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Kimberly Laberge and Cory Fitzsimmons
186 Plays4 years ago
In this episode, Ken Volante speaks with Kimberly Laberge and Cory Fitzsimmons from Wisconsin. This episode is a nice way to connect with two talented directors and actors as they create their version of Things I know to Be True for production in April 2022.
Kimberly Laberge is a teacher, stage manager, director, and critic based out of the Milwaukee area. Kimberly has worked with area companies including First Stage, the Milwaukee Rep, Kohl’s Wild Theater, and more. Some favorite projects include directing Oedipus Rex, starring in Our Town, and providing entertainment as a live princess for Friend Like Me Parties and Entertainment. A proud member of the American Theatre Critics Association (ATCA), when not involved in productions, Kimberly runs the independent theatre review blog The Drama Den www.stageonapage.com
Cory Fitzsimmons is an actor, teacher, and first time director from the Milwaukee area. A graduate of UW-Milwaukee, Cory is an Irene Ryan Award nominee and a two-time SURF Award recipient. Favorite roles include James in Book of Days, The Old Artist in Jarman, and most recently the title role in Oedipus Rex.
Things I Know to Be True by Andrew Bovell follows the Price family - Bob, Fran, and their four adult children. Each adult child is brought home at different points by a major event in their lives, from love, to identity, to even crime. Meanwhile, Fran and Bob's relationship is reflected in the light of their children's crises, leading them to examine their own standing with one another. The story is told through rooted, realistic family drama interspersed with soliloquies with music and movement. The result is a piece of truly elevated drama, making clever usage of all of the tools theatre has to offer. Bovell's text asks the question, can one love too much?
https://www.facebook.com/thingsiknowmke
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Welcome
00:00:02
Speaker
You are listening to something rather than nothing. Creator and host, Ken Delante. Editor and producer, Peter Bauer.
00:00:17
Speaker
This is Ken Vellante with the Something Rather Than Nothing podcast and I'm very excited to have Kimbalee Laberge and Corey Fitzsimmons who are involved with a play, Things I Know to be True.
00:00:34
Speaker
I'm reaching them in the wonderful state of Wisconsin and talking them from the Pacific Northwest here in Oregon. Kimberly and Corey really wanted to welcome you to the Something Rather Than Nothing podcast. Welcome. Thank you, Ken. We're excited to be here. We're excited to be here.
Artistic Origins: Nature vs. Nurture
00:00:56
Speaker
So we start with a question at the beginning.
00:01:02
Speaker
And Kimberly, I know from your bio, you're a teacher, stage manager, director, critic, and in Quarry, actor, teacher, and director. So we're deep into creating and creating on the stage. But I want to ask a question, and we'll start with you, Kimberly, first. Were you an artist when you were born?
00:01:30
Speaker
I mean, I think it's difficult to say. I think that everyone has an artistic tendency in them for at birth. You know, you give a baby paint and a piece of paper or you give them music and they'll dance. So I think to that extent, everyone has the potential to be an artist. But I was lucky in that I grew up in an environment that fostered artistry. My family really valued the arts. They took us to do artistic things from a young age.
00:01:58
Speaker
My dad and sister are musicians, and my mom is a publisher and writer. And so in that way, I really grew up in the arts, which I think helped make me the artist I am today. So I was an artist when I was born in the way that all of us are, but I became an artist at a young age, thanks to a really incredible support system of other artists.
00:02:24
Speaker
Yeah, thanks. Thanks, Kimberly. I asked this question a lot and it really connects to what happened when you were younger. Like, you know, was it cultivated or not? And it's great to hear about that. Hey, so Corey, you're born, are you ready for the stage right then? Were you an artist when you were born? I'm going to go ahead and say no. I grew up in a small town and
00:02:51
Speaker
there was not as much opportunity for artistry and I didn't have a whole lot of like, I didn't go to plays a whole lot when I was younger. So I think there, I wasn't so much born an artist, but there was a certain birth of the artist at a point in my life, around my college years when I realized that
00:03:17
Speaker
Not only did I want to be a performer, but I wanted to be an artist and create and really do something worthwhile with the ideas that I had.
The Performer’s Calling
00:03:32
Speaker
Yeah. Corey, do you feel like you have, as you've gotten into performance, do you feel like a certain need or a drive to perform in the way that you do? I couldn't do anything else.
