Join PBTC for our very first Holiday Break show. 

​

Spin the Lonely World was originally written with and for the middle school students of  Skybridge Academy.

 

FROM THE AUTHOR: 

When we started this play, the world hadn’t come to a crashing halt. The actors were meeting in person,  bringing ‘inspirational images’ that we turned into tableaux, which we built into stories. The theme of  ‘transformation’ emerged. This play is a series of short stories about changing bodies, knitted together by  a literal ring that’s passed from a major character to a minor one - a structure borrowed from another  famous work, appropriated to reflect the egalitarian idea that every side character, every overlooked  person, is worthy of the center stage.  

And then, the virus hit. The actors went home and returned only via Google Meet. I had an empty  theatre full of props and costumes and my aging laptop cranking away. We were left blindly fumbling  through the ins and outs of the virtual classroom while navigating each other’s Big Feelings.  

We figured it out. We were still determined to produce the play - as a recorded performance. So, this  edition comes from my experience with the actors and hundreds of hours in the virtual rehearsal room.  

When I wrote it, I was meditating on how often when I see a play I’ll focus on a side character and think, I  want to know your story - surely it’s as important as our leads’. Then the virus hit, and when casual contact  can kill you, the ring’s transference brought to mind the virus passing from one person to another. It also  reminded us that we were physically distant in order to save each other - to save strangers even. Everyone  is a lead in their own story, and we must care about people other than ourselves.