The Living Blog

February 13-17, 20-24, 2008

Playwright: Barry Cavin

Directed by: Barry Cavin

Performance Dates: February 13-17, 20-24, 2008

Description: The Living Blog: Apocalypse is an original play written, designed, and directed by Barry Cavin and based on material collected in cyberspace.

During the Depression, Congress established the Federal Theatre Project as a means to employ thousands of out-of -work theatre professionals. The most memorable series of works to come out of the FTP was The Living Newspaper. The Living Newspaper was an of amalgam newspaper stories, political speeches, and official documents. The power of theatre breathed life into sterile accounts of society ravaged by poverty, war, and social injustice. The social conditions became so vivid in performance Congress withdrew its funding of the project after only four years due to complaints that the work was linked to Communism.

Our experimental production puts a contemporary spin on the idea of performing news accounts by appropriating the current equivalent of the vital press- the blog. This multi-media, multi-layered performance will take its material from a blogosphere created by the author and other contributors throughout cyberspace. The result will be a five act play (Scandal, Election, War, Environment, and Apocalypse) with each act corresponding to a blog. So the production will take place as much on the internet as on the stage. Even after seventy years, some of the same ills still threaten our society and new threats loom on the horizon. The Living Blog promises to be as current, responsive, and controversial as The Living Newspaper was in the 1930s.