This week, I got to catch up with Molly Rose-Williams as she prepares for her latest solo show, CRUSH, in the San Francisco Bay Area. CRUSH runs for 6 performances: Jan 19-21 & 25-27. Tickets are selling fast, so grab yours here (NOTA).
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What are 5 words or phrases to describe CRUSH?
- Labor of love
- Love letter
- Fun and funny!
- Weird things we do because crushing compels us
- How does it feel to fall in love?
Is this a rework or an expansion of We Are All Friends? What has been the journey over the past year as you continued to perform, rehearse, and receive feedback and audience responses to the work?
When I premiered We Are All Friends in December 2022, it was the first time I had ever created and performed a full-length solo show. And I had just barely finished it by the skin of my teeth! I had broken up with the person that inspired a lot of the show just weeks before, and was deep in the process of making sense of how to perform a piece about love from the midst of heartbreak. Unsurprisingly, this meant I also had no idea how to end the show—I was literally figuring out the last scene until hours before going onstage opening night.
But that first run of shows felt electric. I loved the piece, I loved how I felt performing it, and I loved the responses and resonance I received from the audience. I finished the run determined to keep working on the show, and also knowing that in order to do so, I likely needed to put it aside for a while until it felt less emotionally-charged.
Nine months later, I picked it back up again, one week before taking it to the Vancouver Fringe Festival to perform 6 times. In less than a week, I reworked the entire show—keeping the stuff I liked, ditching the stuff that no longer felt relevant, and just generally trying to clean, hone, and tighten. And it worked…mostly. I got great responses from my first audience, but the second show fell totally flat. I realized there was still a long way to go before I could get the show to the place of consistently provoking the kind of laughter, emotion, and recognition that I wanted for the audience.
The next four performances were like an intensive incubator of creation, construction, destruction and re-creation. My parents came up from Berkeley, and my sister and her partner flew in from Brussels on their way to Seattle. The four of them became my most valuable critics—they know me well, and so their feedback was to-the-point and sometimes slicingly honest.
With a now entirely-reconstructed show, I traveled to New York, and then Vermont, performing in both places in front of audiences largely composed of strangers. Notably, my now-ex, for whom the show began as a love letter to, saw the piece for the first time in New York as well. Now, two months later, I feel thrilled to be bringing it back to the Bay Area.
With CRUSH, what are the feelings coming up for you as you prepare to share it (joy, excitement, fear, curiosity)?
I feel very excited to share the show with Bay Area audiences! I really love performing this show, and consistently find myself in exuberant joy by the end. It’s a really fun ride for me to go on, and I hope it feels that way to audiences as well. I’m especially excited to share the piece with people who saw the very first draft a little over a year ago, and with so many people that I love!
Why live art, now?
Why not? Live art always! Even more so when we find ourselves asking that question. If the value of live art is up for question or debate, I feel like it’s a very strong indication that collectively, we may have lost some valuable perspective on what it means to be alive. Sharing and reflecting and creating and expressing are such integral parts of what I understand to be a full human life. And in times or places when those things are threatened, we may be asked to justify the value of art. Instead, I would ask, how do we justify the value of the things that would threaten creativity, or make art seem superfluous?
CRUSH
Jan 19-21 & 25-27 @ 7:30p
NOHSpace, 2840 Mariposa St., San Francisco
Tickets $10-40 NOTA at www.mollyrosewilliams.ticketspice.com/crush
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Related posts:
Ruminations on "We Are All Friends" by Molly Rose-Williams
Preview: "We Are All Friends" in the Studio
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