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The Third Place with Actor and Creator Vivian Bang
89 Plays9 months ago
On this episode Amber talks with Vivian Bang, an actor and creator working in Atlanta, about her journey into acting and experimental theatre, and how that ride took her all the way to Los Angeles. Now that she's in Atlanta, she's been gathering community (a third place) through her new collective Performance Jam. Hear her talk about what they do, what they've been cooking and how they built their collective. Listen now to hear about the ups and downs (mostly the ups) of producing your own work on a tight budget! What is the value of gathering community and why should we bother? To find out why, check out this episode now.
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Transcript
Introduction and Background
00:00:06
Speaker
Hey, everyone. Welcome to season two of Table Work. My name is Amber Bradshaw, and I'm your host. I am a new play dramaturg, arts administrator, and educator. And on season two of Table Work, I am going to be interviewing the artists behind the many collectives in Atlanta, people that are bringing the artistic community together to connect.
00:00:28
Speaker
This grassroots work in our field is essential to the development of theater. We can't make it alone. We need collaborators, supporters, and audiences, and we have to meet those folks somewhere, y'all. So I want to lift up the people that are doing this work, often on their own or with just a few other people, because this work has an impact. So let's lift it up, y'all.
Working Title Playwrights and New Collaborations
00:00:50
Speaker
This podcast is brought to you by Working Title Playwrights, a new play incubator and service organization based in Atlanta, Georgia, in which I serve as the managing artistic director. For more about WTP and me, check out WorkingTitlePlaywrights.com. I think when you're making your own pieces, it's very much like, of course you know
00:01:13
Speaker
that you want to do it for an audience, you can't make work for an audience. You cannot make work with anything attached or you're trying to seek out validation of any institutions or artists. Yeah, it's got to be about the work. It's got to be that you have something to say, something to share.
Meet Vivian Bang
00:01:36
Speaker
I am so excited to welcome our first guest of season two, actor, producer, and creator Vivian Bang. Vivian is the co-creator, producer, and star of the feature film White Rabbit, which premiered at Sundance Film Festival in 2018. Most notably, she played Ginny in Always Be My Baby, was a series regular on Sullivan and Sons, as well as played a private detective on Swedish Dicks.
00:02:00
Speaker
She's guest on numerous TV series, Room 104, Amazing Stories, Better Off Ted Get Shorty, Famous in Love, A to Z, Kath and Kim Numbers, Monk, Becker the Corner House, How I Met Your Mother, and Sex in the City. Other earlier works are Yes Man, Little Black Book, Henry, Fool, and Our Time is Up. During the pandemic, she self-produced and directed an anti-Asian hate PSA to promote bystander intervention.
00:02:25
Speaker
She started a collective called Eastside Women's Film Club, which hosted many programmings for over 500 members. She also is an NYU Tisch graduate and was an original member and collaborator of New York's performance art troupe Big Art Group and toured internationally with both shows Shelf Life and Flickr. She is currently the producing mind behind her new project we'll be talking about, Performance Jam.
00:02:53
Speaker
Hey Vivian. I am her. So Vivian, tell us a little bit about yourself.
Vivian's Journey and Embrace of Experimental Theater
00:02:59
Speaker
Where are you from? Where did you grow up? So I was born in Korea. I was born in Seoul. So I'm like a city girl, I think, you know, since I was like a kid during those years, Korean, you know, parents sort of let their kids roam free. They walked to preschool, they walked to kindergarten. Right. I kind of grew up like, you know,
00:03:20
Speaker
And I remember even as a kid, like I'd look at group dynamics and friends, you know, I didn't have many friends. So I was always very curious at how these like sort of dynamics built and sort of like the group that, you know, so I've always been very, very interested in like collectives and just group mentality and how people act differently when they're in a group of persons, like when you meet someone one-on-one. Yeah.
00:03:45
Speaker
But yeah, so my parents came to the States. We are first stop US in San Francisco and that's where I learned my English. And then I spent most of my years in New York. I went there when I was a teenager and went to college there as well. I went to NYU and then I was like working with downtown theater and experimental theater scene there. So the most sort of like, I guess my informative years were sort of
00:04:12
Speaker
discovered in New York, and then I went to LA, yeah, and spent like about 12, 13 years there, formed a community, you know, the whole corporate ackee, still do, and now I'm in Atlanta. I love it, I love it. And at NYU, you studied experimental theater, right? Actually, I was trying to double major in film, and they put me in experimental theater, but I resisted because
00:04:42
Speaker
I actually knew nothing about acting and that you could make a living as an actor. I mean, it was just something that I always did.
00:04:51
Speaker
privacy of my, you know, my room or closet, you know, I should just like form stories in your head. And I didn't go to a performance art school or anything like that. So I just had no idea you could make a living being an actor. And so that was very foreign to me. When I went to NYU, you know, like I didn't even know how to audition, you know, my teachers, my high school teachers, Pam Barnett and Dr. Dubner, who were my, I will never forget those ladies.
