Dramaturgs
Naomi Leedahl
Naomi is a junior UMD student pursuing an Interdisciplinary Studies major in Storytelling Arts. She is from Starbuck, Minnesota and defines LOVE as:
"honesty that disregards truth"
and believes INFORMATION is:
"truth that disregards honesty"
Lilianna Micola
Lilianna Micola is a sophomore Theatre B.A. and Arts Administration Major. She is from Iron River, Michigan and defines LOVE as:
"The selflessness that surpasses emotion and the emotion that surpasses logic"
and believes INFORMATION is:
"If facts were pearls, information would be a pearl necklace--while the pearl can stand alone in value, it's the sequencing that brings purpose and meaning."
Dramaturgical Presentations:
subtext and definitions
Love and Information is a dramaturgical masterpiece. It is every dramaturg's biggest dream and most unnerving nightmare in that our job is to contextualize and speak on behalf of the text. In this piece's case, our search for the underlying meanings and truths of the text felt, at times, like a wild goose chase. Specifically in the scene "Facts" many of the truths listed weren't wholly factual, as the scene's title insists. If the answers were, they were not easy to find. This slide show was made on behalf of the cast to find answers about what the text was talking about, as well as uncovering some of these half-truths, and we'd like to share our discoveries with you.
exploratory thematic research
This presentation was the first record of my dramaturgical questions and explorations I started right after I first read the play. What I found most interesting was the patterns among graphs for different circumstances under which we process information. Whether it be cycling through different stages of grief or the fluctuation of our assimilation into new environments, the way we process feelings and information follow the same shape charted on graphs.
naomi's cast presentation
Another theme I found fascinating about Churchill's piece is the idea of quantifying the intangible. Usually, I associate information with quantification and love with intangibility. However, it's a popular quest for humanity to try and get in touch with the parts of ourselves that are very much at least presenting as intangible. One of the ways we do that are personality tests. We look to outside sources to tell us something about ourselves in attempts to feel known, in some way, or to further our knowledge of ourselves. this pursuit is one I've been on for as long as I remember, and one that starts with simple personality tests, many of which I find the most interesting are linked in this presentation.
lilianna's cast presentation
Born in 1938, Churchill was first exposed to the idea using art to reflect important world issues through her father's career as a political cartoonist.
Churchill experienced the direct impact of world events at a very young age. Born in London at the beginning of World War II, her hometown was the victim to recurring German bombing campaign, “the Blitz”, which killed over 30,000 Londoners. Thousands of children were evacuated from London during the war. There is no public evidence to suggest that Churchill was one of those children.
By the time she graduated from Oxford in 1960, Churchill had already written several plays. Soon thereafter, Churchill suspended her pursuits of a professional writing career for the period of time surrounding the birth of her three sons. She occasionally wrote radio dramas for BBC, and ultimately resumed her writing career upon the production of Owners, her first script to premiere on the professional stage, in 1972. Churchill has released 41 more works to the stage since, including critically acclaimed Top Girls (1982).
Churchill combined her talent and skill as a playwright with her critical perspective as a person who has witnessed the rapid emergence of new technologies throughout much of the 20th century to write Love & Information, which premiered in London in 2012, a city that had evolved greatly since Churchill's birth 74 years prior.