“Americans need to know.“
-Secretary of the Army Togo West, Coolidge Auditorium, 2012
First blocking rehearsal on Sunday March 24 at Austin Community College -
Read all about it at our “Telling: Austin, TX” blog.
Congratulations to the cast OF “Telling: Des Moines,” performed November 8-10, 2012. Three excellent, well-attended performances brought the individuals and stories of central Iowa’s veterans to their community. NPR affiliate Iowa Public Radio’s interview with a few cast and crew can be found HERE.
May 18th, 2012, The Telling Project performed at Coolidge Auditorium at the Library of Congress, with the support of the Veteran Artist Program and the Veteran History Project. This was the 8th original production of The Telling Project. Click above for the full streaming recording of this performance, filmed and edited by Vets on Sets of the Veteran Artist Program.
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The 7th production was performed May 14-16 and May 24, 2012 at Donaldson Correctional Facility outside of Birmingham, AL, working with a group of 6 incarcerated veterans and supported by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Alabama Prison Arts +Education Project.
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‘IMPORTANT, IMPRESSIVE PLAY CONVEYS THE REALITIES OF WAR’
Eastern Iowa Life, December 3, 2011 – click HERE to link to article
To view “Telling: Iowa City” in streaming video, click the photo above
With the University of Iowa Veterans Association and Working Group Theatre, and with the generous support of Humanities Iowa/National Endowment for the Humanities and many others, “Telling: Iowa City” was the 6th original production of The Telling Project. For those unable to make the performance, you can view it online by clicking the photograph above.
“It was by far the best performance I’ve seen this season.” Ben Waterhouse, Willamette Week
“Whatever else you’re doing this weekend, you should drop it.“ Bayard Woods, What Weekly
(click quote to see the article)
OUR MISSION:
The Telling Project works with communities and organizations to produce “Telling,” – an innovative performance in which military veterans and their family members, after interviews and subsequent training and rehearsal, stage the ‘telling’ of their stories for their communities. The Telling Project creates opportunities for veterans to speak and their communities to listen. The Telling Project has has performed in 14 cities and 9 states since 2008, putting over 50 veterans and veterans family members on stage to tell their stories of military life to their communities.
The Telling Project is a direct response to a critical disconnect between the veteran and civilian communities during a time of war. Understanding soldiers’ experience is fundamental to the responsible execution of the rites of citizenship in a free society. While access to information concerning issues and events is greater than it has been at any time in history, contact between veterans and civilians on a community and individual level is at historic lows. Less than one percent of the US population has served over the last decade. The Telling Project provides a forum in which citizen veterans and their family members can speak directly to their own communities concerning their experiences, humanizing and making immediate what are otherwise abstract and polarizing ideas and issues. In an era of divisive and polemical rhetoric, The Telling Project pursues meaningful, nuanced and complex conversations concerning issues of vital importance to communities, the nation and the world.
The Telling Project hearkens to the origins of theatre as a ritualized communal conversation, in which experiences which might otherwise threaten societal cohesion become instead vital and engaged elements in individual, communal and national identity. The Telling Project is performance, oral history and collective mythologizing to the end of broadening and deepening individual connection to community, nation and the world.
*Our logo was designed and donated by Charles Waters Photography.
This comment string is from Joe Cantrell, a Navy veteran of the Vietnam War, and Josh Coombs – in relation to Josh’s “Ash Wednesday” clip.
Joe Cantrell at 5:54pm December 22
Takes me back to the day Dan Johnstone, the guy Danielle’s named after, and I were walking back to the boat from lunch in the officers’ mess at My Tho, in the Mekong Delta. A Vietnamese Navy guy about 50 yards away kicked his Honda starter, where some clever VC had tied a grenade under the gas tank with a wire to the starter, and well, you know…
It’s still very hard to go back through that stuff, and the power of your production gets RIGHT AT IT.
Joshua Coombs at 6:11pm December 22
So, Jon, you wanted my reaction to the clip…
Well, to be honest, I generally don’t like watching myself speak, because I’m either overly-critical of myself, or I feel like I’m bathing in narcissism. Watching it, I didn’t think it would have any affect on me, considering that, well a) I lived the experience, and b) I remember giving the monologue. Well, the end of it still kinda made my hair stand on end. That’s all.
Joe Cantrell at 7:38pm December 22
Joshua, thanks for the scream. You spoke for millions of us.
This comment is from Bill Mithoefer, sent to me via Facebook and in response to “Ash Wednesday.” Thanks for your words, Bill.
I guess it resonates with me because I remember very distinctly sitting in my little teenage hideaway off the living room in Accra when the military started shelling the broadcast house across the street. The first mortar that hit shook the wall of the house so much that I thought we were having a major end of Accra as we know it earthquake. Then I walked outside and hung out with all of the neighbors watching the Ghanaian troops continue to launch mortars across the street from where they were set up a couple of houses away, and it turned into our afternoon entertainment.
TELLING IN DC!!! AWESOME! I am so excited for everyone. Amazing work, John, Jon, and Max. Too bad it’s two days before I graduate, otherwise I’d be able to get out there and watch.
Officer Candidate Jin
Telling: Sacramento AWESOME SHOW! To bad if you missed it – it was great all 3 showings. We received a lot of very positive feedback.
I saw this performance at Towson University on Saturday 7th. It was spectacular. I thought every student should hear this message.
Dear Jonathan,
Your work is very important and awesome. Thank you for sticking with this project.
Fran Lewis
I was Blessed, as Telling DesMoines performances were wonderful and so touching to me. Both of my children were in the Army Hatie, Samolia, Bosinia and Iraq 2 times. My husband in Vietman, and my father was the guest speaker. Leland Lester is a Pearl Harbor survivor. He was on the USS PA. and now tells what he saw that day. THANK YOU for asking Dad to be a part of the telling project.