INTERVIEW: New festival promotes possibilities of physical theater
Photo: The performers with the Broken Box Mime Theater will present several programs at PhysFestNYC. Photo courtesy of Broken Box Mime Theater / Provided by Everyman Agency with permission.
PhysFestNYC, a festival dedicated to physical theater, recently premiered in New York City and continues through Jan. 14. Performances from more than 100 artists take place at the Stella Adler Center for the Arts in Manhattan. Broken Box Mime Theater produces the event, with support from Clown Gym and co-executive producer B.J. Evans.
There’s a little bit of everything at PhysFestNYC. There are traditional performances, of course, but also workshops, panel discussions and community events, according to press notes. One noted highlight is the clown show War and Play: A Clown Odyssey of Survival. This example of physical theater is quite topical, showcasing three clowns caught in the conflict of Russia invading Ukraine. There’s also The Crone Chronicles: Reclaiming the Story fo Baba Yaga, “which features everyone’s favorite Soviet Jewish grandma, clown Baba Yana, and her ragtag team of storybook performers.”
Becky Baumwoll is the artistic director of Broken Box Mime Theater and co-executive producer of the festival. Recently the theater artist exchanged emails with Hollywood Soapbox to talk about the plethora of programming at PhysFestNYC. Questions and answers have been slightly edited for style.
How long has PhysFestNYC been in the works? What does it take to pull off a festival like this?
I think, for many of us, PhysFest has been a seed that was planted ages ago. So many folks in this field have envisioned a space to share, celebrate and draw connections between our work. The newest version of the seed came in the spring of 2022 over a coffee with BKBX company member Julia Cavagna. Her vision for un-siloing our industry, and for BKBX to play a leading role in that un-siloing, got us started! Quickly thereafter I had chats with Bill Bowers and Julia Proctor, respectively, and the three of us were the first brain-trust for PhysFest back in the spring and summer of 2022. We envisioned a festival that would be community-centered, with horizontal leadership and tons of art and creative exchange. We were then joined by producer B.J. Evans, whose experience and vision brought everything to the next level. The commitment to making PhysFest a reality in 2024 came in late 2022 when Stella Adler Center for the Arts agreed to host the project. It was happening!
In January 2023, we held an open house at Stella Adler, inviting folks from the industry to join in conversation about what the fest should look like. Eighty people came in person, and an additional 60 filled out our online survey. With huge pieces of paper on the walls, we asked guests to write their definition of physical theater, describe their ideal festival “vibe” and more. We typed up every answer, and that unedited record is now on our website. We took it as our guidebook for the next steps.
The first of those steps, and perhaps the final step in setting ourselves up for pre-production, was creating a leadership model. We defined the vision for the festival as “community-based and values-led,” and held a little application process for leadership. I drafted a nice little map of how the leadership would interact (thank you, Canva Pro), and we assigned roles, including our six-person Artistic Leadership Circle, or ALC, who would further define the festival ethos and curate the festival.
How would you define physical theater?
For me, it’s theater that uses the body in space as its primary mode of storytelling. One could argue that every theater is physical theater, and you’d be right! In Simon Murray and John Keefe’s book Physical Theatres: A Critical Introduction, they talk about “the physical in theater,” which is a reference to this concept. Then there’s physical theater defined by genre, or a specific individual who parented a method of thought or practice, which in the Western canon might be Commedia, or Mime, or Lecoq, or Clown, or Grotowski, etc. I mention Western because, in many (most?) cultures, physical theater is integrated into all types of theater/performance/storytelling. I think PhysFest is interested in exploring all these definitions, and perhaps most importantly, all the messy genre-bending in between.
What did the selection process look like? How did you find all of these theatermakers?
Oh my goodness, right?! It’s a fantastic group of artists. There are many theatermakers in NYC who define themselves as physical theater artists. The people who heard about PhysFest from the open house were a great start to getting the word out, as were our ALC. We drafted an application for both performance and workshop offerings that reflected our values the ALC had articulated, passed it around to various outside eyes to give notes, and then made the application live. We received 123 applications. I then facilitated the ALC curation, in which each application was reviewed by two ALC members and scored across three categories. Then, we asked our applicants if they wanted to score the apps, too! About 70 people opted in to score three apps, which gave us an extra “community score” from 1-2 additional individuals. Next came analysis and discussion over the course of four days, and finally piecing together a schedule that would represent a range of projects for year one. The process was ambitious, imperfect, intentional and a great starting place for future festivals.
What are some highlights that you’re most excited for?
This may be a bit nerdy, but the panels! I’m really excited to get into meaningful conversation about the what’s, why’s, how’s and who’s of this art. I’m taking off a majority of the month of February to just process and reflect on what I learn from PhysFest, and I think the panel discussions will be a huge part of that. I want to be a sponge.
How will you measure the festival’s success after it’s complete?
Perfect segue. To me, a successful festival will galvanize a brilliant sector of the performing arts industry/community. Lots of folks are talking about “the theater in crisis” nationwide, and we are for sure feeling it in NYC in terms of a changing funding landscape, diminished audiences, leadership transitions and all the emergent effects of these factors. The individuals who are a part of this festival quite literally make their careers from innovative, non-normative, often low-budget productions that could teach the industry at large so much about what the future of theater could look like. I hope many people discover artists they want to support year-round. I hope many artists are inspired to make more rigorous, affecting, experimental art. I hope the art makes us all want to continue PhysFestNYC for many years to come.
When did you first fall in love with mime?
Tufts University, HYPE! Mime Troupe, December 2006. A mime held a black sign with a white title painted on it, and the light came up for a moment so the audience could read the sign. Then the lights came down on them, and the scene began. That one moment of a face and a title transformed me. The face became the title, filling in the word with so much presence, nuance and unspoken information. It was probably five seconds long. I was hooked.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
PhysFestNYC continues through Jan. 14 at the Stella Adler Center for the Arts in Manhattan. Broken Box Mime Theater, led by artistic director Becky Baumwoll, produces the festival. Click here for more information and tickets.
