A little list of the people and artists who've inspired me the most! It's an eclectic mix of more famous creators and people in my life who've helped me along the way.
Adam Savage
Experience:
Rachel "Krum" Harry
Experience:
Dave Malloy
Where am I even to start? It was reading Dave Malloy's blog in high school that opened my eyes to theater outside of Broadway. His work is introspective, intensely personal, and uses a lot of magical realism, anachronism, and general bending of reality to portray the human experience. Some of his more recent works, especially, focus less on plot and more on people. His strong author's voice and poetic dialogue make even conversations surreal, just out of reach. It's the strong dedication to form outside of pure realism that has caught on to me the most, and the use of narration that echoes the stylization of old fairy tales. Narration is a strong tool that you don't see much of today in realism and even absurd theater.
Experience:
Jawbone Puppet Theater
Experience:
William Gibson
Experience:
Natalya Sats
Natalya Sats was the director of the first Moscow children's theater, and the creator of children's theater as we know it. The daughter of a well-known Russian composer, she had the opportunity to experience operas and symphonies at a young age, and wished to share her love with the other children. At the age of 17 she started her first theater company, went on to comission and collaborate on Peter and the Wolf, and spent her whole life working to bring people of all ages, countries, and economic backgrounds together through theater. She was also just incredibly bold and stubborn, as she needed to be as a young woman trying to make her way in a theater tradition filled with old men who thought it was below them to make art for children. She took risks, demanded to be heard, did all she could to meet famous artists and performers and get them to mentor her. I often ask myself, when in a situation where I have the opportunity to be bold and reach out to an artist whose work intimidates me, I often ask myself: What would she do?
Experience: