Last updated on November 26, 2023
Podcast 0008; Season 01, Episode 08; May 8, 2018
Bricolage Production Company
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
The Forest of Everywhere…
May 17 – June 3, 2018
$12 – First Chaperone is FREE
A colossal storm has rearranged the entire globe, causing whole cities to change locations! Swept up from all across the world, our furry and feathered animal friends have found refuge in a beautiful enchanted Forest. Help Don Key the dancing burro, Esther the singing ostrich, and Simon the napping alpaca adjust to their new home as you dig for bugs, play instruments, and make your mark in the chalk cave.
This fully accessible experience takes your kids out of their seats and into a real-life adventure. They’ll explore an open-world environment, have one-on-one interactions, and play without the restrictions and rules of traditional theater. Sitting is not a requirement. Being quiet for long periods of time is not a requirement. The Forest of Everywhere was built with children on the autism spectrum and their families in mind, and is a place where all kids can be themselves.
Transcript (lightly edited)
Hello and welcome to The Autistic Me Podcast.
I’m Christopher Scott Wyatt. And today I’m sitting with Tami Dixon of Bricolage Production Company, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. They have an exciting production coming up that will show what is possible when you operate an inclusive and open theater environment called the…
Tami Dixon: The Forest of Everywhere. Yes.
Scott: Yes. My four-year-old already knows the name.
Before we begin I’d like you to tell the audience why I was so attracted to this project and Bricolage in general. Your exciting history as an inclusive and [00:01:00] activist theater.
Tami Dixon: Yeah. Bricolage, first of all, is a word that means “Making Artful use of what’s at hand.” So we really try to operate pretty organically. What is at hand? That can mean the landscape. That could mean people. That could mean materials. That could mean subject matters. It depends on where we are in the world and what is present with us.
Our history in terms of making work really begins with our relationship with the audience. We really feel without the audience you’re just rehearsing. So, why do we ask them for their money, keep them in the dark, and make them clap for us when we’re done? If they’re so crucial to the result, then maybe there’s more from that relationship that we can mine and [00:02:00] them from us as well.
That relationship building began in a small way. First of all, by connecting with the audience and asking them what they wanted to see on our stage, giving them a plethora of options and asking them, “What do you want to see go into a full production?” We did that for a couple of years. And then it grew into a project called Midnight Radio where we bring audience members on the stage sometimes. Where we break the fourth wall and we don’t pretend that they’re not there. They’re a part of it. We can hear them. We asked them for their input.
And then that moved on to another program called Wordplay, which is where we have audience members come up and tell their true stories, set to live music.
And then everything shifted to a different level in 2012 when we did our first immersive. That was called STRATA and that stands for [00:02:30] Strategic Training Resource And Testing Agency. And that was our first foray into the idea that we can push the envelope a little bit more, that we could get even closer with the audience. We can challenge them a little bit more. This is not about scaring anybody. This is not about forcing anybody to do anything they don’t want to. But this is about engagement, encounters that mean… that meana little bit something, a little bit different than merely observing us performing.
You know as an actor myself, I love that. You know, the adoration and the applause from the crowd and all of that stuff. But when I became more of an audience member than an actor, I found that to be stale. I found it to be not enough and I wanted more from my artistic experience. And so what we try to do is blur the line between artist and audience.
We believe that if you leave our doors the same way you walked in, [00:03:00] then we have failed somehow. We’re not dictating how you have to leave. You could leave happier. You could leave more energized. You could leave angry. You know, something has to happen! An artistic experience has to happen and you have to be altered in some way. And then you decide for yourself what that means for you. When you’re in a traditional theater space and you’re part of the audience we tend to think of the audience as one whole mass-monolith-glob kind of thing. We talk about them afterwards. “That was a great audience!” or “That audience wasn’t so great.” As opposed to the individuals in the audience. And when you’re part of that audience, you can tend to start having, you know, thinking like the people next to you: laughing at the same time they laugh, not necessarily wanting to divert from a different opinion that’s [00:04:00] being portrayed around you.
This work [The Forest of Everywhere] sometimes is one actor to one audience member and you have nobody else that you can rely on to tell you how you feel about something. You have to decide that.
So that work, it’s changed us in a lot of ways and because of it, it’s organically brought us into a space of inclusion and accessibility. Not that we weren’t thinking about that before, but it demands it. If we’re thinking about audience members as individuals, then we can’t assign you something. We can’t decide what you’re comfortable with. We can’t decide what you’re capable of or what you want to do. So that means that we have to build a deeper relationship with the audience.
Scott: The first production that I think of when I think of Bricolage and inclusion would have to be OjO. That is a very special project to me because you worked with [00:05:00] the Blind Community. Not only did you work with the community here in Pittsburgh, but that show had a life beyond Pittsburgh, which is something I’m hoping for The Forest of Everywhere.
Tami Dixon: Yeah, me too. [00:05:14] Yeah. That project, OjO, “The Next Generation of Travel,” which we created with some of our longtime collaborators, Gab Cody and Sam Turich. Jeffrey Carpenter who is the artistic director of the company and I, we built that together and it didn’t begin as, “We’re going to do a show with and for the Blind Community.”
That’s not how it began. It began because of the success of STRATA and we were approached by an organization that wanted to build a show for their arts festival, The Three Rivers Arts Festival, and to happen in the footprint of that festival. Because the Three Rivers Arts Festival is largely a visual arts experience, [00:05:50] that was part of our research, that was part of what we used as material for building the show.
We start with nothing and because of that, you know as an artist, all artists know that you sort of begin in the dark. You begin not knowing where you’re going to go. Not knowing if you’re going to make it. Not knowing if what you create is going to be successful. So that idea of the fear that surrounds the unknown of that took us into what the gallery experience was. And that experience took us into, “Well, there’s a narrative already going on in the gallery that’s been decided either by the artist or the curator and it’s hard to lay on top of that narrative or those multiple narratives yet another narrative. So what if instead we took away something?”
And what we took away was the vision, the sight. [00:06:45]
And when we landed on that, then we knew “Well, of course, we don’t know what it’s like to be blind.” and we weren’t going to make that up. You know, there is a saying in many activist communities, I think it began in the homeless community actually, not about us without us.
And so then we began to look into building relationships with the blind community and we connected with a woman who was blind from birth and a woman who went blind at 27 and those are two very, very different experiences. And from that we built this experience where we had the audience engage with them and we had the audience engaged with multiple levels of vision loss.
And that piece culminated in a mile-long walk, where the audience was blindfolded and they were walking together, 10 at a time, being led by a guide throughout the city. And then they were brought to the river and they got their sight back again [00:07:38]. But before then, they had the experience of hearing from somebody, [listening] to people who are blind. Navigating the world in that way on their own and also being led. And that was a profound experience for us.
I wouldn’t say it was necessarily our first inclusive project, but it was monumental and it caught the attention of the La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego. They brought us out for the WOW Festival and we recreated it there — and it was very successful there. We were chosen as “Show of the Year” in that city and [we] built great relationships with people out there. We hope that we’re able to go back and take more of our work there, especially something like The Forest of Everywhere. [00:08:26]
Scott: You’ve taken your inclusive approach to Theatre even to the surrounding neighborhoods and communities. This, for you, is not about one thing. It is about inclusive throughout the area and all people.
Tami Dixon: That’s a heavy… that’s a heavy weight to carry, you know, and we don’t want to send a message that we are, that we are doing something. It’s… I want to be… I want to maintain that we are learning, always and that we’re not experts, that we are not trying to infiltrate a space. What we’re trying to do is learn more and we’re trying to build relationships and build.
Scott: With the audience? [00:09:00]
Tami Dixon: Yes, yes. And with the audience.
So when this show came about we were asked. We didn’t jump into this saying, “Now we want to make a show for autistic people and with autistic people.” We didn’t we didn’t do that. This was another invitation. We got an invitation from an organization asking, “Can we take an existing show and adjust it so that it would be something that this audience would like?” We thought about it for a second and we thought, “Well… well… no. No, I don’t think that that’s the best way to approach this.” We didn’t think it would serve either the audience or the art to alter it in a way that that that was just for the sake of altering.
Why not build it from the beginning with this audience in mind?
So that’s what we did. We connected with organizations in our community like Arts for Autism and Evolve Coaching. And through those organizations we met people in that community and we went to the Joey Travolta Film Camp and we met an actor there and asked him to come on board and to create with us. [00:10:14]
So before anything was written or decided or any choices were made about anything, we were doing research. We were building relationships. We had somebody… we had an autistic actor in the room at every step of the way to be our mentor, to guide us, and to tell us where the structure of what is, you know, natural for us and our neurotypical brains would become a barrier for an autistic person or could become a barrier for an autistic person.
Scott: As the playwright you worked in a collaborative manner to create this work, which a lot of playwright resist. It’s very difficult to do devised theatre or theater the evolves with the actors, again it can be a challenge. How did you find the experience of creating this new work that had to serve a community that you had to learn about during the creative process? [00:11:05]
Tami Dixon: Well, you know, I wouldn’t put “playwright” as the first thing that goes under my name. So I think that that helps me. I’m not so attached to that label. I wrote a play called South Side Stories that was a docudrama. That really wasn’t necessarily me writing, but me doing a listening tour in my community, gathering words from people that live there, and then shaping those words into a piece. It is not as if my brain has been [wired for] I’m alone in a room coming up with things. That, for me… that’s too scary. I admire people that have that ability to do that. For me that’s not where my joy in writing lies.
I really like to have help, you know, like that’s easier for me. And the more people in the room [00:12:00] that I trust, that I love, that I enjoy collaborating with, the better. So, while I synthesized the games and the exercises we did, when… if this piece were to be seen on paper, it would be… it would say written in collaboration with a whole host of people. All of the actors, staff members, and designers, as well. They were integral in this process and to building this piece. So, I definitely wasn’t alone and I don’t think theater is a solitary experience. It is a collaborative experience. And so yes, bring your ideas to the table. Yes, tell me, tell us when [you have] an idea that could make this better, because if it’s about my ego, we’re all in trouble. When it can be about the project, yes, we’re gonna fly!
Yesterday we had a set of beta tests with an audience. Our staff came through and they [the audience] gave incredible notes and we were able to come up with a more fluid idea for a part that I’m really excited about. [00:13:00]
It wasn’t something I came up with — it was brought up in the room and now I’m so glad that. that happened, but that can’t happen with me by myself. My ideas are going to be completely limited to what’s in the narrow world of my brain. Which is why this, you know, theater is inherently inclusive and if I can get my ego out of the way, which is not always easy for me, I don’t have to bear the burden of making all those decisions myself nor do I want to. So it was fine for me. I like that process. I like that way of working much better.
Scott: Can you tell us about The Forest of Everywhere and what this work now is that our community and hopefully others will eventually get to see? I know I’m bringing two little excited ones. [00:13:44]
Tami Dixon: Oh, I can’t wait.
Okay, The Forest of Everywhere.
The conceit behind it, the story behind it is that there was a colossal storm, a world storm that happened, that discombobulated the landscape — moving cities and towns from one side of the world to the other and displacing people. And The Forest of Everywhere is a refuge, a place where people who have lost their homes can come and belong.
The people that come to see it, they are our explorers and we need them because we need help, having these new guests in the forest. Helping them to fit in. Helping them to feel… make them feel like they’re at home. So we ask our explorers to come. “Can you do this? Are you willing to be, can you be, nice?” Yes! [00:14:30]
They come in and they have to take an oath. “Do you promise to be kind? Do you promise to be gentle? And do promise to help everyone you meet feel like they belong? If you can do that, come on into our forest, meet the new guests, and help them.”
You’ll meet a dancing burro who has lost his groove. And you need to help him get his groove back. You’ll meet a singing ostrich who lost her song. She needs you to sing with her and play her magic harp and then she’ll feel a little bit more grounded.
We all have these things that make us feel comfortable, that make us feel at home. [00:15:00] And we want to be at home. Everybody needs a home.
And you’ll meet a bunny who collects treasures. She’s a non-speaking animal in the forest and she is texture based. So, her space is filled with these beautiful textures and treats and treasures and things that she collects. But her collection is all [scattered] everywhere. She had a yard sale with all of her stuff. And now she gets anxious when her stuff isn’t organized and she needs your help to help her put these things back. And you can relax in her space. [00:15:30]
There’s a crocodile that… he carries the origin story of the forest and you can meet him if he’s there. Sometimes he’s out about in the world finding people who need homes and bringing them back to our forests.
And when you’re ready to leave the forest, it’s an open world experience where you can be yourself and you can stay as long as you want… Until the forest has to go to sleep. Sometimes kids want to stay forever.
If you went through the experiences in order, it could be a 30-minute experience. But we’ve had kids stay as long as 90 minutes. They just loved it so much and they want to keep playing.