00:03:48
Speaker
I thought about it long and hard, fought the battle. I could not do anything else. I would simply not exist. Sometimes as humans, I think having the answer provided for us can help a bit. That's wonderful to hear.
00:04:11
Speaker
So I wanted to chat about things I know to be true, and that's kind of what, and you're both working on that production. And I wanted you to help the audience understand or just connect to what's the project, and you're in development now. What's going on with your production?
Play Overview and Community Support
00:04:41
Speaker
This is an incredible show that we are working on. Things I Know to be True by Andrew Bovell is this stunning piece of family drama that follows two adult parents and their four adult children as each child returns home to confront something that's been affecting their life, something big. And the story is told through these vignettes of intense family drama
00:05:08
Speaker
And then these elevated soliloquies with music underneath them and movement and choreography. And so as an audience, you get to experience both the realism and the surrealism. And it just, I think there's something in it to touch everybody because the stories come from LGBT identities.
00:05:31
Speaker
and heartbreak and criminal activity and not knowing what to do with yourself when you find that love isn't what you thought it was. And in the reflection of their children, you get this adult couple, the parents, kind of reevaluating their relationship once their children no longer need them in the same way. And so because of this mix of dramatic stylings, this is a very intimidating show to be working on. It has so much
00:06:01
Speaker
that's inside of it. And we are really excited to be working on it. I'm afraid you want to talk a little bit about like the process and where we're at.
00:06:13
Speaker
Oh, yeah. So we've auditioned our fine actors. We've secured spaces for rehearsal and performance. We've tracked down all our crew, almost all our crew, and it's chugging along. And really, I was thinking about this today.
00:06:39
Speaker
It could not be done without a brilliant community behind us. And we're just so lucky to be having all the people that we have on board with our project.
00:06:56
Speaker
And we're starting rehearsals. I don't know when this is gonna air, but we're starting rehearsals on the 15th of February and it's gonna be so great to finally get in the room and play with these actors and have them discover the story and their characters through ensemble building, through different processes. And I'm just so excited to,
00:07:26
Speaker
get that work started. Yeah. And I think you brought up one of the important things about it as well is that most theater is not independently done, especially in the city of Milwaukee. There are lots of small professional theaters that have funds and have a group of dedicated technicians and designers who work with them on their shows already. And this is a ground up production. This was just us with a show that we loved and with
00:07:53
Speaker
a small team of us that have enjoyed working together before. And so everyone who's come in on this project has just come in for the purpose of creating the love of this show. And that is really moving.
00:08:08
Speaker
Yeah, and thanks for mentioning that. I mean, I, you know, the independent component, you know, I do an independent podcast here, you know, and it's a different animal. And I hear, you know, the excitement and the passion for this project. And for me, that's always in my mind, that's the fuel for you to get over the hurdles of
00:08:31
Speaker
Man, for a couple of these pieces, I wish I could just snap my fingers and get this person in place and that person in place and some resources. So I know that's part of what you're trying to do. I wanted to ask a little bit about your experience there in talking about the community and theater in your attempt to do this as an independent
Milwaukee’s Theater Scene
00:08:57
Speaker
theater. I know
00:08:59
Speaker
I personally know Milwaukee, and Milwaukee, when you mention it nationwide, people aren't like, oh, art scene or anything like that. There's still kind of like this post-industrial thing in folks' head, or it's compared to Chicago, which you can't compare. But what is the theater environment? Can you take us into like a little bit of what the culture where this is coming out of in Southeast Wisconsin?
00:09:28
Speaker
Yeah, so Milwaukee is a vibrant theater city. And I think a lot of people lose it in the shadow of Chicago, given our proximity. But I'm pretty sure that if we were located further from Chicago on the physical map, that we wouldn't be considered our very own teller of theater. Most of our theater, save for a couple of larger regional theaters, is small professional theaters.
00:09:55
Speaker
Traditionally, most of the theater houses that people are performing in have a capacity of 200 or less seats. So it is a theater city for creating intimate pieces. And I think that that's the right place to do a show like this. It is about family intimacy and it's about, you know, being in the room when those kinds of arguments happen and those kinds of confrontations happen. What else? Corey, what about your experience at the city?