00:05:19
Speaker
because they were such, yeah, they had such a profound effect on me. For what reason, I have no idea because I was quite shy, but they just saw this sort of
00:05:29
Speaker
I guess, performer in me and like really encouraged me and walked me through the steps of like auditioning. But, you know, again, I think it's in my bio somewhere like for NYU, I auditioned with Lance Dubois from Tennessee Williams. I was gonna say I read that on your website. Yeah, like, I mean, only a person who has no clue would choose that piece, you know, when they're like 16. And you got it. Yeah, with full scholarship.
00:05:57
Speaker
So they're probably like, oh no, this girl really needs our help. But yeah, but they tried to place me in like experimental theater wing and I like really resisted because I wanted more like sort of a classical structure. I wanted to know the history of it.
00:06:12
Speaker
know, I wanted the techniques so because I didn't have any so I went to circle and they kind of covered a lot of the basics of like Meisner, Stanislavski, you know, Adler, a bunch of clown school, like all of it. So I got a bit of everything and then kind of went to experimental.
00:06:34
Speaker
Got it. So that's funny. So they put you in it and then you like took the long way around. Yeah, but I'm glad I did because yeah, I am a huge advocate for like structure and you can find freedom within structure.
Acting Philosophy and Transition to Film
00:06:51
Speaker
So it's like, I think if you're going to break the rules, like you should know what the rules are. The key component to breaking the rules, right? Yes. No, I love that.
00:07:04
Speaker
I think acting more than like looking at, yes, it can be silly, but it's also just, it's kind of just giving yourself permission to be, you know, I realized just recently like doing sort of a performance for a lot of like introverted artists types.
00:07:22
Speaker
you know, like actors are just kind of out there. They just are able to give themselves permission to be silly, but also just be, you know, and to express that something is of discomfort and to like go to places where a lot of people don't want to go, you know, a lot of painful places, they like really put themselves there.
00:07:44
Speaker
in order to kind of look at behavior and humanity, you know, so I think they're just like kind of researchers and then they're able to kind of use this research and kind of like be into, you know, express things, whereas like most of, you know, humans and regular lives, like, you know, we try to avoid conflict, we try to avoid pain, we try not to be, we try not to feel.
00:08:10
Speaker
So yeah. Actors of the opposite kind of, right? I mean, a lot of, I feel like so much of the research actors do is personal inquiry, like what makes me feel this way so that I can use that, or that's a tool for me. Yeah, and what makes others feel what they do. Yeah, I think some of the
00:08:34
Speaker
the artists or actors that I really admire, they have such a broad sense of not just their own personal inventory, but just such a language and vocabulary of other humans and other people's motivations and perspectives. I think that's why a lot of actors are very empathetic. They just can sense so much outside of
00:08:59
Speaker
Yeah. Do you make observation? Is that like a regular practice for you as an actor specifically? I didn't say that it's like a practice. It's kind of like something that I've always had. Just always done it. Yeah. I think that's also probably why I went into this field is because I just have, for me, I just, I understand. Or studying people is like a kind of like a, it's as commonplace as like breathing for me, I guess, is something that I do without thinking about.
00:09:29
Speaker
I wonder why that person did that. Just a curiosity, you know? And I thought that was everybody that I realized, like, oh, some people don't care at all. Right? I know. I know. Me too. Me too. I always say I just love digging into the why.
00:09:51
Speaker
and doing it with as little value judgments as possible, you know? And then, and I think through that practice, we kind of learn to love ourselves more too, right? Because we're just observing without making judgments. Yeah, and I think a lot of times, like, those whys also change all the time, you know? I think constantly, the whys of why people do things change all the time.
00:10:19
Speaker
Well, and you, you spent quite a bit of time doing experimental theater professionally too, right? I mean, you had quite a career in experimental theater. One great thing about going to NYU is you're like going to school in the city, really, that, you know, New York is your campus. And so you have access to all these crazy artists that are downtown. And so while I was in school, I was, you know, going to La Mama, PS 120, you know, like all the,
00:10:46
Speaker
You get to see kind of the artists and the stuff that they're making that's like violent and what was current for that time. And that was a really exciting time. And so I got involved with, I met Kayden Manson now.
00:11:03
Speaker
He used to be at Carnegie Mellon. He's the head of the theater department there. But, you know, before I think he was sort of like very experimental. He formed this group and we did a bunch of experimental performances. One of my favorite ones was comparing Grey Gardens with three sisters. We had a group called Big Art Group.
00:11:24
Speaker
which was a collective of Misfits and we toured all over Europe. We toured the states like the Walker Center, the Warhol Museum. We were invited like Festival du Tom in Paris. We had residency in Paris, in Belgium, in Salzburg. We traveled all over, kind of like rock stars.
