'ART' Director's Note

I am thrilled to be directing ‘ART’. It is an endlessly entertaining and very funny play. It is also vicious. It oscillates between loneliness and absurdity with barely a transition or pause. I love the challenge of finding a way to have these elements slam into each other in a way that is satisfying and meaningful to the audience.

The play is a hilarious look at a group of friends who are confronted with deep existential questions about who they are, who they want to be and who they want others to think they are.

I love this line from ‘ART’- "a man who moves across a space then disappears." That is how one of the characters describes the painting they are looking at, but it is also what the play is about. We are all moving across a "canvas" alone (sometimes with others, but essentially alone) and then we disappear.

Some might say that is a bleak concept, but I love that it reminds us in our too short lives to value companionship and community over all else, because our journey can be a lonely one. Surround yourself with love. Be tolerant. Stay open.

- Jackson Gay, Director of 'ART'