00:10:26
Speaker
Oh yeah, it is, like you said, it's a very unique theater scene. And it has its challenges, it has its upsides. And I think one of the upsides is that because of how
00:10:53
Speaker
You know, it's almost like a small town feel with the community. It's really like everybody kind of knows everybody or knows somebody who knows everybody. And that's really what's helped us along throughout the planning part of this process is like, oh, I know a person. I know a person who knows a person. I know a person who knows a person who could help us out. And kind of using resources,
00:11:20
Speaker
our resources here in Milwaukee but also in Kenosha where we did our previous show together. It's like kind of these twin communities of wanting to create and doing what we can and scrapping by
00:11:40
Speaker
with what we can and that's I mean that's the story of all the small theaters. We've had several of them close in the last few years and it's been really kind of devastating to young artists like us who that's where we're going to get our starts. That's where we're going to get that's our bread and butter for you know the start of our careers and
00:11:59
Speaker
And so it's hard when there's not those sort of spaces. So we tried to create a show or an experience where we could, young or underrepresented artists could have their voices heard, so. Yeah. And
00:12:22
Speaker
Kimberly and Cory, it's going to be great. I'm excited hearing about it as it comes together. That's fantastic. Cory, I'm going to keep you on right now, and I'm going to jump to the conceptual question that I'll ask Kimberly afterwards. You're putting your time in this. You're trying to create art. You're spending a lot of time trying to figure out how to do it. But what the heck is art?
Art as Life's Sustenance
00:12:46
Speaker
What is art?
00:12:48
Speaker
Okay. I've been thinking about this one since I found out about the podcast. Since I found out about the questions. Since I found out about the questions. Uh, so I was, uh, for my capstone, for my, the, the last project I did in college, uh, I was part of this show called Jarman.
00:13:15
Speaker
written by Keredad Sivich. And it was about the life of this gay theater director, Derek Jarman. And he was this just incredible artist. And one of the lines from the show was, some people say,
00:13:44
Speaker
that art is an excuse for a drink. If you need a drink and you find yourself creating art instead, then you've stumbled onto something. Some people also say art is drink. Personally, I'm more in the second camp. I think art is drink. It sustains us.
00:14:16
Speaker
I'm not gonna, I will like go into a bit of hyperbole by saying it may be as important as drinking water to some people. Like people would not exist, certain people in this society, and I would say everybody would not exist without some sort of art or something to keep us going. So art is drink.
00:14:45
Speaker
Yeah. And I tell you, I think at this time, I'm prone to hyperbole, so I accept all hyperbole. But the thing is, when the pandemic first came down, I was doing a podcast. I was, I don't know, 20 or 30 episodes in.
00:15:06
Speaker
And then, you know, pandemic started and I was like, shit, are we all going to die? And why the hell am I talking about a painting on a wall? You know, and I was just, you know, just for a day or two. And then realizing like needing the water to drink like we all do in understanding that not only at least in my opinion, that was art vital for survival became more vital to show that there was, I don't know, something to connect with some sort of
00:15:36
Speaker
something beyond the day-to-day. Thank you. Corey mentioned Derek Jarman. He's a significant artist for me, and I've been very moved by his many times eccentric and unique work.
00:15:58
Speaker
I I just want to say as far as Derek Jarman. I was very moved by his he did videos for the Smith's Very popular band the Smith's which you might be familiar with. He also did independent his own independent film He did a strange strange film on one of the most important philosophers to me Wittgenstein Yeah, which is a very odd film and very wonderful in a very strange way and finally
00:16:28
Speaker
And towards the end of his life, his paintings, as he had contracted AIDS and moved into painting, are just startling and moving. So Jarman is one for me that I've always been rattled in a good way.
00:16:49
Speaker
Yeah, and he went blind towards the end of his life. So that's another, somebody who is so connected to art and the visual experience going blind, it's just this tragedy of almost ancient Greek proportions.
00:17:15
Speaker
It's really something his life and his experience and just everything surrounding him is something special to me. Yeah.
Theater's Role in Connection
00:17:26
Speaker
Okay. So Corey, Corey and I got the Derek Jarman love Kimberly over to you for the, for the big one. You dedicate yourself to art. You keep busy. So what, what are you doing? What is art? What are you dedicated towards?
00:17:42
Speaker
I think I thought about this an awful lot in 2020. For me, art has always existed under the umbrella of theater specifically. Theater is my home. So I really think of art in terms of theater. And as a theater maker, we lost everything. And I went through so many waves of not knowing and having to analyze why we do what we do when it became so much harder to do what we do.
