Content Disclosure: Strobe lighting effects will be used during this performance and may be disorienting for some viewers.

Tonight’s program begins with the presentation of three performance pieces, created over the last five days by Bowling Green State University students in collaboration with ensemble members of Elevator Repair Service (ERS), a world-renown and award-winning experimental theatre company, based in New York. Founded in 1991, ERS creates original works with an ongoing ensemble. Each piece presented tonight will last approximately 15 minutes (with a few minutes of transition between each). Following the presentation of these pieces, John Collins, the Founder and Artistic Director or ERS, will talk with Jonathan Chambers, Chair of BGSU’s Department of Theatre and Film, about the company’s creative process and work.

The pieces are original compositions derived from the students’ and ERS ensemble members’ imaginative interpretations of selections from The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil, a 2005 novella by the American writer George Saunders. Kirkus summarizes the action of the novella as follows:

[The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil] concerns the tensions between two countries, Inner Horner and Outer Horner. Inner Horner is the smallest country imaginable, so small that only one of its seven inhabitants can fit within its borders at a time. Then it inexplicably gets even smaller, making it impossible for Inner Hornerites to avoid “invading” the boundaries of the surrounding and more prosperous Outer Horner. Because their country is larger and has greater resources, the Outer Hornerites feel that they are favored by God, and that the fate of the Inner Hornerites reflects their innate inferiority. Citizens in this society are some combination of plant and machine; Outer Horner’s president has multiple mustaches and chins (and three legs); and the media are mindlessly inept, parroting what they’re told, distorting what they see. As an Outer Hornerite pursuing a personal agenda against Inner Horner, a bitter citizen named Phil seizes power from the apparently senile president and bends the political apparatus of his country to his will. He imposes an onerous tax on the citizens of Inner Horner whenever they enter Outer Horner (where at least some of their body parts invariably intrude), thus turning victims into criminals. He then convinces his fellow citizens that those criminals are the embodiment of an absolute evil that must be exterminated.

Enjoy the show!

Elevator Repair Service - Ensemble Members in Residence at BGSU

Dee Beasneal

John Collins

Maggie Hoffman

Becky Hermenze

Vin Knight

Gavin Price