Today we’d like to introduce you to Katie Green.
Hi Katie, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I saw a theatre production by a company called Rubber Repertory in Austin that completely changed how I thought about theatre and the kind of theatre I wanted to make. It was called The Biography of Physical Sensation, which consisted of the most visceral experiences of one woman’s life experientially recreated for audience members without narrative or context. We sat in a circle of chairs of various sizes, the larger the chair, the more intense the experience. Over the course of 90ish minutes, I watched a giant dog lick peanut butter off a man’s chest, my friend cut five inches of her hair off, a woman gets shot with an airsoft gun and a very creative simulation of falling off a horse. It felt dangerous, though it was perfectly safe. My experiences were not so intense, but I remember literally being on the edge of my seat the whole performance. I was terrified and desperate to hear my chair number called to see what I would be asked to do. I realized then that the drama of theatre could be internal rather than external and the performance not a performance at all but a carefully constructed experience where anything (real) could happen. I was no longer a passive observer but actively creating the experience for myself and others. This was my introduction to interactive theatre and the beginning of my interactive theatre company, Twin Alchemy Collective.
Before then, my theatre education and experiences had been pretty traditional. I performed plays by Chekhov and Shakespeare and majored in theatre at Hanover College, a tiny liberal arts college in southern Indiana. Myself and my boyfriend at the time were the only two senior theatre majors. My directing class had a 2-1 teacher ratio. Because of this, we basically had carte blanche from the department to do whatever we wanted for our senior theses. We wrote, directed, designed, produced, and acted in our own and each other’s one act plays. My thesis was Lady Lazarus, a dark dramedy about Sylvia Plath reuniting with her ex-husband, Ted Hughes, in purgatory. I think that kind of trust, freedom, and do-it-yourself mentality from my college professors gave me the confidence to feel like I could just wing it when self-producing my plays in Austin at 23. If I had started when I was a little older, I’m not sure I would have had the naivete or audacity, however you want to look at it, to follow-through.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I wouldn’t say “easy,” no, but it hasn’t been particularly difficult either. The first play I wrote and produced in Austin, Little Mother, was scheduled to perform at an outside venue and the 10-day forecast was predicting freezing weather and heavy rain (it was March). I nearly had a panic attack but somehow managed to secure a new indoor venue, redesign the set, create new marketing materials, and reblock the entire play in those ten days so that we could open on time. It all came together (barely) at the last minute, which is pretty typical of theatre in general. You learn to trust that order will emerge from the chaos. I have also been very fortunate to work with extremely smart, capable collaborators like Shawn Jones, Michael Rau, Sean Moran, and many others over the years.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I’m the producing artistic director of Twin Alchemy Collective, an interactive/immersive theatre company in Austin. What sets us apart from other theatre companies is that our work is extremely participatory and the experience is largely an internal one. Some examples of past theatre experiences we’ve produced include: a (fictional) support group for the living and the dead, a cult induction experience, a participatory, absurdist self-help seminar, a narrative-driven scavenger hunt mystery across the city, and a two-person exploration of the evolution of a 60-year relationship (from first date to final breath) compressed into 4 hours inside of a tiny home.
I create plays without an audience. “Play” is the operative word, as I design experiences that invite people to explore serious, existential questions about their own lives by playing within fictional circumstances. When theatre has an audience, it can become performative and self-conscious very easily. This fundamentally changes the experience, making it less immediate and personal for those participating. Twin Alchemy designs theatrical experiences for you and your fellow participants alone. You are creating the experience for others as it is simultaneously created for you. Consequently, I don’t get to witness much of my work except through second-hand accounts of people’s experiences. There’s a kind of bitter-sweetness in creating something that I can’t entirely control and that exists only in the minds of those people who experienced it firsthand at that particular time, but I kind of love that too. As a result, I don’t have many interesting pictures of my work to share since it’s usually private and more emotionally than visually interesting anyway.
I also work as a mental health therapist where I get to explore existential questions and emotional landscapes with people in a different way. Both of these modes of expression feed me and each other.
Twin Alchemy’s work has been experienced at festivals and theatres in NYC, Berlin, Copenhagen, U.K., San Francisco, Chicago, and Austin. We’ve also collaborated with Meow Wolf.
If we knew you growing up, how would we have described you?
I think I was kind of a weird kid, but then most kids are. My favorite game to play was “Funeral,” which I would play in my older cousins’ basement. It was like a modified version of hide and seek, but with an organist and someone who would play the deceased. We would convert the couch into a makeshift casket, approach the coffin as mourners holding flowers, fake-crying, and saying nice things about the person who died, then turn off the lights and hide. The dead person would then rise up as a zombie and search for the mourners while the organist played dark, brooding music for atmosphere. It was a lot of fun! I probably attended more than ten funerals by the age of ten. I grew up in a small community in Kentucky where it’s normalized to attend your dentist’s mother’s funeral. Playing funeral was a way to better understand death. I think that many children learn about the world, in particular more abstract, adult themes through play. Roleplaying games like “house” and “doctor” are more common, but “funeral” was my thing. Now that I think about it, some of Twin Alchemy’s productions are really just more sophisticated versions of “house” and “funeral!” I think the same games and playfulness of childhood can be used to help people explore more serious topics in a safe, fun way.
Contact Info:
- Email: twinalchemy@gmail.com
- Website: www.twinalchemy.com
