Meet Olivia, our video director

First rehearsal and final auditions was a symphony of synchronicity. We have a cast of eleven actors, and we have a video crew of five artists who brought in two carloads of top-quality equipment. We have a beautiful little theatre to rehearse and film in, and we are grateful, we who are doing the whole project with no money and volunteer labor. That’s the video director in my main blip and two of the crew in the extra.

Donna Hayes’s play features monologs by nine people of different ages, races, and backgrounds, all shot and killed by Portland police, interrupted by a “chorus” of actors performing comments taken from online news reports. I don’t believe in Heaven, but I can envision the spirits of these nine people high-fiving each other as we remember and celebrate them. We tell their side of the story and expose the absurdity of the Comments: where people who weren’t present at their deaths nonetheless have opinions about what happened. The videos we’re making are a tribute to nine whose lives were taken because of the color of their skin or their mental state. We’re doing this in masks with open windows and fans blowing in fresh air; we’re doing it in groups smaller than ten, with six to fifteen feet of space between us. We’re doing this. I am ecstatic.