00:11:43
Speaker
it was like we had an insane producer and so very early on I had this sort of taste of what it was to be an art star of sorts so I was making yeah so it was like the downtown New York art scene and I loved it I loved it very much but I think a part of me
00:12:02
Speaker
always wanted to be more in like film and like more mainstream media. I thought that was like, I don't know. I always thought like I could reach more audience. I had kind of this, you know, and there was a filmmaker Phil Morrison, who used to do all those Apple commercials. And then he made that movie that gave Amy Adams her big break. Anyway, he's a very like prolific indie director. And
00:12:27
Speaker
he would always come to all of our shows in downtown New York, you always have like all the filmmakers come and they're like, Oh, what are you? And I think he gave me a job to fly. It was like a job like this was when advertising had money, they had money. And he liked using the client's money. And so he would just
00:12:48
Speaker
he flew a lot of New York actors to LA to shoot commercials that could have very well been casted in LA, but it was just a sentence. So that's, we stayed at like Chateau-Mourmont and I got to see a side of LA that I was like, oh wow, like LA, there's so much filming here. And I had at the time done like an episode of Sex and the City and sort of like anything that was filming in New York, I had already sort of guessed it on. And this was like, I was like still in college, I think.
00:13:20
Speaker
I got to see firsthand going to LA, what an actual factory it was of movie making. You can't compare the kind of... LA is made with studios and just so centered around this kind of media at the time, like film and TV. You just couldn't compare. You're like, oh my gosh, this is where you have to be if you want to be in film and TV.
00:13:44
Speaker
That's kind of very soon after that I took the group and moved at kind of like the height of our success and momentum. I thought I could easily like go to LA and you know because I was like a little darling in New York you know like the New Yorker had done a caricature of me like I'm you know whatever and no one no one in LA appears.
00:14:08
Speaker
Yeah, but I did, you know, my first project in LA was like, Happy Bates, Holly Hunter, Brittany Murphy at the time, it was like this Julia Roberts production. It was a big movie. I ended up being like cut out of the most of the movie, but I met a lot of friends there and kind of thought head on like, oh, what it is to do a studio movie. Right. That caliber. What was it like to transition from
00:14:34
Speaker
like New York experimental theater, LA film making. Yeah, it was really difficult. No one tells you, you know, it's not, there weren't like classes and a college of like, you know, NYU, like they don't have classes, like how to make it, like they should teach like business courses and you know, just the one, like how to, yeah. I think I got more out of like how to be an actor for dummies or whatever, then a bit about the business
00:15:04
Speaker
It was really funny to navigate, you know, you have the business side of acting, which is very much LA, you go and it's very much like, who you know, in terms of like agents and like the A-list agents, like Umar, S-A-A-U-T-A, you know, like the time endeavor, you know, like all these kinds of, you're just kind of, it's like a business, you know? And I didn't, I didn't really know that I was coming strictly from like art world and kind of
00:15:32
Speaker
making work that spoke to me and was collaborating, you know, making things together. I didn't realize like, come to more of a corporate setting with like corporate acting. It's like, oh, writers stay here and actors stay here. They don't talk, you know, writers go to the writer's room, blah, blah, blah.
00:15:49
Speaker
It's not this kind of collaboration from the world that I come from. And yeah, it was really hard. It was really isolating LA at the time. I didn't really know Seoul. And then auditioning, I could tell like I was making fun choices. I'd make everyone laugh, but it was like so big for the camera. So it took me a while to know.
00:16:09
Speaker
the cameras are completely different mediums and stage. And though I had done a bunch of guest spots in New York, those parts were all for people with like more character stuff. You know, it was on like Sex and the City and it was like a big, you know, like a fun part that I could be kind of character-y. And so when I was doing these auditions more for like TV, yeah, it was really, it was a little bit of a challenge and a shift
00:16:39
Speaker
to not be so much, but to be more me. So that's really interesting that the experimental theater work actually brought you directly into the world of New York film itself.
00:16:55
Speaker
And then that brought you to LA, like the art group. The work with them was kind of how you opened it up into.
Aligning with Desired Work and White Rabbit Film
00:17:03
Speaker
That's always been my path is that you're doing the work. You're doing the work, putting yourself out there wherever you are. And that's how you sort of meet your next like collaborators or whatever, these in your work. And for me, that's always in the case. I wanted to lift that up because I think sometimes artists think
00:17:21
Speaker
you know, that there's like a certain path that's the right one or, you know, and I'm like, no, no, actually, you'd be really surprised. There's no trajectory in our world or like, sort of guide, you know, it's just literally about aligning yourself with like the work that, you know, you want to make or
00:17:38
Speaker
or the work that's awkward to you, you know, whatever it is. Yeah, actually, even White Rabbit, I was on a show, I was on a television show, but Trump had just gotten elected. And I just, I felt like this need to go back to my sort of experimental theater.
00:17:55
Speaker
work and to make something that meant something to me. He was putting up all these borders and walls, and I wanted to talk about immigration experience. And so while I was shooting the show, I used any of my free time to make this piece that I performed at the Red Cat Theater. And it was a very, very dark piece, very heavy. I think at the time, this was all before even the Black Lives Matter and the women's, like all of it.
00:18:24
Speaker
It was before all of that, and at the time, people were not talking about race in the art world. And so I did this piece, and it was like the whole theater just, it got really, really tense, but it mattered, you know? And I did this work, and in the audience is where I met Daryl.
00:18:43
Speaker
who was my collaborator in making White Rabbit, which became its own thing. It was more of a comedy about the performance artist herself, but it came from that, from doing this piece that I just had to do to make something that I felt that all artists were being called to serve at this time.
