[ This Just In! ]

For Immediate Release
Date: August 29, 2000

Salvage Vanguard to Premiere The American Demons

Austin, TX--On Friday, September 15, after nearly two years of development from idea to product, Salvage Vanguard Theater will premiere The American Demons, a dance/theater performance piece based on Dosteovsky's novel The Possessed and the school shootings at Columbine.

Jason Neulander, co-Artistic Director of Salvage Vanguard Theater and the director who conceived the project, is enthusiastic about its opening: "When I came up with this idea originally, it was going to be an exploration of the novel's setting and contemporary American culture, particularly how idealism of the generation that came of age in the 1960s gave way to the cynicism of the generation that came of age in the 1990s. Then the tragedy of Columbine unfolded and I realized just how pressing this project truly is."

The novel The Possessed deals with a small town and its intergenerational conflict. The generation that grew up in the 1840s led an idealist movement that caused sweeping social change, particularly the freedom of the serfs. Their children, who have grown up in the 1860s, do not share the idealism, but rather embody a dangerous nihilism. As the book unfolds, this younger generation reeks havoc on the town, culminating in the senseless murders of an innocent student and a mentally-retarded woman.

"For a long time I had thought about creating a project in a totally collaborative environment," continues Neulander. "This seemed like the ideal opportunity. The American Demons has probably been the most experimental effort Salvage Vanguard has ever made in the sense that none of us really had any idea what this project would be when we finished it."

Neulander, Dan Dietz (award-winning playwright and co-Artistic Director of SVT), Deborah Hay (reknowned choreographer), and Ruth E. Margraff (award-winning playwright) were the original collaborators on the project and worked for a four-week period in March and April, creating an outline for the script. At the end of that period, Margraff realized that she could not commit the time necessary to complete the project. Andrea Moon, a playwright and performer, stepped in to take her place.

In July, Dietz, Hay, Moon, and Neulander spent three weeks in Wimberley, Texas, creating a performance text and choreography. The artists let go of their personal control of the project in order to fully commit to the collaborative process. "We had to learn how to work with a sort of shared intuition, knowing when to hang onto a part of the piece and when to let it go. It was frustrating, frightening, and exhilerating." Deborah Hay put it this way: "The only way I know how to enter into an artistic collaboration is to have absolute faith in the artists with whom I am working."

The final collaborative element to the project came about in the form of the design. Kristin T. Abhalter (set designer), Amy Adams (costume designer), and Ruth Hutson (lighting designer) took the ideas that Dietz, Hay, Moon, and Neulander had generated, and turned them into concrete design elements. Says Abhalter, "I saw a lack of color, but it was important to me that the set have a sculpural element. On top of everything, I have a budget of only $500 to work with to create and build the set, so every element really counts."

In August, the artists reconvened for the last leg of the creative process, bringing together the culmination of the writing, rehearsal, musical, and design processes. On Monday, August 28, Dietz and Moon had revised the script and presented a new draft to the group. "It was incredible," says Neulander, "how, with some distance, Dan and Andrea could take this very rough script from the Wimberley retreat and transform it into something that really works!" The group will continue revising, rehearsing, and adding the design elements to their work through September 15, when The American Demons will open to the public.

The American Demons runs September 15, 16, 21, 22, 23, 24, 28, 29, and 30 at the Blue Theater (916 Springdale, between Airport and 7th, just behind the Goodwill). All performances are at 8:00 PM. Tickets for The American Demons are $12 ($8.50 students, seniors, ACoT). Thursdays are Starving Artist Night: half-price with a canned food donation, sponsored by the Austin Community Foundation. For tickets and information call (512) 474-SVT-6, or log onto www.salvagevanguard.org. The American Demons is sponsored in part by a generous grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

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