Directing Work

I would describe my aesthetic as one of productive discomfort.

I believe the expectation most audiences have when coming to witness theater is not unlike the expectation most of us have when we go to a restaurant: feed me something delicious and sumptuous, thrilling yet familiar, perhaps with just enough of an ‘exotic’ twist to keep things dynamic and to make us feel good for trying something out of our comfort zone. I find this expectation especially common of audiences seeking out pieces of art rendered by an artist of color. The unspoken contract seems to be that the audience gets to come away from the show belly full, vindicated of their own goodness for coming to see and support the ‘diverse’ art.

Now I don’t wish for audiences to choke on their ‘food’ at my shows, for them to need to stop the meal and leave the restaurant, alienation for the sake of alienation is not my goal. But I do think that, ideally, good art should come with a little heartburn. That the truth that's being told to them isn’t some simple carb one can easily digest and pass by the time we applaud and go home, but something that lingers in the esophagus, something that's still niggling at you on the drive home, or while you lay in bed that night. A discomfort that, ideally, leads the consumer to get curious about that sensation. Where it is, why they’re feeling it, where did it come from, why it won’t go away.