00:19:07
Speaker
I don't know. I mean, that was so strange that, you know, a lot of times like the Red Cat space is not a place where a lot of like Hollywood film directors go or it's very separate. You know, that's a very kind of like art. A lot of people don't.
00:19:21
Speaker
even go watch, but not everyone knows to go there, even though there's a lot of exciting work coming out. But Daryl happened to be an adventurer, and he was in the audience. And I guess whatever I did really spoke to him. And people connect to people. And so that's how we met, is that he saw a performance I did. And then with that character in mind, he developed White Rabbit together.
00:19:48
Speaker
I made the film, which went to Sundance in 2018, my first feature. I finished it. Started. Congratulations. Yeah, got into Sundance. We were quite successful. We sold it there. We had distribution. Yeah, what did I watch it on Amazon, I think? Yeah, it's fantastic.
00:20:11
Speaker
If you have access, y'all watch it. White Rabbit. It's quite good. I love the ending. Fantastic. You know, something that resonated for me is that you were like, I need to make this piece. So I made this piece. And then that led you to making a movie that went to Sundance. But it wasn't like you were like, I'm going to make a movie and it's going to go to Sundance. You were like, I'm going to make something that matters to me.
00:20:39
Speaker
I think it's art that I want to put out in the world. Yeah. And that is as simple as it needs to be. And it can become anything. You know, there's just the idea that these things that we make that seem so small.
00:20:55
Speaker
Right. You know, it's your one person show, you know, had he not seen it and made something else out of it, that would have been it. Maybe, you know, you didn't know, but you, you followed that path and you were called to do it and you did it. And so I just, it's really important. I think for artists here that you don't have to be looking for something to find it and that really, like you said, being aligned and following, following the path that feels really good to you as an artist is the best way to go.
00:21:25
Speaker
Yeah, I think if you are on the authentic journey of your life, you will attract those collaborators. You will attract whatever you're supposed to attract to go to your next chapter, I guess. Yeah, I don't know. I think for my own projects, of course, when I'm being paid to be an actor, I don't always get to choose. Of course. I'll take that as anything.
00:21:55
Speaker
think I can choose now. But, you know, I think when you're making your own pieces, it's very much like, of course, you know, that you want to do it for an audience, you can't make work for an audience cannot make, you know, with anything attached for your like trying to seek out, you know, validation of any institutions or artists, like
00:22:19
Speaker
Yeah, it's got to be about the work. It's got to be that you have something to say something to share and that Yeah, I love that and I think that's that was one of the things I really liked about my rabbit is I was oh it's really grounded in the mission and a purpose but it also feels like it's just Gorgeous story about this human being, you know living their life, you know, so I thought that was strong and like I
00:22:48
Speaker
I really wanted to, you know, investigate at that time. I mean, it seems so dated now already, but it was back in 2000. Yeah, 2017. And it thinks I'm dating hard. Yeah.
00:23:00
Speaker
It was really just looking about, you know, at all the artists that don't have institutional support, our country doesn't even have, what is it? Department of Culture? Yeah, there's no sort of institutional support for artists. So like, what do you do? It's like, you clean public spaces for your stage, you just go and make work. And this is what you do. And then what is art that can't be sold? What is work that can't be modified or sold?
00:23:27
Speaker
you know, what does that count? And then why do we do it? Like, are we making work just for ourselves? And, you know, and then also kind of poking fun at the gig economy that we all have to participate in, in order to sustain our lives as artists, like, she's the task rabbit. So, you know, right? So, yeah, it was all such a fun opportunity to talk about everything that I was really like,
00:23:51
Speaker
thinking about in that current time. What were the biggest development challenges of transitioning and adapting a one-person show for the stage into a film?
00:24:03
Speaker
Well, it was a complete different story. I mean, the piece for the stage was incorporated in the movie. So any sort of performance you saw, Sofia do, that is what I did. Right. So, you know, those performances were something that I already had. But the story is more about who is this artist making these, like, serious pieces of work. Yeah. You know, she's someone who didn't quite pick herself up seriously.
00:24:33
Speaker
So yeah, it was a sort of like, we had to come up with a blueprint and an idea, like, that was just, he was very curious about who this performer was. And, you know, I was trying to explain to Daryl, it's not a autobiography. I am not, you know, so I actually was very inspired by a lot of my artist friends in LA who actually don't have gallery representation or, you know, don't have museums, you know, so I was,
00:25:01
Speaker
I was thinking about a lot of my friends and sort of created this character that I love.
00:25:09
Speaker
Yeah, and I love what you're saying about just the idea that artists have been excluded from a lot of spaces and that at the same time are exceptionally good at creating space where there is none, right? Yeah. Which I think is really elegant. It's like a nice way of putting it. But I do think there's something about experimental theater that does that, right? Like it's kind of like, okay, well, this might be a sidewalk, but right now it's my stage.
00:25:37
Speaker
And that's because I say it is, which I think is really fantastic. And every artist should remember that you can make art anywhere. Yeah. Exactly. It definitely leads us into some of our conversations today because I think all we really need is like maybe like two or three people, right, to make some theater, you know, and and you don't you don't need much.