00:18:12
Speaker
And at first, when the world was analyzing what is essential and we weren't, it made me wonder why the hell we do what we do. Why? Because if people can die and I can't be the one to save them, then what am I doing when I'm telling silly stories on stage?
00:18:34
Speaker
time went on and finally we began to innovate and do digital theater. And I will be the first to say and probably not the last to say that digital theater is not the same thing as theater on stage. It doesn't feel the same. It's not as great to look at, but we did it anyway. We created this theater that most of us objectively said, this isn't quite as awesome as what we could be doing, but we're doing this instead of doing nothing at all. Why?
00:19:05
Speaker
And then you talk to people again and you get them on screen and you're discussing what you create. And it became apparent that theater and art is connection in a way that nothing else is. Something about experiencing story and characters and whole lives together
00:19:30
Speaker
in community with one another is one of a kind. So I was already beginning to feel that connection again. And then we worked together, Corey and I, on Oedipus Rex this last summer, which was our first in-person production since the pandemic. It was the first one for that company. I know that it was my first full in-person production since the pandemic, since it was outdoors. And the meaning of that community was everything.
00:20:00
Speaker
And it doesn't mean that those people are more special than other people. People are all wonderful, but being together and creating something can bond hearts together in a way that nothing else can. I remember I had seen a study once about if you get a whole audience of people in the theater and you're watching the play, that how many minutes in into seeing a live play do people's heartbeats sync up
00:20:29
Speaker
And it's a thing, it's a real thing. And so there is a physical, social, emotional, mental connection that you can get through theater that isn't met by anything else. And without that, people don't have much to live for. And that sounds dark. And I don't mean that without theater, there is no life, but without theater makers having theater,
00:20:56
Speaker
For us, it feels like there is no life because that is where we get the heartbeats with each other. That's where we live. Wow. I don't know what I should say after that, but I got to continue the interview. No, I.
00:21:17
Speaker
That is quite incredible.
Art and Community Organizing
00:21:22
Speaker
One of the things, as far as my discovery is, I've worked as a labor organizer, and one of the things is I started the podcast. I've only identified as an artist for the last four years. I'm 49, so in my mid-40s, I've always had an artistic bent, but creating the podcast, I started filming and started painting.
00:21:41
Speaker
What I started to connect with is a piece that's in there that you're talking about theater, which was basically organizing around arts. You know, I spent my life trying to like organize people and being like, your boss sucks, let's do something about it, you know, and, you know, organize people around that.
00:21:58
Speaker
and you know around art in the community of art and connecting people and like you said with the heartbeat it's really if not physically the idea of organizing is is to move towards that so when we were talking about
00:22:13
Speaker
before we went on about how I got to you, it's an organizing conversation because there's these connections that led me to be able to talk to you. For me, that's kind of like how you put things together as well, where art's organizing, connecting people and connecting them around the project.
00:22:35
Speaker
It's like the water or the breathing or the heart. It's that important. And I think it's important to say that out loud. I think we, a lot of times, are reticent to do so and be like, it's this fucking important. It's this important. And for me, in these times, that energy has helped me. And I think I hear it from you as well.
00:23:04
Speaker
OK, I think we might have hinted at some of the answers to this, but Kimberly, if you could continue about art itself, what is the role of art and has the role of art
Art, Empathy, and Society
00:23:16
Speaker
changed? Because for me, the world right now feels to me consistently radically different than it did two, three years ago to me and to many others. So what's what's the role of art generally? What's role of art right now? Yeah, so.
00:23:31
Speaker
In theater circles, we often talk about, is this piece of theater to entertain or to educate? We break it down to such simple terms. And I think that that is such a disservice to what we create because theater is so much, and art is so much. So we already talked about how it is connection.
00:23:53
Speaker
But I also think that it is the, I mean, I suppose this is an offshoot of connection, but it's how we empathize with one another and how we grow to understand one another because art has the capacity to communicate. What we can't communicate so easily just by speaking it out. Some things have expressions that need to have visuals or need to have music or rhythm or meter behind it.
