Director’s Statement

In the theatre, you start with an empty room. You fill it with people, who fill it with words, which carry meaning, which creates an immediate impact through an experience that evaporates as soon as it exists, through a business model that mostly loses money.

Making a one-take film about the process of making a play merged my two worlds as a storyteller. I wrote the first draft of the screenplay after our theatre company, The Garret, pulled off the impossible task of staging a world premiere play with only three and a half weeks of rehearsal time. It was a beautiful, nightmarish ballet that seemed to exist in that liminal space between sleeping and waking. At the peril of our bodies, minds, and relationships, we built our ephemeral ship and sent it off through the clouds, while audiences held their breath and watched it fly.

The best artists make the near-impossible look effortless. This film, however, exposes the frantic underbelly of that process. These characters are fighting for all they hold dear, and the audience is invited to delight in the chaos. I hope you find yourself rooting for these loveable fools.

May this film serve as a love letter to indie theatremakers and analog artists everywhere who ride on nothing but passion and grit.