Moving to Atlanta and Post-Pandemic Artistic Spaces
00:26:06
Speaker
Okay, so I want to talk about your moving to Atlanta. When did you move to Atlanta? Okay, so I have a niece. It was purely for personal reasons. I'd gone through some changes in my life. To get personal. I went through some major changes. I broke up with a partner who I was living with.
00:26:27
Speaker
you know, for a long time. And I lost my house. And so crazy. But that's a totally crazy story. Anyway, went through a lot of trauma. And then pandemic happened. And I was just like, what is going on? And I think a lot of people just went through a lot of crazy changes, you know, and as soon as sort of it became clear that you could self tape and sort of do this
00:26:51
Speaker
that you could be an actor and not have to be based in L.A., that you can, you know, they gave me a huge sense of freedom to look at, okay, where can, where do I need to be? And I didn't want to be in L.A., even though I have a beautiful community of friends and family there. I love my friends so much, and I really truly miss them.
00:27:11
Speaker
I have a niece and I come to Atlanta once a year to celebrate her birthday, but it wasn't enough. And just after a pandemic, I just thought, what am I doing? I need to be there and spend more time with her. She's kind of, I have a very special bond with her. And so she was kind of the catalyst for me to look at Atlanta. And every time I came to visit, I'd see parts of Atlanta that I really enjoyed.
00:27:35
Speaker
kind of the DIY spirit of things. There's not quite an infrastructure that can be good and bad things. There's not a lot of infrastructure, so there's not much support, but also there's not a lot of gatekeepers, you know? So they say yes to a lot of things, and you can do a lot of things then.
00:27:51
Speaker
So that was really appealing to me as kind of like a experimental maker. I think Atlanta has a lot of soul and dancing. Oh, yeah. People in LA did not dance as much as people here do. Really? Yeah. Well, I found I go dancing all the time in LA, of course. But like, yeah, I come to Atlanta. I'm like, Oh, everyone dances here.
00:28:14
Speaker
Yeah, I would say it's become very popular, especially after the pandemic. Really? You know, and of course, this is, you know, for listeners, this is how, this is how we met on the dance floor. A banshee for those who don't know banshee, it is a restaurant in East Atlanta and on the weekends, they closed down the
00:28:36
Speaker
fiction and it turns into a little discount. Yes, and they hire local DJs that are amazing and we have such we get to really enjoy some great music there all the time, which is awesome. But yeah, we love it. We love it. I think a lot of I mean, Southerners kind of grew up in churches dancing and singing and
00:29:00
Speaker
carrying on. I think there's some cultural, yeah, I mean, there's definitely a missing place of like, the third place, the third place, it's not home, and it's not work. And I think for a long time, the church served as this third place, and people could come together, exchange ideas, you know, have had this kind of rituals and communal times, you know, I think that is very important for human beings.
00:29:29
Speaker
this kind of collective energy. So whereas like church is not necessary, where it's no longer church, maybe now it's a bars, maybe it's collective dance party, maybe it's, yeah, exactly. Oh, I think that's really cool. I think actually too, coming out of the pandemic, maybe that's become clearer to us, you know, like the effect of those collective gatherings and how they can,
00:29:56
Speaker
impact everything we do. Even though I think these collective spaces are important, I think there are those of us, you know, that got very used to, you know, having everything sort of, you know, exactly. That's why I think it's so key that when we're talking about what a collective space should have, we're thinking about what differentiates it from being at home in your bed watching Netflix, because like, if you can't do better,
00:30:25
Speaker
than that, then you probably aren't gonna have a lot of people come, right? They keep, that's what I say a lot about the American theater is if we're competing with that kind, that level of luxury, which just, like you said, everything brought to your door, things are very easy. Yeah, the comfort of your home. Then what we're offering is the collective experience, quite literally. Yeah, there's nothing I need to meet. That's it, that's the base of it. Being in a dark theater, in a movie theater,
00:30:54
Speaker
you know, like, I love movie theaters and cinemas like to go there and to experience movie with strangers, you don't know, but they're laughing at the same parts you're laughing at maybe, maybe they're laughing at something you didn't think was funny, but what's but you know, exactly, we're using a film together or art together. There's nothing that they quite like it, right? Yeah.
00:31:14
Speaker
You can't not have that. That has to be, I think there's a trend now, you know, I see the Plaza Theater, the local theater in Atlanta, Plaza getting a lot of traffic, seeing a lot of older films and, you know, revivals, and they're always sold out. It's so fun. That's amazing. To experience things together, I think there is just so relieved to see spaces like that coming back to us.
00:31:40
Speaker
And so that actually kind of leads me to what you were doing and how we ended up hanging out and talking about our work together.
Performance Jam: A New Artistic Community
00:31:49
Speaker
I would love to hear more about your performance jam. My performance jam. Yes. Well, I think it froze purely selfishly because I was looking for community.
00:31:59
Speaker
Baron Vaughn, who was in that show. He's a fantastic comedian and actor. He was in Gracie and Frankie, or Gracie and Frankie. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Sophie and Gracie. Yeah. So terrible. So terrible. Yeah. Baron and I met making a film. We were in a movie together in L.A. and we became friends.