00:24:22
Speaker
or for our purposes in theater, some things need to be told through another person's story for you to see how it is also your own story. And so I think the role of art
00:24:34
Speaker
is to connect and to empathize. And I think now more than ever, we're focusing on more conscious connecting and empathizing with one another in the past few years as we've watched Black Lives Matter take much of a greater stage in social commentary and how that's more in the, it's a kitchen table conversation for a lot more people, but how do you give people the tools to discuss that comfortably
00:25:05
Speaker
you do so through connecting and empathizing and seeing people's stories. And the same thing goes with in the story that we're telling, there is an LGBT story in there that for some of our audiences in Wisconsin, that story may be uncomfortable, but it's addressing things through empathy of what the parents are feeling and what the adult child is feeling and what that story looks like in both sides. So I think understanding one another is
00:25:35
Speaker
most accomplished through art. Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Kimberly. Corey, the role of art generally is a little bit different now, role of art. Yeah, like Kimberly said, empathy is everything when it comes to art.
00:25:59
Speaker
It's all about, you know, getting people to breathe, getting people to breathe together. You know, that's, you know, another thing on top of like the heartbeats is that the audience is breathing together and you're, you're hearing, uh,
00:26:21
Speaker
the summons when you're watching a play, you're hearing somebody's vocal cords vibrate and they're vibrating directly into your eardrums. So it's like that, just that connection of, of, of people and which is so vital and, and taken away, you know, over the past couple of years taken away from us, people have had to say goodbye to their loved ones over zoom and my, or, you know,
00:26:49
Speaker
go to graduations or other important life events over Zoom and it's stripped away that connection and I think truly revealed to a lot of people just how important breathing together or having your hearts beat together is and it's why
00:27:19
Speaker
We're in a society, why we're together as people, why we are not all separate nomadic tribes constantly warring. We are collaborators, the human race is our collaborators. We have our fights, we have our disagreements, but the role of art is to make us empathize with our fellow humans.
00:27:49
Speaker
And that hasn't stopped even in the last couple of years with the pandemic.
00:27:54
Speaker
There's such a power to that and the prominence of what's needed through the art experience. I've been complaining recently. One of my big things that I haven't been able to do, and I've caught a couple of them, but for me, I'm a big Doom Metal fan, and Metal is huge up in Portland and in Oregon.
00:28:20
Speaker
And there's a small community there. And I can tell you, folks who go to these small shows, they're cheap. They're dedicated fans. And we love Doom Metal. And it was like that kind of music church. It was very clear. It was very clear because people would connect. They'd groove. They'd get into it.
00:28:44
Speaker
metal you can get some of that shit out in your head the squirrels in your head you can move around and you know there's a big there's a big piece to whatever that experience is whether it's from the stage those are performing those in the audience or even the movie theater you know sitting down at the movie theater being like look at this great you know look at this great film that we're watching together at the art museum so you know things like that um so
00:29:10
Speaker
I really appreciate you putting that the prominence and the empathy or when there isn't that connection, the problems we have. We don't have that common experience of being around strangers, doing something that's really good and cool. If you don't have that experience, then those strangers could become enemies because you don't know them. You haven't sat with them.
00:29:37
Speaker
some of the strains that you've pointed out are just really apparent if we don't have that experience. But folks will have that experience in each other with things I know to be true. So that's wonderful that that will be there. I think it's so cool that you mentioned it as music church when you go and see a concert. Because this was something that I was thinking about earlier in our discussion.
00:30:03
Speaker
When things closed in the pandemic, one of the things I found most upsetting was we had a local venue. It was called the Underground Collaborative. And it was an affordable venue where a lot of small theaters could perform. And I cried when that venue closed. That broke my heart. And I wondered why. I thought that's the building.
00:30:25
Speaker
similar to a lot of the rhetoric around religion where they say, well, church is a building, but spirituality exists beyond that building. It cannot be held only within that building. I think of the theater as it's a building within which we can have the experience of theater, but then theater itself is so much bigger than the theater, the building of the theater. So I like that that kind of crosses into all the worlds of art.
00:30:55
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Like I said, it's felt like that to me. And part of it, too, is I think I might have arrived at that realization because a good friend of mine who would go to many shows with me is a deeply religious, orthodox, Christian dude who is the biggest Doom Metal fan
00:31:15
Speaker
in the universe. So I think those connections were easier for me to make. I'm like, I know what he's driving at and here I am. I'm driving at the same thing. Okay, so I've asked some big questions.
