BIO

Paul is an artist living and working in New York. In the past, he has worked with with Lincoln Center Theatre, The Pearl Theatre Company, Second Stage Theatre, Williamstown Theatre Festival, The Kennedy Center, Ensemble Studio Theatre, The Working Theatre, Three Day Hangover, The New Harmony Project, The Group Lab,  Amios and Red Stage Theatre. He received a BS in theatre from the University of Evansville and an MFA in acting from Rutgers. Do it for the Fat Lady.

INSPIRED BY

henson / saunders / white / steinbeck / mcmurtry

It doesn’t feel specific yet.
Something about how to survive, heroes and villains, telling the truth, the way we’re raised, being lost, being found.

I am trying to understand how I spent most of my life thinking everything was "Winnable." I believe that it is taught. Taught in the way we tell stories, taught in the way we idolize and disparage.

I have been mostly drawing on ideas from The Western and the life of Wyatt Earp, and trying to tie that in some way to how untethered i feel in my life right now. I love westerns. I love their simple world. Good guys and bad guys. I long for it. And I hate that I long for that simplicity.

This piece
originally started as something completely different
But we started it when movements like #metoo and Black Lives Matter were taking off across the country
We are both straight, white, cisgendered males. || We want to be allies. We want to be a cause for good
But we found we were harboring defensiveness and guilt || and we wanted to know why
We started talking.
We scrapped our original idea, and shifted the piece to the conversations we were having.
is about privilege.

This piece
follows a human male, (played by two performers: Mind/Body) who is born into a galactic xenological zoo in which he is an exhibit
Human (Mind/Body) learns about his world  and is conditioned by it
The zoo, like America, is a deeply flawed system. It mirrors the systematic prejudices we see all around us The zoo prioritizes Human’s needs over other species
But Human (like most people with status) is completely oblivious to his entitlements. He sees and understands the world as essentially fair
Human is completely wrapped up in the false but widespread Individualistic Worldview (in which bad things only occur because of bad people) and therefore blames the problems in his society (the zoo) on the underserved and oppressed alien populations that live there
Until a sentient cloud arrives and offers all beings in the zoo a choice: stay and continue living in the unjust system, or leave and take a leap into love
More and more of the zoo’s exhibits take the cloud’s offer and disappear
Human handles the changes badly (as many of us with privilege do)
He is forced to wake up to the ramifications of his own privilege and begin the journey towards accepting the cloud’s offer
is about love.

This piece
uses the theatrical to reach the audience
it utilizes projected animation and video art to represent the zoo and it’s alien inhabitants
Within the small playing area numerous screens and surfaces are used for projections, which should illuminate the complete and pervasive nature of Human’s conditioning
The performance incorporates simple, highly theatrical movement sequences
is an exchange.