00:32:24
Speaker
we moved to Atlanta around the same time. He moved here with his family for personal reasons as well. And so when we met up for coffee one day, just out of the necessity of not having, not knowing as many people, I wanted to create community of people who loved performing, loved stories, loved to act, but also loved to write. I just wanted to have a space where we could be created together, but not
00:32:51
Speaker
feel the pressure of having to do it well. Because everyone is very creative. You need that kind of safe space and incubator of sorts for your errant ideas. You have a space to experiment and just come. And I guess artists go to their studios all the time and make art. Writers
00:33:14
Speaker
know, show up to their writing tablets and write, you know, like a creator has to create, you know, and performers need an audience, performers need to be in rehearsal. So I just wanted to create that for myself. So again, because it's something that I wanted to do, Baron and I started and it literally started with maybe two or three people I had met who I was like, Oh, are you an actor? I'm an actor too. I just moved here and you know, you want to join my
00:33:40
Speaker
acting group. And luckily, we got the plaza theater, this great local, great space in a great, great location. Yeah, right in the middle of town, right in the middle of town, you know, kind of like an old movie theater, not so very far plus a look it up. It's an old, beautiful movie theater. So we get to rehearse in this theater. And like, just, you know, Saturday mornings, we show up alone to do and we
00:34:08
Speaker
We just jam and it just grew and grew and...
00:34:11
Speaker
I get to experience on a weekly basis something really beautiful and great. For me as an actor, actually, my favorite times are in rehearsals. My favorite times is in the discovery, in rehearsals, when you discover something new and then you just do it and then maybe you can never, ever, ever repeat it again, but you found it there. It's in the discovery of it and in that search and in the work.
00:34:41
Speaker
You know, and so I facilitate the space and it's grown so much.
00:34:45
Speaker
I had this idea, you know, I've always, my dream since moving to Atlanta, I wanted to have a neighborhood community theater where it's not just people who are in this field that get to work, but architects who want to build a set, you know, like maybe somebody wants to make costumes for us or design, you know, design car. Like I just wanted to have a project, a common project of telling a story and creating the story together.
00:35:15
Speaker
with our neighbors and keep it local, you know, because I think everyone needs to kind of go back to being local. And that's where we have the most sort of say and some sort of make some sort of. This is such a vibrant community. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. I've always had like this dream to like have this like sort of neighborhood community theater of sorts. And so it's kind of from that, like, you know, hanging out in EAB, which is East Atlanta Village. And I looked at
00:35:44
Speaker
Grant's East Pizza. Right, Grant Central East. Grant Central East Pizza. And they had a stage. And I'm like, Hey, can we do a show here? And we called it Pizza and Stories. And it was so fun. We were rehearsing anyways. And we were rehearsing without actually ever thinking we were going to perform. I was like, Hey, let's perform. So how long had you been bringing people together before you had the Grant Central performance?
00:36:12
Speaker
five, six months. Right on. Got it. And that was a very successful show that made me tons of people. It was incredibly packed. And a lot of actors performed, you know, and a lot of different work. Someone's saying, you know, someone played some music. Yeah, I didn't know that, you know, you have a party and you know,
00:36:37
Speaker
show right everybody show everyone came yeah you know it's funny it's like we ran out of seats and we ran out of table I was like having everyone sit at table yep we ran out and so we went next door to Banshee and we borrowed their chairs and they're like
00:36:52
Speaker
Love it. So this is like, I don't know, I love that kind of spirit, you know, everyone kind of watching out for each other. It's like, Oh, you guys are doing a plan. Yeah, take the chair. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, after doing that, there was a request to do some more. So now it's become the same. And the last show, the second one we had was at Pullman Yards, which was, you know,
00:37:15
Speaker
It's a huge venue. It's an incredibly huge venue. It's a beautiful venue. Beautiful space. So much history. We had the privilege of coming there. Yeah, it's growing. It's so sweet. It's kind of like... And just to talk about this, since this is development stuff, so you basically just went to the owners of Grand Central and you were like, hey, can we do this reading thing here? Yeah. And they were like, okay, cool. Yeah, they were like, oh, Phil.
00:37:43
Speaker
There's all the programming here. You're like, there's a programming guy? Hilarious. So Phil looked you up. Yeah, there's a programmer there.
00:37:55
Speaker
And like I say, just got to ask, and that's how you know. And then you had said Pullman Yarts was because you're friends with the folks who rent Pullman Yarts, right? Yeah, one of my best friends. She's, you know, they're mom and pop developers. They've known so much for the city to, you know, provide that space. And she came to the pizza joint, she's sitting in one of the tables, and she's like,
00:38:19
Speaker
You know, you could cut some lives. Oh, I love it. So that's kind of how that ended up the thing. Oh, that's fantastic. That's great to know. Because I was curious about that. You know, these are the kind of questions artists often have for me is like, how did you get that space? So I'm like, well, you have a friend or you like, ask, right? Again, it's not always because you know someone, but it can be right. If you're doing the work and you're making the work and you're presenting the work, I mean,
00:38:48
Speaker
you're going to meet the people that invite you. It wasn't me going after stop and you're seeking after a bigger venue or anything like that. Sometimes it's like that. You just make the work and the work sort of has its own life. So true.
