NOVEMBER 2017 IN THIS ISSUE LIZT ALFONSO DANCE CUBA November 16-18 MONTROSE TRIO December 9 MARK O’CONNOR’S AN APPALACHIAN CHRISTMAS Featuring the O’Connor Band December 16-17 October 2017 Volume 14, No. 2 Paul Heppner Publisher FALL 2017 Sara Keats Encore Stages Editor Susan Peterson Design & Production Director Contents Ana Alvira, Robin Kessler, 3 "The Play’s the Thing” Shaun Swick, Stevie VanBronkhorst Is Theatre our Ideal Production Artists and Graphic Design Empathy Workout? Mike Hathaway Sales Director Dialogue Brieanna Bright, Joey Chapman, 7 Shaya Lyon and the Ann Manning Live Music Project Seattle Area Account Executives Amelia Heppner, Marilyn Kallins, Terri Reed 9 A Conversation with San Francisco/Bay Area Account Executives Simone Hamilton Carol Yip Sales Coordinator Intermission Brain Transmission 12 Test yourself with our 310 Terry Avenue. trivia quiz Seattle, WA 98109 Leah Baltus Editor-in-Chief 206-971-0717 Encore Stages is an Encore Arts www.bravehorsetavern.com Andy Fife Program that features stories about Publisher our local arts community side-by-side Dan Paulus with information about performances. Art Director Encore Arts Programs are publications Gemma Wilson, Jonathan Zwickel of Encore Media Group. We also publish Senior Editors City Arts, the monthly arts & culture Amanda Manitach magazine, and specialty publications, Business, Visual Arts Editor including the Offical Seattle Pride Guide and the SIFF Guide and Catalog. Learn Barry Johnson Associate Digital Editor more at encoremediagroup.com meet box Encore Stages features the following organizations: office. Paul Heppner President Mike Hathaway Encore connects Vice President your business Genay Genereux Accounting & Office Manager to arts patrons Sara Keats Marketing Manager wherever they are. Ciara Caya Customer Service Representative & Administrative Assistant Corporate Office 425 North 85th Street Seattle, WA 98103 p 206.443.0445 f 206.443.1246 [email protected] 800.308.2898 x105 To learn what Encore can www.encoremediagroup.com do for your business, visit Encore Arts Programs is published monthly by Encore Media encoremediagroup.com. Group to serve musical and theatrical events in the Puget Sound and San Franc isco Bay Areas. All rights reserved. ©2017 Encore Media Group. Reproduction without written permission is prohibited. 2 ENCORE STAGES “The Play’s the Thing” Is Theatre our Ideal Empathy Workout? New Century Theatre Company's production of Festen, 2016. From left: Conner Neddersen, MJ Sieber. Photo by John Ulman. Maia Kinney-Petrucha The first time I cried at the theatre, I Hundreds of plays later, I found was eleven. It was a local production myself studying the science behind examines the theoretical of West Side Story, and after being performance. Why is the experience so and applied science of unimpressed by the film, I wasn’t significant? I approached this question creating empathy through expecting much. But when I saw the from both a cognitive scientific and an tears on Maria’s face as she held Tony’s artistic perspective. My work consisted theatre. lifeless body, I was right there with her. of theoretical and applied research, I had never been in love. I had never beginning with the creation of a 2016 lost someone I loved. I was not a Puerto documentary theatre production Rican immigrant from the 1950s. I was entitled The Stories We Are. sure the actress didn’t have the same history as the character, but there she The show was devised at Hampshire was, embodying Maria's pain. And there College by seven ensemble members I was, feeling my heart wrench along who were asked to explore personal with everyone else’s in the room, and storytelling through a variety of understanding a mix of emotions I had performance mediums. There were never encountered. It was education. It two remarkable results: the actors’ was connection. It was power. evolution toward kindness and respect encoremediagroup.com/programs 3 for one another, and the audience’s Trinity College, Cambridge, developed heightened emotional reactions. Seeing a chart from his 2011 empathy research people tell real stories on stage elicited called, “The Empathy Bell Curve.” It We don’t strong responses from the audience, suggests that everyone has different levels and I hypothesized that there is of empathy, but we all fall somewhere on witness theatre, something about theatre in particular a spectrum. What if where we sit on that that transforms the way we consider curve shifts throughout our lives? or work as humanity. After surviving millennia, theatremakers, theatre remains one of the most desirable Just as we must use any of our abilities modes of storytelling. Beyond the joy of to retain and strengthen them, we without entertainment, there is something we must do the same for our empathy. gain at the neural level by engaging with Unfortunately, we aren't