Theater of Inclusion

TOI Blog

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Strong Woman from Road of Flowers and Questions

Rebecca and I go to great lengths to cultivate an open creative process when we are working with young artists. We allow artists to get their hands around materials and methods knowing the content will naturally emerge. A rigorous practice of working out in the open is essential to the way and the why we […]

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Untitled Failure

Making mistakes is tough on one’s self image and essential to one’s self transformation. Mistakes are a part of everyday life. When we “brand” ourselves too brilliantly there isn’t any room for “failure” in the images we project of ourselves out into the world. Back in the day this was called “Keeping up with the […]

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Joy

This work is soft color pastel on black paper created today by a student at Indianapolis Public School 58 named after Ralph Waldo Emerson on the city’s east side. The school has quotes from Emerson’s works all over the hallways. Stuff like, “To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you […]

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Of Power Lines and Trees

Most theaters are dark places – mostly no windows kinds of places. Small theaters of this kind are called “black boxes” because when the lights are turned off the place is black. (This is my own naming theory.) Theatre and performance artists want black places so they can bring in their own flashlights and lamps […]

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Outgrowing Your Workspace

Everything doesn’t fit onto our screens. The glare and reflections that bounce off the glass and plastic protectors on our phones, tablets, laptops, and flatscreens creates barriers between us and our content. We don’t notice this. As I’m writing this on my computer I can see everything behind me, including myself, in any of the […]

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We Are All Equal – Period.

When we established Theater of Inclusion fifteen years ago we were focused on identifying the skill sets required to open up open dialogue. This meant boot-strap problem-solving. This meant paying close attention to how individuals expressed themselves. We had to back up and back up some more to look carefully at how people exhibited their […]

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One Artist One Hour My Garage

I’ve spent months writing sentences trying to express the daunting act of making something and then standing by it – literally standing by it. The writer Charlie Kaufman (Adaptation) said something like writing is more difficult for writers than for others. He was paraphrasing someone else who no doubt was a writer struggling with writing. […]

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Pause

Rebecca and I have worked in a lot of places. I can’t remember the name of the convention center in Vancouver or the college in Paducah. There was the art center in Mobile and the children’s museum in Lexington. I remember the barricaded school in East Toledo and more than a few stages in northern […]

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Museums in my Mind

When I was a kid and wasn’t feeling well my mom used to recite from memory a poem by Robert Louis Stevenson entitled “The Land of Counterpane”. It begins: “When I was sick and lay a-bed, I had two pillows at my head, And all my toys beside me lay, To keep me happy all […]

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The Artist Teaching Herself

I’m pretty sure the science shows we all have a default setting that we learn by doing and teach by example. We crave direct experience that puts us into meaningful contact with each other and makes us more aware of our own insights. When we learn we teach ourselves. When we are caught in the […]