00:39:06
Speaker
Yeah, I completely agree with that. And so where is the material that is performed? Where does that come from? So a lot of it's our own writing. Oh, very cool. My piece that I did at the New York was a silent retreat that I incorporated some of the other performers. And then, yeah, I had sort of like a beginnings of a one-woman show that I'm sort of writing. So it kind of all was like a mash of that.
00:39:34
Speaker
because it's jam and it's very much celebrating process and we're not like a production and it's not produced, you're kind of seeing the seeds of it. Because of that we have an immense amount of freedom in terms of like the work we can bring. So
00:39:50
Speaker
You know, sometimes we can even bring our favorite scenes from our favorite playwrights. So you invite people that attend the jam on Saturdays at the Plaza to bring material in. And then you might select material for the shows that y'all are doing. And by shows, we mean it's memorized, but there's not a ton of tech or there's no set, there's no costumes, but it's memorized. It's kind of like whatever they feel
00:40:19
Speaker
So it doesn't necessarily have to be. Got it. Okay. And there's not like directors working on it. That's you. You're kind of facilitating and managing and directing. Got it. Okay, cool. So it's been really fun to
00:40:31
Speaker
we do assign directors, they'll be performers within the performance jam, sort of volunteer to be like, Hey, I want to kind of shape that. Like, can I direct it? And so I get to wear a little bit of every like different hats. I'd never done tech before and I for Pullman yards, we needed tech. So that was
00:40:49
Speaker
health and a huge humbling learning experience. But, you know, again, I got to expand my resources. But that's that's the key. Like you tried something new and it's not always going to be perfect. So what are you so obviously you just did this big show at Pullman Yards. So you've taken a break. Gem is sort of a constant. So it's every Saturday. Yeah, every Saturday at the Plaza Theater.
00:41:19
Speaker
Awesome. I'm going to obviously include this in our materials, but let's also say that we can, y'all can find Vivian at at iambang on Instagram and you can find performance jam information at at performance jam on Instagram as well. And I love what you're doing with that too. Like you're featuring the artists and the writing and the process. So that's been really cool.
00:41:46
Speaker
I think there needs to be more work like this happening in Atlanta. I thank you for doing this because as someone who's also doing it, I see the need and there's just no way that one organization or even three could fulfill it. And also, I think sometimes
00:42:05
Speaker
like working title when it was very, very small, it was more nimble in some of these ways. But now that we're so much bigger, we've got 100 playwrights, we get all these actors we work with, you know, it means it's less flexible than, Oh, can you do a reading of my play? Or can we do this thing, right? So the idea of really enjoying that flexibility when you're making your own work. Yeah, I think artists don't realize, yes, it is a lot of work to produce your own thing. It's a lot of work. It's a ton of work. But
00:42:33
Speaker
But how much does it give back to you and how much freedom do you have in deciding how it's going to go, right? Yeah, I think, yeah, the price of freedom is that you don't have a lot of
00:42:46
Speaker
Yeah, sometimes a lot of resources or support. I learned that in tech, right? In tech, it was really, really hard. I mean, I was sourcing logs from film friends that I had met right now. Oh my gosh. And Holmoo was really helpful, of course, when they didn't have like a technical director just to give us, you know, so it was a lot of, it was very humbling. And sometimes it gets, you just have to borrow and whatever.
00:43:12
Speaker
I think we don't have to rely so heavily on this idea that you have to have money or you have to have an establishment to support you. We really can make it work. And I think something that's really important to note is how few performance venues and spaces there are in Atlanta.
Challenges in Atlanta's Artistic Scene
00:43:37
Speaker
we're often making spaces that are not theaters or venues meant for that into spaces that are. So it can be really challenging to turn those spaces into that. How do you sustain? It's hard to sustain. We're not doing this to make money. But people do need to pay their rents and live. So these are questions that are very complicated.
00:44:07
Speaker
You can't always just be making work because our system's not set up to support us just making work that matters. I know, right?
00:44:21
Speaker
I know. You have to work and you have to get a job, you have to pay rent, you have to pay this and that. And somehow you're supposed to stay in flow so that you can make the work. Me sometimes. Well, how do you do that, right? Yeah, super challenging. I remember one of our friends, Aaron, you know, I was asking everyone why they were there at the space on a Saturday, you know, you want to get brunch or something with your friends, like, where are you there on a Saturday?
00:44:47
Speaker
One of the, one of the performers, Erin was like, you know, I don't want to be here actually. Like I'm so tired. I have two jobs. I just showed up because I didn't want to let my scene partner down working on this thing. And I didn't want to let my scene partner down. And I'm like, God, that's so beautiful. Like sometimes you just show up because you have to show up for somebody else, you know? And that was, and then, you know, she also said she always gets something out of it. And she was kind of like,
00:45:15
Speaker
Going to the gym, right? I think that's how it can be sometimes because it can really be like pulling teeth sometimes. But I commend you. Thank you for bringing people together and doing that work because it is in service to the collective and to the process. And, you know, as much as it would be great if we could get paid to stand our creative flow, that's just part of being an artist, right? Like finding spaces that activate you.
