Avenues for Imagination

As mentioned previously, I went and saw a show a few weeks ago called "Absolutely Filthy," which was a take on the Peanuts gang twenty years down the road. The story was told from the point of view of Pigpen, now homeless and still plagued by the perpetual dust cloud that helped give him his name. The actor did an excellent job in the role, made even more impressive by the fact that he spent 85% of show constantly hula-hooping. I felt rather foolish that it wasn’t until after the show that I realized the hula-hoop was meant to represent his dust cloud. *facepalm*



As fascinating as the show was, its origin is equally if not more so. Along with their main stage performances, Sacred Fools also has a 21-week series called "Serial Killers" (now in its eighth season). The premise is "five shows enter…three shows leave." At the start of the season five short stories are written and performed for the audience. At the end of the night the audience votes on which three stories should continue on to the following week, with the other two being tossed in the trash bin. The following week those two empty slots are replaced with two new stories, and this voting process continues. The stories that make it through the entire (or majority of) season are often then work-shopped into full-fledged productions for the following year. "Absolutely Filthy" was one of these productions. So was "Watson," which was another excellent production by Sacred Fools, as sequel to which will also becoming out later this year.

Pretty cool, huh? I’ve never heard of such an entertaining process of work-shopping ideas, but now that I have I want to do it myself. Who knows what sort of brilliant crazy bullshit me and my friends could come up with over a 21-week period. And yet, as cool as I think it is, I’ve STILL somehow managed not see a single performance of “Serial Killers.” Hopefully I’ll have that rectified in the next month or two.

Image source: 1.