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To Anyone We May Have Irritated

7/21/2017

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By: Jake Russell Thompson

We paid Facebook to run this ad:

It hasn't gone viral or anything, but it has upset a couple of people enough for them to comment on it. As much as I'd love to offer those people free tickets, so they can see for themselves, the Box Office Manager probably wouldn't go for it. Instead I'll just say to anyone this ad may have upset "You are welcome here, and your opinions are safe here."

I think that's what a safe space is all about. Everyone can benefit from a place to honestly express their experiences.

Point being: If you found the President Trump ad offensive, I apologize and hope you consider coming to the show. You might be pleasantly surprised. Though I also must say that we probably don't agree on several issues, Voices Found Repertory isn't about being "right," and The Life and Death of King John isn't about President Trump. Our actors aren't wearing wigs; John isn't painted orange. The Life and Death of King John is about the people who work with a king who says what he feels and to hell with the consequences. One can certainly draw parallels to a certain perspective of President Trump, and indeed we have, but as the director my mission was to maintain VFR's mission of creating theatre that unifies its audience. Approaching the material with the intention of smearing someone's, anyone's, character is not in line with our mission of unification. Rehearsals were about keeping perspective, remembering at all times that disagreeing with a person is no reason to behave dishonorably.

So I say once again that, even if we disagree, you have my word: every effort was been made to not be a jerk about it.

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In Case You Missed Us...

7/19/2017

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By Brittany Meister

Missed our art show last week? That's okay! We'll have another this Friday July 21st! Consider this a preview for that show, or a little more detail if you've already seen the work.
I asked two of our contributors (who also happen to be involved in the play itself) to talk about their work. Read on to learn more about the pieces that Jeremy LaBelle (Richard/The Bastard) and Rachel Zembrowski (Blanche) created!

Jeremy:
I've been making art for about as long as I can remember, and even though I've been mostly doing it for myself, I've found over the years that my art has been pulling very sincere and often very critical reactions from people. Not just with the technique or with the mediums I use, but more with the content of the piece itself, and what it represents. My socio-political pieces tend to be the pieces that reap the most raw emotions from people, and I am very glad to have been given the opportunity to do so through the King John Art Festival.

The piece I created for the Festival is called "Doth Not the Crown of England Prove the King?" The major focus of the piece was to take a very raw and charismatic piece of text and boil it down to the harsh reality through imagery. In the piece my visual interpretation of King John is surrounded by several newspaper clippings that are very violent or negative in context. Things like "butcher" "cuts and scrapes" "comfortable pain" and "too late" are just a few of the many words I specifically chose from newspapers to wrought a very pessimistic and unfavorable mindset from the viewers to give an overall feeling of unease. The title itself is supposed to make the viewer feel hope and almost a sense of patriotism--- but the piece itself takes advantage of that optimistic state of mind and catches the viewer off guard with depictions of blood and words of pessimism and anger. I believe that is where the teeth and nails of this piece come into play, and I am very excited to see those reactions of confusion, unease, and vulnerability first hand at the art festival.

Jeremy Jaymes LaBelle

More of Jeremy's work can be found on her Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/artbyjjlb

Rachel:

I saw the very first prompt for gallery submissions and I knew I needed to do a piece for that. "What is the purpose of art in 2017? Why does your work and your identity as an artist matter?" I started thinking about it and I got this image in my head of someone sitting on the ground with a little blob of bright colors in their hands while the majority of the space was just a mass of darkness creeping in on them. The image evolved, but I think it maintained its original intent. It's all about feeling like there's so much darkness in the world but if I can create something beautiful, then it eases that darkness just a little and every little bit counts. Actually creating the piece was interesting. I started working on it, intending it to be sort of a practice for the final piece-figuring out dimensions and proportions and the like-but it became the final piece and skipped that first part completely. Also I played with mixed mediums which is not usual for me, so it was fun experimenting with that. Making messes with charcoal and water came across as the darkness I was looking for, and colored pencil and sharpie gave me the bright, crisp look I needed for the little artist's creation.

You can catch Jeremy and Rachel and the rest of our cast (and a second chance at the art exhibition) on the second weekend of The Life and Death of King John!

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Purpose of Art-King John Festival Prompts

7/4/2017

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By Brittany Meister

This is just one instance of a response to the King John Festival art prompts. We are still accepting admissions, in all forms, until July 9th. See our facebook for more details on prompts!

What is the purpose of art in 2017? Why does your work, and your identity as an artist, matter?

One of the reasons that I love being an actor is developing and nurturing empathy and connections. I’m interested in what it’s like to be other people. More so, I’m interested in their stories and what we have in common and what we don’t have in common. It’s an opportunity to walk in another’s shoes. In 2017, I feel like that is especially important.
National and Global events and people threaten to tear us apart. Empathy is what will keep us together, at least in part. My identity as an artist, in this year, is to foster that understanding of those that we do not want to understand. We are humans. When we forget that, we treat each other with indignity. It breeds racism, sexism and many other isms. Injustice.
In a rehearsal room, you have anywhere between 4 and 25 imaginations, depending on your production. Each one of these people brings a unique life path and experiences and perspectives with them. They bring those with them into their character and in that they create something like themselves and yet unlike themselves: a way of viewing a person that no other performer has ever had or will ever have. In that way, we start to melt ourselves into other stories. We try to see how the hitman feels that he has honor. We try to follow a meandering path of a power-hungry widow who hides her grief. We try to understand how it may feel to try and carry the weight of a country along with your morals.

My work as a painter is different. It’s for me and my personal journey. I sketch my mind and that landscape that only I can see. The colors are for me. I put it on a canvas or on paper to share with others if I feel like it, but ultimately it is selfish. It is relaxing or cathartic or whatever I need it to be and in that respect that’s why my work matters. Maybe not to anyone else, but it matters to me.

An artist’s work is important to whomever it touches, and each artist is different in not only their work, but their goals. My art is just as important for my well being as I hope it is important to the world as a whole. Art is how we remember our stories. It’s how we remember our feelings. Art is how we reach across barriers.

Art is how we retain our humanity.

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To Anyone We May Have Irritated

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