00:45:42
Speaker
so that you can be in flow when you need to be, whether you are making money or not, right? That is the hardest part of being a professional artist, you know, is what the balance of that, which is, of course, kind of what White Rabbit is about, which is great. I mean, it's a specific experimental theater artist. It's very much this, like, how do we do the art thing with capitalism? How does this work? And I often ask that question. I mean, we talk about it a lot on the podcast, and I think,
00:46:11
Speaker
For me, it's not about continuing to make make myself think that I'm never going to make it or it's always going to be like this. It's more like, you know, this is how it is. Where are the resources and what can I achieve and what will fulfill me? It is unconditional love that I give.
00:46:32
Speaker
And, you know, I mean, you can see that work that you've done in cultivating the community with how many people show up to those and how many people are involved. And, you know, so congratulations on that. That's really cool.
00:46:47
Speaker
I mean, for me, the biggest return to being in service to artists is getting to see them feel seen and heard and happy to be collaborating with people, you know, because that that to me is the key. Right. Because so many artists are really not very satisfied with a lot of those situations. So if you can just give them a place to do that, it's just really special. Yeah. And everyone has their own journey to what they do, what they
00:47:17
Speaker
You know, that's kind of not, yeah, to create these spaces and to, yeah, just bring people together. I mean, that's kind of like the job is to bring people together. And then when you bring people together, it sort of has its own creation. Sometimes it's not always positive.
00:47:38
Speaker
Sometimes it's just like, oh yeah, I shouldn't have done that. Like, why am I doing this? All the time, all the time in the middle of the room. Oh my gosh. I'm so stressed. I'm like, why am I doing this? But then like I told you, you know, like a couple of days later after a good rest and crying bed, you're like, okay, what's the next one? Exactly. That's true. It's so true.
00:48:02
Speaker
And you're like, I did that. I did that and survived it, you know, which is really an accomplishment period, right? I don't know. Yeah, I guess I'm always looking for the next. So it's like hard to reflect. But yeah, it was a good time. Yeah. If people were people were thinking, yeah, I want to start my own collective. I want to do something kind of like this. Is there any advice that you would give them?
00:48:31
Speaker
Yeah, find people you like working with. Find people who like what you like and start there. I do definitely think that our jam is made up of so many different people who come from different walks of life with very different perspectives. I don't like feeding spaces with like-minded people.
00:48:52
Speaker
get a bubble of your own, you know, that's great advice, whatever, make sure that you have a diversity of perspectives and beings around you. Oh, yeah, you're, you know, like, yeah, but definitely when you're starting something, of course, you have to have just
00:49:07
Speaker
a commonality of like, what do you want? You want to play? Yeah, I want to play. You know, I don't want to play. Playing is the last thing I want to do. Money or, you know, it's different. So you just want to have like similar goals. But definitely people you like, even if they're so different than you, like, it's just, you spend so much time working, like working is what like 80% of our days or you just want to work with people you love. Yeah, you spend too much time at work with people that
00:49:38
Speaker
for you not to enjoy them. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, Baron has been like my partner and I go, you know, we're such, we work so well together. And we're so supportive, you know, for the last jam, he was away and upstate doing work. And so he's kind of on me, but still like knowing that I could call him and just to
00:49:59
Speaker
have a partner in crime, you know, it's just a huge support. So a lot of times I work really fast. And so I can get really frustrated. And I remember someone told me, if you want to do something fast and quick and do it by yourself, you want to do it for the long haul with others. Oh, that's interesting. That's really interesting. Yeah.
00:50:23
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, I think if you want to move fast, sometimes that doesn't work in a collective because there's one like agreed upon ways of doing it. So if you change it up with other people, there's a, exactly. Yeah. It becomes an issue. Exactly. Exactly. So true. So true. It's frustrating. There's drama, there's fit, you know, dealing with people like alone. What is it like a church?
00:50:50
Speaker
They say, God is a church, but the devil comes to the cafeteria. Oh my God. Yeah, any sort of people run organization, there's just going to be stuff. Yeah.
00:51:06
Speaker
I think, especially in these modern days where we are so isolated and living in our own bubbles, I think our tolerance for conflict is just so weak, you know? I agree. I agree. It's just complex. When you're dealing with other people, there's going to be conflict. And to navigate, that's part of being human. And I think we're so scared. And it can be so uncomfortable, so I get it. But yeah, I'm all for,
00:51:36
Speaker
working with collectives. So with that, I want to say, Vivian, you are awesome. Thank you so much for joining me today. I don't know how to handle it. I know, right? And I'm just so grateful we met on the dance floor. Shout out to Banshee. Thank you, Vivian. Take care.
00:51:59
Speaker
Thank you listeners for tuning in to Table Work, how new plays get made with Amber Bradshaw. This podcast was brought to you by Working Title Playwrights. If you like what you've heard today, support this podcast and all our initiatives by leaving us a review, following us, and or consider making a tax deductible donation to Working Title Playwrights at www.workingtitelplaywrights.com.