Artistic Influences
00:31:31
Speaker
I do have a couple big questions. And one is kind of going back a little bit again, just kind of open it up, is I'm gonna ask you, Corey,
00:31:45
Speaker
What or who made you who you are? Oh man, uh, that's uh, do you have like 10 days? Um, I have to grant the podcast over to my guests. Guests have great license in this. Otherwise it ain't going to work for me. So you have license. Oh man. Um,
00:32:16
Speaker
Where do I start and how do I not leave anybody out? Um, gosh, I've been influenced by so many people. Like I think you're at least a little bit influenced by every person you encounter bad or good. Um, because it kind of nudges your boat one direction or another. Um,
00:32:45
Speaker
I could talk about like famous influences. I could talk for like, so I, man, I just, I love so many different things in art. And like, I,
00:33:08
Speaker
I'm a big music listener. I love visual art, dance, any type of art. Well Cory, on this, music lover, I'm obsessed with music. Who are the artists you'd fight to death for?
00:33:31
Speaker
My favorite band is the 1975. I love the 1975. They are like fantastic, fantastic artists. My idol of all time is Elvis Presley. I love Elvis so much. Like that was probably actually, now that we think about it, that was probably the birth of the artist in eighth grade.
00:33:58
Speaker
I was in a play and I played an Elvis impersonator and I think I was hooked ever since then. Let's see, Otis Redding. I have a soapbox about Otis Redding and he is such an influential artist and I'm so passionate about his music. He died. I am the same age right now. I'm 26.
00:34:27
Speaker
I'm the same age he was when he died. And that is, I didn't realize it was 26. Wow. Okay. No, which with such a like soulful, like incredible voice. And he was only 26 and he, um, and he passed away. He died in a plane crash in Madison, Wisconsin. Um, and.
00:34:52
Speaker
he's like left out of the conversation because he died before he was 27 he's left out of the conversation of like the 27 club and I think he's the the one artist that if I could like bring back to life or extend his career in some way I would yeah yeah and that
00:35:14
Speaker
I recall and I know that there's an Otis Redding bench over in Madison by the lake where the plane crashed.
00:35:26
Speaker
um, that's a kind of memorial to him. But yeah, I was, I hadn't heard the age in a, in, in a while, Corey, I hadn't thought about that in a while. And if you look at the repertoire and the, like, I think you pointed to like the deep maturity soul, something beyond that, that was in them, it messes your head up. Cause you're like, well, how, how, how do I happen to some, like some sort of godly talent like that? But.
00:35:54
Speaker
Yeah, well, geez. Well, Cory goes for the big ones. That's it. No, that's thinking about Otis and Elvis Presley. And Cory, I don't know. You could pull it off. I could see as Elvis. And I'm sure you do it here and there.
00:36:17
Speaker
I was able to get performance on this podcast and I knew I would because I had both of you and I was able to get it. Kimberly, Kimberly, who or what made you?
00:36:35
Speaker
who you are. You know, I'm gonna take this in a different direction because I have so many artistic influences, I wouldn't know where to start. And, you know, they're the obvious people in my personal life. Like I am privileged to have a really supportive family and all of them have been really wonderful in my entire artistic career and really involved. But I think that a huge turning point in who I am and what drives my art was a professor I had my freshman year of college,
00:37:05
Speaker
Her name is Dr. Jill Budney, and she is a professor of politics in the Honors College at UW-Milwaukee. And so that was a class I took. It was left, right, and center, and it was about understanding where politics comes from and reading the writings that a lot of the current political groups are founded upon, and then really studying our city of Milwaukee in that context.
00:37:31
Speaker
And that opened my eyes in a whole ton of new ways because I always felt that I had a heart for my city, but in a very passive way, coming from a place of serious privilege in my life, I didn't need to think about it in an all too critical manner. And then taking that class had me looking at my city in a lens that I never had before and experiencing
00:38:01
Speaker
my walk through Milwaukee recognizing my own privilege and that changed everything I believe in and now my art is very justice centered and it's about representing and lifting up underrepresented voices and
00:38:17
Speaker
serving arts to underserved communities and finding ways to get the resources to underserved communities so that they can create their own arts and we don't need to be speaking over them. And that's become the driving force behind most of what I do
00:38:35
Speaker
And everything I create somehow wraps back around to that. So, so much of who I am is defined by how that professor was able to take me as I was and invite me in on this walk that led me to understanding where I exist in this world, in the grand scheme of things, and what I can do with the position that I've been given.
