SOAPBOX is a group public performance that will take place in downtown Durham on October 19, 2018, Third Friday. This work will feature orations by twelve actors standing atop a circle of soapboxes, an all-female chorus, original live music, and a celebratory community procession.

Text and imagery will zero in on twelve “American Archetypes” that will be the basis for each oration. The company and I will spend the next two months developing the script. My aim is to create twelve monologues that reflect human dignity inside the melting pot of viewpoints in our country right now, and to construct a dynamic snapshot of America through our local community's eyes and experiences.

The performance will begin at the intersection of Main and Chapel Hill Streets in downtown Durham, where our company will invite passersby to participate in our procession. We will parade down the sidewalk to CBC Plaza, to a circle of soapboxes where actors will “take the stage” and deliver their orations. Standing inside this circle will be the music ensemble and women’s chorus, periodically injecting their responses into the actors’ performances. The chorus and additional volunteers will operate visual elements -- inflatable scenery, large pictographs, and lightweight puppets. The idea is to create an engaging, cacophonous, pulsating, group "organism".

SOAPBOX will be a festive, visually interesting, and thought-provoking spectacle, where each audience member will see and hear a different message, based upon their own perspective and upon their individual movement around the periphery of the company organism. The work will present an energetic portrait of the local community’s— and America’s— varying perspectives, and is intended to encourage us to listen to one another, and to tolerate and even celebrate our differences during this period of communal change.