Performance Interface Lab Returns with LAB B Series of Interactive, Theatre-for-One Performance Pieces

Following a successful run of LAB A shows woolgatherings, Couples Therapy, and OUT OF TIME and an extension of OUT OF TIME that sold out in 24 hours, Performance Interface Lab returns with their LAB B series, featuring three new works. The Lab has produced a separate series of live, interactive, at-home, theatre-for-one pieces to be performed in 30 minutes or less for each added month of stay-at-home orders.

The Performance Interface Lab was founded in late March 2020 by DC theatremaker Dylan Arredondo in response to the closure of traditional theatrical venues from the COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing social distancing measures. Founders decided that rather than respond to a paradigm shift after it had occurred, they wanted to be at the forefront testing out how we'd need to adapt. What is the nature of creating work that is as rigorous and as intentional now using the tools that we have (and do not have) to our advantage? The goal of the Performance Interface Lab (PIL) is to reckon with the spatial, social, and creative limits being placed upon us right now and to recontextualize them as opportunities to adapt and renew the platform of theatre. This is a laboratory intended to explore that.

LAB B, running from May 8 through 24, features 3 new works: Love Story: A Meal in Five Courses, SNAP CRACKLE PROP, and The Other City. The core objectives of LAB B are (1) to create a piece to be enacted for only one audience member at a time, (2) to explore an element of interactivity to increase the sense of theatricality when we lack shared gathering space, (3) to directly engage with technological interfaces through which the exchange takes place, (4) to edit the work into a piece of microtheatre no longer than 30 minutes in length, and (5) to craft the piece into something repeatable under guidelines of social distancing specified by the CDC. Each work is generated and enacted by two collaborators from across the country, with at least one person in the pair being a DC-based freelance artist, and many of whom are currently out of work due to the health crisis. Through the model of Pay-What-You-Will tickets, the proceeds go immediately into the pockets of the freelance artists enacting your piece. In addition to the currently running LAB B, PIL has already assembled a line-up of collaborators for its LAB C, likely to occur in June in accordance with continued social distancing measures.

Love Story: A Meal in Five Courses uses the five senses to conjure both a meal and a love story. How do the senses inspire memory? Is touch possible through a computer screen? How do you taste the memory of love? Can you experience love by something other than emotion? Culinarily crafted by Rachel Hynes and Anastasia Wilson, this piece invites you to a communal meal of memory.

Created by Philip Kenner and Matt Meyers, SNAP CRACKLE PROP is an interactive radio play about children's cereal, sound effects, and the crunchy caves of our imagination. SNAP CRACKLE PROP will give you a chance to step into the shoes of a Foley artist, where you will create sound effects for children's cereal commercials using the objects in your own home. You will meet Jason: a voice actor who can get a little lost in the work. If you're looking for a laugh and an auditory obstacle course, this journey will delight you.

In The Other City, an urban planner with a special vision wants to build a world with you. Kathleen Akerley & Emily Whitworth share a fascination with the spaces in which we live - the mental and emotional spaces. We each live in a city to which we currently have limited access: our homes have become our cities; our bodies are the only constant cities. Have we built them all with more love than vigilance? More vigilance than love?

LAB B runs May 8 through 24, Friday through Sunday evenings, and Saturday/Sunday afternoons, in half-hour time slots. All pieces are to be experienced from within your home, and thus require a basic technical interface and WiFi through which to communicate. The interfaces (phone, Zoom, website, etc.) being used by each piece are specified on the website. Please visit the company at <www.theinterfacelab.com> to purchase Pay-What-You-Will tickets and learn more, and follow them on Facebook to stay updated on future lab cycles or to submit a proposal.