When you’re ready to leave, you meet Oisin, the Great Prince of the Forest. And he takes you to the end space where he thanks you for your participation and he tells you that you are here, that you are enough, but you will be remembered and he gives you a little gift [00:16:00] from the forest to take with you. And maybe, maybe, you’ll think about the oath you took in the forest and carry that off out into this world that so much needs the idea of kindness.
Scott: Could you let us know how to find ticket information and dates of the performances?
Tami Dixon: Yes. The Forest opens officially on May 17 and closes on June 3. You can find information for tickets and about all of our programs at BricolagePGH.org. All of our information is there.
Scott: And one of the things that Bricolage has done for our region — and I hope more theaters follow this lead — is you go out to the schools, you have programs like Midnight Radio that also play locally on WYEP, I believe.
Tami Dixon: Yes. Sometimes they do. Yes. [00:17:00]
Scott: My children are fascinated by those things and I think as foster children, they will also appreciate this new story.
Tami Dixon: Oh, The Forest of Everywhere. Absolutely.
I mean it… I don’t know anybody who doesn’t want a home. I don’t think I’ve ever met anybody that that wanted to not be connected to something, you know.
But our education program is a wonderful program that has been generously supported for a number of years now by the Benedum Foundation. It’s grown and we’re in schools in Washington County and counties not close to the city, where they can easily access artistic experiences. That program happened organically. We use the curriculum that is already happening in the school, so we’re not trying to disrupt the school day with something that they’re not already learning. We take their curriculum and we ask them to think about their curriculum in a new way. [00:18:00]
What are some stories about… Let’s say they’re doing social studies and they’re learning about the Civil War. What are some stories in there? What are some characters in there? What are some headlines from that time? What’s research that you can do? Real research into real people, real battles that happened, real heroes. Real stories. Then we also make commercials about products of that time. We really get to investigate what they’re already learning in a way that doesn’t seem like taking a test.
And they get to experience this with professional playwrights. What it means to write dialogue. How do you shape a play? They get to learn from a musician what it means to improv music behind a story. And they get to learn about sound effects. And we utilize every single student.
We do this mostly with 8th grade students. It’s a difficult time eighth grade, you know. It’s an awkward time. Your body’s changing. You’re changing. Your friends are changing. You don’t really understand the world, you know. You’re sort of at that break between being attached to your parents and wanting to be a free spirit. [00:19:00] It’s a difficult transition and 8th grade can be really hard. Especially when we’re asking you to perform. You know, do funny voices and silly things. That can be embarrassing.
So oftentimes we arrive at the school and the kids are very reluctant. But by the end of the process, they love it so much and they feel like they have accomplished something because it is a team effort. If you’re not there to make that thunderclap when it needs to be made, we’ll feel the loss of you. They really get to feel what it’s like to be part of something and to and to have to be needed in a space.
Scott: In The Forest of Everywhere you’re trying to make the audience, the young audience members, feel needed.
Tami Dixon: Oh, yes. They have a job if they want to take that on and their job is to be nice and kind and help everyone feel like they belong. To engage with the puppets that are in the forest — the donkey and the ostrich and the bunny and our crocodile — engage with them, help them, you know. They’re sad. They’re homesick. They don’t really know if they fit in yet [00:20:00] and we all know what it’s like to not fit in. And what that makes you feel like. And what it feels like when you do.
We ask that they bring that part of themselves to the forest and be there, you know, and help them by making a song or doing a dance or organizing treasures.
Scott: I would like to take this final moment to bring up the fact that theater doesn’t happen without support. And I know that you have mentioned to me that you’re thankful for the support you’re receiving for The Forest of Everywhere. Would you like to mention those names? [00:20:30]
Tami Dixon: We would not at all be able to do this show without the Edith Trees Foundation. They are huge, huge supporters of this work and they have been incredibly generous. FedEx has also been a wonderful supporter. In fact, we had a volunteer day where about ten FedEx employees came for the day and they made stuff to go into the forest. They cut leaves, they put the acorns together, and they made these treasure boxes for Hops’s room. And the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust is also a huge supporter of this. And The International Children’s Theatre Festival is also a really big supporter of this work. We rely on the support because you know, this intimate, personalized work that engages on a one-to-one level, it’s an expensive endeavor [00:21:30].