prompted to experiencing theatre, something that defines our need experience empathy very deeply in for performing arts. daily life, and when we do there are empathy. contingencies. We empathize more easily with people we identify with and form after the show, but every night audiences personal relationships to. For instance, it’s were much more willing to share after After seeing The Stories We Are, a colleague impossible to empathize all at once with watching the actors perform. Our expressed to me what she gets out of the thousands of victims of hate crimes empathy motivates us to copy others in going to the theatre: “I like [having] an every year in the US. However, we can the moment. emotional upwelling. I forget my life empathize with the family of Matthew and I pay attention to what’s happening, Shepard, whose murder in 1998 became and then I can feel things based on my a spark of national outrage against In a 2012 study, researchers Thalia interpretation of what people are feeling.” homophobia and still resonates today Goldstein and Ellen Winner assessed with productions of the documentary play This sensation is called empathy, an empathy levels in elementary and high The Laramie Project. In stories, emotions ability we have to recognize and then school students who had received one are not only bolder and appear in quicker take on another person’s emotion in year of either acting, or other arts training. succession, but by pigeonholing a larger the present moment. We don’t witness They found that those who had studied issue and reaching us on a personal level, theatre, or work as theatremakers, acting for the year, and not another type of they can access and test the limits of our without experiencing empathy. Our main art, showed the most significant growth in empathy. task is to feel what another is feeling. It empathy scores. is the key to our involvement in a story, In that sense, observing and participating As children, pretend play guides our how we process emotional plot, predict in storytelling is like working out at the acquisition of empathy while our minds behavior, and understand a character’s gym. The practice of perspective taking develop. We use role-playing as children mental state. Performers achieve this with expands our minds. Theatre may just be to form these social capacities. Despite training. Audiences have empathy thrust the best empathy gym of them all. upon them. In both cases, we exercise pretend play being less socially acceptable empathy. as we get older, we’ve found other ways of imbedding it into our culture, including This isn’t news. Empathy is one of theatre’s Jessica Blank and Eric Jenson’s play theatre. Whether on stage or in the biggest attractions. Why bother going to The Exonerated was a compilation of audience, we are absorbed in an act of see a show that doesn’t make you laugh, interviews they conducted with six putting ourselves in another’s shoes. This cry, or your heart race? What is invaluable criminals on death row, each of whom consistent desire for pretend implies a to understand, however, is that through eventually suffered their way to freedom recurring need to enhance empathy into its activation in theatre, our empathy after proving their innocence. The adulthood. Theatre is a tool, adapted can grow. While crucial to our social authors spoke with audiences before from the basics of pretend play, which can cognition, it isn’t something we often and after the show, and found that the increase our social skillset at any age. operate consciously, making it a harder majority empathized with the people in skill to reinforce. Still, because empathy the stories far more after seeing the play Theatre activates a number of mental is both something we are born with and a than when they only had a description of capabilities, many of which are members skill, it can progress through experience, their conviction. In The Stories We Are, we of what is called, “The Empathy Circuit,” or be diminished without. introduced an interactive lobby display a phrase developed by Baron-Cohen to for the audience comprising of activities describe the vast mechanism in charge Simon Baron-Cohen, professor of where they could share personal stories. of the many ingredients that make up Developmental Psychopathology at the These activities were available before and empathy. University of Cambridge and Fellow at 4 ENCORE STAGES My wealth. My priorities. My partner. You’ve spent your life accumulating wealth. And, no doubt, that wealth now takes many forms, sits in many places, and is managed by many advisors. Unfortunately, that kind of fragmentation creates gaps that can hold your wealth back from its full potential. The Private Bank can help. The Private Bank uses a proprietary approach called the LIFE Wealth Cycle SM to ­ind those gaps—and help you achieve what is important to you.