EUGENE, Ore. -- (Nov. 6, 2009) -- In celebration of Veterans Day and recently passed national service legislation, UO theater department head John Schmor and two UO student veterans will travel to Washington, D.C. for a production of the play, "Telling."
Schmor will direct, and the UO student veterans will act in the play. Three other Oregon veterans and a UO graduate who is a military spouse will also be traveling to D.C. for the performance. A live stream of the performance was shown at 11 a.m. on Nov. 11.
The archived performance is available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyDaAwcjgr4.
The Telling Project, thetellingproject.org was created in 2007 to help provide veterans and their families with the chance to tell others about their experiences transitioning back to civilian life after deployment. The Telling Project's Veterans Day play will draw from previous productions performed in Eugene and Portland.
Service Nation, a non-profit, non-governmental organization, invited The Telling Project to present a 25-minute excerpt of the previous plays at George Washington University in conjunction with the Veterans Day events on Nov. 11. Representatives from government, the military and the entertainment industry are expected to attend.
The play is based upon interviews with veterans. The interviews were sifted down into script form by co-authors Jonathan Wei, executive director and founder of The Telling Project, and UO comparative literature graduate student Max Rayneard. Schmor, who is head of the UO Theatre Arts Department, directed the Eugene play and will serve as director for the Washington D.C. performance.
In Telling, the veterans interviewed for the script also perform the material. "The individual talking on stage is telling about his or her own experience," said Wei. "We needed to let that material be in the possession of, and delivered by, the person to whom it happened."
A total of five vets from Oregon -- from different branches of the military, most of who served in Iraq and Afghanistan -- will perform. In addition, a UO poetry graduate and wife of a veteran will present her poem, "Planting, Hayhurst Farm," as part of the performance. A reading of the poem can be viewed at [http://www.vimeo.com/6801609].
The Telling Project is part of an international movement called "verbatim theatre," a form of documentary theater in which scripts are based upon the language used by interviewees. And then the interviewees take the stage as actors in the resulting plays.
The Telling Project also has created a 50-state expansion initiative, with the goal of creating opportunities for all veterans and family members to tell their stories through performance art. The organizers currently are seeking partnerships and funding to help support the initiative.
About the University of Oregon
The University of Oregon is a world-class teaching and research institution and Oregon's flagship public university. The UO is a member of the Association of American Universities (AAU), an organization made up of the 62 leading public and private research institutions in the United States and Canada. The University of Oregon is one of only two AAU members in the Pacific Northwest.
Contact: Julie Brown, UO media relations, 541-346-3185, julbrown@uoregon.edu
Source: John Schmor, director and head of the Department of Theatre Arts, 541-346-4145, jbschmor@uoregon.edu
Link: The Telling Project, thetellingproject.org
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