While we have done some cost analysis to make our tickets pretty reasonable — they’re $12 a ticket and the first chaperone is free, comparable to any other family experience in town, we’re probably one of the lowest costing — but $12 is not what it costs to make this show. So without the support of those organizations, we would not be able to do this work.
Scott: One of the things that I look at as an autism advocate and the parent of two special needs children, is that the theater I love so much as a writer and as someone who works on the technical side, it is often different for them. They do sensory-friendly shows with the lights on, or not the full sound. They [the shows] aren’t original, inviting, inclusive productions. And something about this that is so different is it is an original production. [00:22:00] Not an adaptation. Not an accommodation. It is designed from the start with the audience in mind.
Tami Dixon: It very much is. We didn’t want to make this audience feel like an afterthought.
We wanted them to feel like we were thinking about them throughout. Now, we are under no illusion that we can be 100% everything to 100% of the people, but we do have a transparency about what we’re capable of doing. In fact, we just officially launched a new program to really help us support this work. It’s called the Immersive Companions Program.
A lot of times our work can seem like a barrier for a lot of people. It could be a financial barrier, which we just talked about. [00:23:00] It could be a physical barrier. It could be an emotional barrier. We want to connect with our audience in a way that doesn’t make them checkboxes to tell us who they are. Instead, we want to get to know them. “How can we make your experience with us the best experience possible? What do we need to know to help us do that? What are you willing to tell us?”
You know, it could be — we’ve talked about this a lot, but you know when we’ve had this experience — it could be something as simple as I need to be close to the bathroom because I have to go. Or, I’m afraid of snakes. Please, don’t put me anywhere near snakes. Or it could be, I use a mobility device, or I need ASL interpretation.
These are things that we can support if we know, so we ask our audience to connect with us. And we have a position here at the company…. Fred Francis is our Box Office and Audience Coordinator and he speaks to our audience. He has a relationship with our audience and he connects with them.
How can we help? How can we open our doors wide? Or, what can we do to make your experience with us better? [00:24:00] And we empower the audience to make the decision whether they want to come or not. And if we can’t do something to make your experience better, we will be transparent about that. But also, it helps us for next time because we’re not going to get this right all the time. We’re not going to be perfect. All we can do is try. The best way to help us try is to let us know what you need.
Scott: One of the things I’ve noticed in the eight years that we have lived in the Pittsburgh area is the growth of Bricolage. Being inclusive and inviting audience members of all ages, all needs, all differences, has allowed Bricolage to flourish, proving that theater can succeed by looking beyond its traditional audience.
Tami Dixon: I would argue that our growth… It’s also that our growth has allowed us to be more mindful. We have an incredible staff [00:25:00] and when it was just Jeffrey and I, there was no way we could take care of everything. There’s just no way we could have done this work. We wanted to. We would have liked to. We thought about it. I mean when it was just Jeffrey and I we could hardly get marketing material out, you know. Like, every time we add someone else to the team, we hope that the job gets easier. But what really happens is that we start taking on more because we have more, more people here to support.
But they do go hand in hand because it is no longer Jeffrey and my brain, solely responsible for any of the things we create. We need the whole staff here.
Jackie Baker is our Managing Director and she’s been incredible in this work of inclusion and accessibility. [00:26:00] She spearheaded the Immersive Companion Program and has really, been a source of inspiration and a reminder to us all the time that this is our charge.
Our mission is to immerse artists and audience in adventurous theatrical experiences that foster connections and alter perceptions.
If we’re going to do the “foster connections” part, then we have to do it. If we’re going to alter perceptions by… meaning what theater can mean, what theater looks like, where theater can take place, and the method of it….
How many people do you need for an audience? Well, I say one! One person walking across the stage. Well, there you go. You have one, you have a show so.
It’s a “both/and” thing. We would not be able to do this work with without our staff. It just… it just puts me in awe to think about where we were eight years ago. [00:27:00] You know. Where we were when I first came on board 13 years ago… 14 years ago. It just seems like a lifetime ago When I think about it, it’s overwhelming.
Scott: I want to thank Tami Dixon and Bricolage Production Company for inviting The Autistic Me to discuss The Forest of Everywhere. I want to remind you that you can visit the Bricolage website. Tami, would you give that to people one more time?
Tami Dixon: Yep. BricolagePGH.org.
Scott: Again, I am Christopher Scott Wyatt, and it has been an honor to be joined by Tami Dixon on The Autistic Me.
Images provided by Bricolage Production Company, with appropriate releases provided.
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