The La Jolla Playhouse produces the festival, and the balance of performances embrace the festival name — Without Walls — literally, with a strong focus on work that is outdoors in some fashion or another.
Friday, October 25, 2019
We Don’t Need Walls Where We’re Going: 2019 Without Walls Festival Diary
The La Jolla Playhouse produces the festival, and the balance of performances embrace the festival name — Without Walls — literally, with a strong focus on work that is outdoors in some fashion or another.
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Site-specific theatre always fascinates me, probably because it seems so out of reach and so hard to produce and put on. I enjoyed the format of this article; the small vignette reviews of each piece helped to get a scope of what the festival was about, and how diverse the offerings were there. I would like to know more about the application process and the aims of the festival itself; I think that information would give more context to the overall goals of the festival and what kinds of performances they attract and let into the festival. I love the inclusion of the exhibits/performances meant for the kids at the festival; having an activity for the youngest patrons is so important and helps both the kids and the parents feel seen and validated for being there, or for taking their kids there and including them in the arts festival.
This festival definitely sounds like something I would love to attend. I like that the festival includes pieces that kids would love to see and interact with as well as adults. I do wish, however, that this article included more about the specific structure of the event as a whole. I did enjoy reading the reviews of each piece and seeing the range of different types of pieces presented, but I would like to learn about the process these artists have to go through in order to get chosen, or why a certain piece would be chosen over another. Then, of course, I would just love to read more about what it is like to physically be at the Without Walls Festival, but that might be something I'd have to experience in order to understand.
I really appreciate the honesty conveyed in this article. It takes a lot to walk the fine line of critiquing a show while not being overly negative, and I think this article does that. The event described seems fascinating to take part in to me because of the variety of experiences available, along with the resonating message some seem to have. I like analyzing smaller scale pieces with that kind of impact to see what makes them so effective because, ultimately, having an emotional or mental impact is what theatrical designers and technicians strive to do with each production, but the choices that make a smaller event so impactful rely on even more careful design consideration. I do have to mention that I greatly agree with Vanessa that I would like to know what the structure of the festival is because it seems to be a strange mix of experiences and installations, and I would love to know how the event functions as a whole to draw in audience members and make sure the festival makes people think but also enjoy the experience.
I really love this idea of creating theaters without walls without borders to the audience or the world in which it is being performed. Setting pieces that are meant to engage and work with an audience is always difficult and needs to be worked on sometimes in a different non-traditional environment than most traditional theatre is. We struggle with this kind of theatre often as we try to bridge the gap between it and traditional theatre but taking it so far outside of its realm as they seem to do with the festival I imagine really elevated the work in which they do and cremates a natural environment without borders for the audience and performers. I did really like some of the pieces that they talked about in this article and would love to see different types of performances like this in the future in things such as playground at CMU.
The idea of doing an outdoor and site-specific piece has always intrigued me. Seeing the creativity that went into these shows it's incredible to think about all the considerations that went into the locations they chose to get these stories across. In particular, I was interested in the way they chose to put Ikaros in an area where jets would be flying overhead. Given that the author didn't mention it being too loud I'm sure the designers worked hard on finding somewhere directly under a flight path but still far enough from the take-off and landing strips to provide a semi-quiet performance space for the actors to be heard over the engines of passing planes. I was first drawn to site-specific theatre when my highschool director told me about a show he saw that took place in the back of a semi-truck and was meant to be an immersive experience of illegally immigrating to America. Theatre like these shows is what makes me excited to be in this field and to work on such unique ways of storytelling.
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