00:39:02
Speaker
Yeah. And I think there's such a power to that, the influence. I went to college, and I got advanced degrees. And I was also very sensitive and very curious. So I can even say that that influence goes beyond. Because this show, this show stems from a class
00:39:27
Speaker
that I took in 1994 with a professor named Cheryl Foster, Dr. Cheryl Foster. And the questions I'm asking here, we didn't cover all these, it wasn't in this format, but in 1994, I was excited about these questions. I was excited about using these questions for a piece of art. We studied The Silence of the Lambs, Saturday Night Fever, it was low art.
00:39:55
Speaker
high art, popular art, and so what's interesting is the influence that those questions or that interrogation from teachers, and you both teach what that can do and how it can stick.
00:40:13
Speaker
Those questions from like, I don't know how long ago that was, 28 years ago, for me, and I'm on doing this podcast, the thread of this podcast goes all the way back to there. If you're sensitive and curious to the questions that people are asking you or challenging you with, there can be some deep and profound change through that.
00:40:41
Speaker
It's great to hear about your experience though there, Kimberly, and learning about Milwaukee is such a complicated, difficult, and almost impossible city to deal with sometimes with its rugged history around the issues that you bring up. It has an ugly history, for sure. And we have the opportunity to do something about it.
00:41:05
Speaker
or to create art without heart. And I couldn't possibly go back to creating art without heart, couldn't do it. Yeah, yeah. No, thank you. Thank you for that. That is, yeah, that's just wonderful. Okay.
The Creation Drive: Something from Nothing
00:41:26
Speaker
The titular question of the podcast,
00:41:32
Speaker
So, Kimberly, the question is, why is there something rather than nothing? There doesn't have to be something. There doesn't have to be nothing. But I also asked the question in creative way, too, that you could answer it as is, you know, when you create, is that coming from something or is it coming from nothing? The main question is, why is there something rather than nothing? I think that
00:42:01
Speaker
Theater is definitely a something. Theater is not a nothing. Gosh, what would I be doing here if theater was a nothing to me? But I think that it's always come out of nothingness because people are drawn to move and to speak and to sing.
00:42:20
Speaker
and to create, and they have been since the beginning of time, you can trace back theater as a practice to the earliest civilizations that have been recorded. Everyone always lands back here. And so in a modern day where I'm not answering the same questions as they were grappling with then, some of which are the same, but a lot of those are questions that our sciences have come to understand in a different light.
00:42:45
Speaker
I'm still creating something out of the nothingness that is wondering.
00:42:50
Speaker
There are so many questions that you can come up with any day and especially in the light of the pandemic. A lot of us have called into question our own space on this earth and our own purpose that we serve and where it all goes. And these are huge things to be grappling with, but I think that out of that nothingness that is the constant void of questions and falling into existential dread and all of those awful things,
00:43:20
Speaker
you can come together and grapple with it in community. And that's where the something comes from is it's coming together with other people grappling with the same questions and issues and choosing to face it head on together through creation. And that to me is something out of nothingness. And it sure is a better something than dwelling in the nothing. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Kimberly. Corey, the big one.
00:43:51
Speaker
Okay, the something is that unseen force that draws you out of, drags you out of bed each morning to face the day. The something kind of pushes you, guides you, unseen. So it's a bit of a something and a nothing. It's a nothing because you can't, like you can't,
00:44:19
Speaker
measure it you can't put it like you can't put it in any sort of box it's but it's there and you feel it even if you don't know it there's something the the something is the passion that drives you on that helps you create that takes you
00:44:41
Speaker
takes you far and pulls you back in when it's time to go home. It's the driving force for all artists. It's the muses. It's what we are put here to do and be. It's our driving force.
00:45:11
Speaker
No, I'm really vibing with you. I'm really vibing with you there, Cory. Yeah. That pulls us along. And that is so deeply connected to creativity. I think it's a kind of like origin question, but it's a creativity question. I think it's like, you know, why we do these things. And I appreciate both of you, you know, doing what you do.
00:45:34
Speaker
Let's, um, uh, before we let you go, I want you to promote the hell out of things I know to be true.
Promoting the Play
00:45:40
Speaker
Like tell, and here's, here's the task, you know, for, for both of you, what I would like, um, you look, this is, this is the little engine that could write independent theater.
