will.
NP: How did you also get involved with the Tennessee Williams Festival in Provincetown, MA as well as the Troy Foundry Theatre in Troy, NY?
Get Kathryn Yu’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
SubscribeSubscribe
BG: I had directed a production of Hairy Ape for a company in Philadelphia that Thom also designed. It really connected with audiences and was invited to play at the Tennessee Williams Festival in Provincetown for a summer when they were focusing on the connection between Williams and O’Neill. Their audiences also really connected to it, so David Kaplan, the curator of the international festival, asked me I could create a version of Pericles that could be staged on a ¾ scale schooner ship that was housed in a very large library. Who says no to that!
After that, I think we earned their trust and so they gave us more freedom to create our own piece, which is Menagerie of Angels. We did a showing of a first draft of it this October and we are scheduled to complete it for a full production in 2020. We love the piece and are excited to share it with the amazing audiences up in Provincetown in 2020.
With Troy Foundry, both the artistic director, David Girard, and I went to Temple University for graduate school, though not at the same time. David and his amazing team were interested in devised work and work in interesting spaces, so I pitched him my La Ronde, using four actors from Die-Cast and 6 actors from New York.
It was such an amazing experience for all of us that we immediately knew we wanted to do another piece together. That piece ended up being Ilium Was; the prohibition project.
NP: What, in a nutshell, is The Prohibition Project about?
BG: Ilium Was; the prohibition project is an exploration of life in 1930. We have bootleggers and politicians and reporters and immigrants and socialites all mixed up a sort of battle to decide who gets to call themselves “an American.” It is amazing to look at that year and see so many parallels to what is happening right now. A lackluster president, a rise in separatist sensibilities, blaming immigrants for destroying the American way of life, a huge mid-term election that had democrats sweep the houses and take the majority, an overly crowded pool of democratic presidential hopefuls — it is truly stunning. Prohibition is definitely part of the story, but at this point, the characters know it is going to end soon. And the question is, what will they do when it does end?
NP: How is the audience incorporated into the work? What kinds of choices can the participants make?
BG: The audience is free-roaming so they choose what aspects of the story they would like to know more about, which characters they feel loyalty towards or curiosity about. They can dance, they can learn to make a cocktail, they can help a character meetup with another, but our work is not as much of a game as it is art that is happening around them. While I love a good escape the room, this is not the same kind of experience. The audience has to seek out the pieces of the story as it unfolds and they can’t get it all. Hopefully, some conversation and sharing over a cocktail after the show helps people piece together things they did not see. And that is the point; retelling and sharing of experience.
NP: How are you designing around audience agency, consent, and safety?
BG: The biggest element of physical touch in our work is gently guiding an audience to get out of the way of a path if needed. We generally don’t touch them, but in this particular piece, there is the opportunity to swing dance with characters if you want. Audiences can bail on a scene anytime they want and wander over to another scene or stop by the bar to just reset their focus. They are in control of their event.
NP: Who is the ideal audience member for this show?
BG: The ideal audience member is someone who loves to get into the details of a story. Who has a voracious curiosity.
NP: What do you hope participants take away from the experience?
BG: I hear people say that this the “most divided the country has ever been” and we know that is just not true. I think the people in the 1860s have us beat on that. But perhaps it can be helpful to remember that our country has been trying to keep immigrants out and arguing about government overreach and spending money on completely useless political gestures for a long time. Prohibition was just as expensive and just as based on fear of immigrants as any stupid wall. We did it 100 years ago and we are doing it now. So what are we going to do about it?
The Prohibition Project: Illium Was runs March 7–17 in Troy, New York. Tickets are $10–18.
NoPro is a labor of love made possible by our generous Patreon backers: join them today!
In addition to the No Proscenium web site, our podcast, and our newsletters, you can find NoPro on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, in the Facebook community Everything Immersive, and on our Slack forum.
Office facilities provided by Thymele Arts, in Los Angeles, CA.
Discussion