My thoughts on what I would like to do in Theatre next, come out of my past experiences. The Bishop's Company started it all. We performed mainly in churches throughout the United States... from small Baptist churches in the south to the Prisident's Church in Washington, D.C. ... from a well equipted theater in Michigan to a platform in the woods of Kentucky. We had to adjust our plays instantly to the location. Over the period of two years, these adjustments became automatic.

During this time, I also toured with a DRAMA TRIO performing in high schools throughout the east. I remember one thrilling day when, in the morning we did a show on a regular procenium stage for 650... in the afternoon, an in-the-round performance for and audience of 1,500 and, in the evening a show for an audience of 34 in a living room of a private school. There was a real thrill on being able to adjust our performances for those three different areas... no sets, just material, actors and audience.

One night, in Providence, RI., I went out with the girl (Lizzie) in the trio. We met someone in a bar and the three of us went out to coffee. We were in one of those coffee shop booths with Lizzie and I on one side and the guy on the other. He asked us what we did. Liz and I decided to show him and adjusted a scene from our show to fit a coffee shop booth. When we finished and looked at him, there were tears running down his amazed face. He said he'd never seen anything like that in his life. Again, material, actors and audience.

During my folk music period, there were grand concerts and clubs but also, sitting in someones room with a bottle of wine passing around the guitar. This is not unusual. But, why not the same thing with theatre?

The play I am writing now, The MoorPark Mixed Quartet is designed to travel light! A cast of 7 for the full play... no sets, lighting or props. We have performed sections of it in a traditional theater and then I took just the quartet part out to a local Coffee House (That kind that seems to hark back to the Beatnik days) and we sang to very good responce and were invited to perform at another one... which we did, to the shouts of "Encore!"... something never heard in that place before. My next plan is to take them on a little, what I call, a gorilla tour: just jump in my van and drive around until we see an audience... hop out... perform a few songs and move on. The ideas are still forming.

Perhaps this might be called a form of Performance Art but I would rather not label it such as Performance Art already seems to have expectations surrounding it. I don't think this is a unique idea, but it is one that interests me at present... Perhaps... Theatre of the Unexpected.

What do YOU think??? EMAIL ME