00:45:50
Speaker
It's a lot of work. It's a lot of late nights. So tell folks, you know, when it is and the we're and how they can support it if they can support it, but also for each of you, too. How can people connect with the play or with your creations or anything you'd like to share along those lines? And Kimberly, could you go? Yeah, absolutely.
00:46:16
Speaker
So if you're looking to find us and this show you can go on Facebook and search things I know MKE or things I know to be true Milwaukee, Wisconsin. We should come up either way. So there's a Facebook page for us and of course we would love to have if anyone is in the Midwest and wants to come see the show. It is one weekend only. It is April 8th through 10th at Interchange Theatre Co-op which is in Milwaukee near the Marquette campus.
00:46:44
Speaker
You can find all that information and the ticketing links and the venue and all that good stuff on that Facebook page. And if you aren't from our area and you want to connect with us, first, I'll be the one to speak for both of us and say that Corey and I are both networkers and we love to connect with other artists.
00:47:03
Speaker
So please, you can find us online, look us up, find us, please reach out connect. We love collaborating, but then in addition, if you're particularly moved by the project of things I know to be true and are interested in contributing to that either financially or by some other donation, please reach out. We do have on our Facebook page, we have a GoFundMe page that you could contribute to if you felt so moved.
00:47:30
Speaker
Or if you had something else that you wanted to do as a part of the production, like I said, it's us. We are a small team and we're doing this from the ground up. So any collaboration and connection that you're looking to have with us, reach out. We want to talk. Wonderful. Corey, comments about ways to support or connecting to your creations?
00:47:56
Speaker
Kimberly got every single, checked every single. I have the sense, and I understand what you're saying, I have the sense that if I was around Kimberly and she covered that, I'd be like, check with her, she covered it, she got it all. That's why we're working together is because she's good at that sort of thing.
00:48:21
Speaker
She's such a strong organizer of this project and it's been wonderful working with her, not only in the process, but in our previous show as well.
00:48:31
Speaker
Yeah, no, it's fantastic. I encourage all listeners to check it out and support it. I'm going to support the show. And for folks, April starts to warm up a little bit if people are traveling a little bit. There's no guarantees.
00:48:52
Speaker
No guarantees of, but for everybody in the region, check out the show, support independent theater, support independent voices, support this great story that Corey and Kimberly are working on because it's just, this is what
Closing Thoughts on Art and Play
00:49:14
Speaker
we need. I mean, that's the glue. I think that's the glue we've been talking about for this entire time.
00:49:22
Speaker
I wanted to thank you both for coming on the show. I mean, there's a lot that I'm thinking about, which is why that I do this show, because it's really stimulating to me. And I love talking art and other artists. And I never know what artist or what conversation is going to happen. Yesterday, or recently, I was interviewing a University of Oregon
00:49:47
Speaker
history professor and we we ended up talking about the painter Francis Bacon and I you know it's completely unexpected and uh you know talking about um you know Derek Jarman and uh you know just we don't know until we start to to connect and so we have the open space
00:50:09
Speaker
to talk arty and then we start to have fun. I'm very excited for you Shaw. I'm excited that we'll be able to chat right now. I want to thank both of you for coming on to something rather than nothing.
00:50:29
Speaker
talking about art and talking about these big questions. It's been a great pleasure. And I just wonder if you had any final words for listeners. Kimberly. Well, thank you. First of all, thank you so much for having us on, Ken. It's just been such a joy to hash through the crazy thoughts that we as artists are always fighting in our own drains, out loud with other artist types.
00:50:55
Speaker
And to anyone who's listening, who identifies as an artist, I just hope that you keep fighting that fight and keep making what you make, and you'll wonder why you do it some days, and other days you'll remember, and it'll all be worth it. And Corey, any final words in Favorite Elvis song?
00:51:17
Speaker
Yeah, it's been a real pleasure talking with you today. And I'm so glad we had that connection on Derek Jarman. That's been a very special thing in my life. And I just want to reiterate, art is drink. Go quench your thirst. Favorite Elvis song, Are You Lonesome Tonight? Are you lonesome tonight? Do you miss me tonight? Love it.
00:51:47
Speaker
All right. Incredible. It's great talking with artists. Best of luck. Break a leg on the show. And I'm sure I will be and many listeners will be following closely both your individual processes, artists, but this great production that you're doing. Thanks for coming on the show and have a great day.
00:52:19
Speaker
This is something rather than nothing.