Who's Who at Remy Bumppo
Visit us every two months as we highlight members of the Remy Bumppo community.
Remy Bumppo recently completed the inaugural year of thinkTank, a month long festival exploring the topic of immigration in today's society. Marketing Intern Molly Schneider recently sat down with the producer of thinkTank, Associate Artistic Director Shawn Douglass, to get his feedback on this new program.
Molly: What inspired you to launch thinkTank?
Shawn: We wanted to extend our mission by reaching beyond our current audience and beginning a more active engagement with the community. In a large part our audience led us to create this project. Our mainstage post-show discussions have made it clear to us that our audience is interested in talking about issues and ideas more than the details of how we put a production together.
What was your favorite aspect of thinkTank?
Being there on most nights to hear the post-show discussions. Not only did I learn something new every night I was there, but I also got to meet a number of recent immigrants and folks who work with immigrant populations. Every night there were people who came up to me and told me how much they identified with, and were moved by, the stories being told.
How did you first hear about Jeff Libman's book [An Immigrant Class], and what inspired you to adapt it?
I wanted to find a piece that would speak to more than just one ethnicity, but finding material was tough. I ended up Googling "Chicago immigrant stories" and Jeff's website came up. I checked the book out and immediately fell in love with the stories. I wanted to do with the show what Jeff achieved in the book - to put a human face on the immigration issue. To remind us that immigrant doesn't mean "other," but someone very much like ourselves who is struggling to make himself or herself at home in a completely new environment.
Do you know what next year's thinkTank topic will be?
We just decided on it this week. There isn't a catchy title for it yet, but we are going to investigate the tension between the need for national security and the individual's need for personal freedom and privacy. In the wake of the Patriot Act and our continuing war in Iraq, we want to look at the rights we are willing to sacrifice for national security, and what rights are slowly being eroded without us noticing.
What are some of your other upcoming projects, both with Remy Bumppo and elsewhere?
I am currently directing Holiday at Northwestern University where I continue to teach. It runs May 11 through 20. Over the summer, I will be reworking my stage adaptation of Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, and then in the fall, I return to Philip Barry as director of The Philadelphia Story for Remy Bumppo. I guess it's my Philip Barry year!
Shawn: We wanted to extend our mission by reaching beyond our current audience and beginning a more active engagement with the community. In a large part our audience led us to create this project. Our mainstage post-show discussions have made it clear to us that our audience is interested in talking about issues and ideas more than the details of how we put a production together.
What was your favorite aspect of thinkTank?
Being there on most nights to hear the post-show discussions. Not only did I learn something new every night I was there, but I also got to meet a number of recent immigrants and folks who work with immigrant populations. Every night there were people who came up to me and told me how much they identified with, and were moved by, the stories being told.
How did you first hear about Jeff Libman's book [An Immigrant Class], and what inspired you to adapt it?
I wanted to find a piece that would speak to more than just one ethnicity, but finding material was tough. I ended up Googling "Chicago immigrant stories" and Jeff's website came up. I checked the book out and immediately fell in love with the stories. I wanted to do with the show what Jeff achieved in the book - to put a human face on the immigration issue. To remind us that immigrant doesn't mean "other," but someone very much like ourselves who is struggling to make himself or herself at home in a completely new environment.
Do you know what next year's thinkTank topic will be?
We just decided on it this week. There isn't a catchy title for it yet, but we are going to investigate the tension between the need for national security and the individual's need for personal freedom and privacy. In the wake of the Patriot Act and our continuing war in Iraq, we want to look at the rights we are willing to sacrifice for national security, and what rights are slowly being eroded without us noticing.
What are some of your other upcoming projects, both with Remy Bumppo and elsewhere?
I am currently directing Holiday at Northwestern University where I continue to teach. It runs May 11 through 20. Over the summer, I will be reworking my stage adaptation of Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, and then in the fall, I return to Philip Barry as director of The Philadelphia Story for Remy Bumppo. I guess it's my Philip Barry year!