My latest project is in the brainstorming phase so I thought I would toss it out here for your reaction. I would love to hear from you.

I’ve decided I don’t want to do another traditional play for awhile. It’s time to explore something new. Enter – The Empty Chair Project. My hope is that this project will include many different kinds of performing and visual artists and give them the chance to explore working with a theme and making it their own.

The Empty Chair is a classic acting exercise used to develop spontaneity, creativity and emotional truth. Exercises similar to The Empty Chair have spawned in several mediums including psychotherapy. It is often used as a therapeutic tool in Gestalt and psychodramatic/experiential therapies. The Empty Chair as an acting exercise is an improvisation game developed by Viola Spolin. It is similar to the Unsent Letter used as a writing exercise in personal journaling.

The metaphor of the empty chair offers limitless possibilities for creative exploration and expression. The Empty Chair Project will foster collaboration between local and distant arts organizations, visual artists, performing artists and writers. Its intent is to stimulate collaboration, creative activity and exploration.

This is in the brainstorming phase right now. My wish is that artists of all kinds will be interested in exploring the empty chair theme to create performance pieces, improvisations, writing, music and art that expresses their vision of who is or is not in the chair.

Questions to explore:

• Who is in the chair?
• Who is not in the chair?
• Is there someone in your life living or dead who you long to have a conversation with? Is there some reason you are unable to have this conversation in reality? You can put this person in the empty chair and say what you need to say in order to:
  • move on
  • let go
  • express love
  • re-connect
  • gain approval or understanding
  • get permission
  • tell them the truth
  • save them from themselves
  • ask them to save you

• Or is there someone missing from your life? Someone who left you in some way. Someone who has left a hole in your history and present life. Then the chair can remain empty and the work you create can express your feelings about that emptiness.
• Perhaps there is a piece of you missing, a part of you, an old role you long to reconnect with. You can put that part of yourself in the empty chair and explore from there.
• The empty chair is also a time traveling chair. It can give you the opportunity to reconnect with yourself when you were young. What do you wish the child you were could know? You can tell them your gown up secrets and share your wisdom with them. Or maybe the child you were has some wisdom to share with the person you are now.
• You can place your future self in the chair and converse with who you hope to be or fear to be 10, 20, or 30 years from now.

All of these explorations (and more) are open to interpretation through movement, music, poetry, dialogue, improv and art. When I say “converse” in the scenarios above I don’t necesarily mean “talk”. Any kind of expression and communication is available.

How will this turn out? I really don’t know. Perhaps there will be a night of performances and a gallery display. Maybe we could produce a book of creative writing. Perhaps there will be a series of video events available online. As far as I’m concerned anything can happen with this. This is the exciting endless possibilities phase of The Empty Chair Project.

I would love to hear your reactions, questions, ideas suggestions – anything. Let me know what you think. How can we pull this thing off?

Tags: Acting, Art, Creativity, Inspiration, Theatre, Writing