My thoughts:

– For the time we had to put it together (all of 3 hours, basically), I think that it went well. However, I do think that some things were clunky/awkward…but I think that with more time and planning we’ll be able to get things back to where they need to be.

– I loved the beginning. I think it was so strong the way that the audience was brought in in silence with blindfolds on, and the way we were able to make them stay put without having to use explicit instructions. Going from the relative silence of the back hall to the too-loud space was great. The energy was high, and the audience was ready to be involved.

– People were definitely afraid to DO things. They weren’t sure if they were supposed to walk around and touch and play. This caused me to want to encourage them by saying things like, “Have you tried blahblahblah?”. But then I felt like a car room show person and was confused about my relationship to the audience. Overall, I was unsure of what I should be doing.

– From my perspective, the more hands-on things worked better than the more passive things. For example, I think that people (once they got over their fear of moving around) liked interacting with Bailey’s box, watching the Genesis movie in the closet, going outside to watch Carina’s performance, and being involved in the Federalist Papers bit. That being said, I was surprised — but it seemed like the videos DID NOT WORK very well. With all of the commotion and noise, I felt like people didn’t want to sit down, put headphones in, and watch videos. It took them out of the experience too much, in my opinion.

My guests’ thoughts:

-The things that mainly stood out were: Getting applauded (inversion of normal performer/audience roles), David’s piece, Kimmy’s Black Panthers piece, Genesis video, getting into the elevator, getting fed bread.

– They were often left unsure of what to do, but the unclear boundary between actor/audience member was interesting

-The experience of being one of the first people with the blindfold on standing in the room got to be kind of old (because you end up standing in the same spot for 5 minutes without anything to do)

-Loved the really participatory pieces — but again, wanted to be involved in the more passive pieces which wasn’t as exciting. So essentially, the rules were different for some pieces and that was hard.

-What was powerful was the potential both the performers and audience members to do anything at any moment