‘Toast’
The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center is always looking to change how people regard theater. So too are Michelle Smith Performing Arts Library officials out to change the popular perception of libraries.
“Libraries are this nexus of art and culture and learning that has gotten this bad rap over time as a place you have to be quiet and only act in a certain way,” said Rachel Grossman, co-founder of experimental theater company dog & pony dc.
Grossman and dog & pony dc said they hope to help change those misconceptions by hosting their new interactive show Toast, which premiered last night, in the library, as a part of The Clarice’s NextNOW Fest.
Toast is about a secret society of inventors who, after controlling all aspects of innovation for more than 200 years, invite the audience to help them explore the potential of collaboration for the first time.
Grossman said the show’s premise — and namesake — comes from a conversation she had with a university professor who asked her how she thought toast was made before the invention of electricity.
“The question stuck with me for years,” Grossman said. “The invention of electricity: It becomes a need, but the invention of the toaster becomes an opportunity.”
Presented as a “participatory-performance-meets-science-fair,” Toast involves what Grossman called “audience integration.” Performers and audience members interact, working in tandem to explore and invent, she explained.
“Live theater has become a more passive art form, a more elitist art form that has really shut a lot of people out and has made many people disinterested in it,” she said. “This brings theater into a culture that we’re existing in.”
Toast’s Friday performance has sold out, but tickets are still available for the Sunday performance. Still, Grossman said the library itself will remain open to the public during the performance, so many can watch without participating.
“Part of the fun is that you don’t expect it to be in a library. … It challenges expectations of the audience and where theater can happen,” said Stephen Henry, the library’s interim head and music librarian.
Henry said the library is rethinking its space to allow for more creative collaboration, as well as using more multimedia and online content to attract more visitors.
“The University of Maryland libraries are trying to further collaboration in new ways and challenge ourselves and library visitors to rethink what a library can be,” he said.
Toast will run for two more performances at the library, tonight at 7 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m. Tickets are free. For more information, visit theclarice.umd.edu. After this weekend, dog & pony dc will continue a touring production in the area through Oct. 18.
TOAST Incubator Salon at Page-To-Stage from dog & pony dc on Vimeo.
