Burst

From the Director

One child, then 15-year-old Greta Thunberg, ditched school and sat alone in front of the Swedish parliament with a sign calling for climate action. Other students joined her and created Fridays for the Future…and here we are, now, today in the United States; watching as the world wakes up continent by continent to the 3rd Global Climate Strike. Millions of people, young and old, taking time out from ‘the usual’ to demand a future our children (or they themselves) can live into.  

Here we are. 
 
We see these huge movements, huge companies, even huge theatre festivals and we forget that they all…all started with one person. One person whose vision and care was so deep and so broad that they attracted other people to them who shared those values.  People who were just waiting to be invited into something greater than themselves.  
 
Hmmm…how American was that?  One person?  
 
Like the paradox of big truth arising from the artifice of a play on a stage, we like to simplify things so they are easier to understand. And for good reason. With so much information and worries that arise in the course of a day our brains do the best they can to keep us functional—not frozen—overloaded with the sheer volume of information we’ve no choice but to process or neatly file away and ignore.  
 
Playwright, Rachel Bublitz’ Burst holds these two realities up for us. Yes, the individual matters—their spark is the most important catalyst for change. Yes, nothing can be done alone—nothing will change if we don’t work together. 
 
But what happens when the imagined realities we’ve created get in the way? What happens when we decide that lack of money, lack of resources, lack of connections are obstacles that must be overcome? And what happens when those imagined realities are so concrete that those obstacles are real?  
 
Rachel demonstrates a need. And she does it in the only medium that holds the paradox within its own magical space…the theatre.  
 
It is here where we come to have an intimate, individual experience…in community. 
 
This is why the theatre holds power…because after you have individually interpreted this piece of art…the lights will come up and you’ll be able to lean over to the person next to you and say…What do we do next?
 
Danika Sudik, Director
September 20, 2019