Bill Talen

Transformation

Context & Deep Context

Tools

Outside

“...We always ask ourselves, 'What is today's equivalent of Rosa Parks sitting in front of the bus?'”

Bill Talen

context & deep context

Context

From NYC Mayoral campaign, 2008 (CC)

---

“Dr. King's people were creating theater that clarified meaning. Lenny Bruce and Julian Beck and Daniel and Philip Berrigan did that too. Each had a signature theatrical move that electrified people with meaning, demanding that witnesses make moral decisions about how they will live their lives...”

Bill Talen

---

• The Living Theater
• San Francisco Mime Troupe
• Bread and Puppet Theatre
• Philip and Daniel Berrigan
• Martin Luther King
• Lenny Bruce
• Andy Kaufman
• Richard Pryor note: site has 18+ age disclaimer
• Abbie Hoffman
• Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters
• Bertolt Brecht
• Augusto Boal

Trailer/Movie excerpt from What Would Jesus Buy? Directed by Morgan Spurlock.

Deep Context

Photo by Brennan Cavanaugh, 3/11/09 (CC)

The roots of theatre: religion, oration, magic, and healing.

Priests, medicine men, actors and poets are technicians of the sacred.

Charismatic performers have tools.

“...Billy and I come out of theater, that's what we do. Those are the tools we have...It might not be the most effective way of organizing people, or making slow social change, but I think it's a really effective way of getting people to wake up.”

---Savitri D