I engaged Reponde de Capite, an avant-garde theater group located in Little Rock, to create performances that would fit within the studio, challenge my audience, and be minimal in design. I had worked with the group as set designer for their 1989 As Woman As She Could Ever Possibly Be and their work reminded me of my Abreaction Theater experiments during the late 1970’s and 80s. I was pleased that the company agreed to collaborate with me–even more so considering I had no money to pay them.

Charles Harvey was the artistic director and out of scant resources (read: no budget) produced a series of powerful and resonating events for our patrons.

I remember two extraordinary pieces. In the first, a woman enters the studio, disrobes, and steps on a platform followed by a sculptor holding a bucket of clay slip who proceeds to apply the slip to the model–a Pygmalion myth in reverse; and, the second, a howling patient on a bass boat being hauled across the Center’s nearby pond as two actors read from Céline’s coarse last book Ragadoon and Barthelme’s The Dead Father (this performance nearly got me fired).

The Cabaret lasted for only one summer as a search for a funding source was unsuccessful.

Unfortunately, I am only in touch with a few of the members now (Gigi Peters, Tom Kagy, and Casey Alexander) but am grateful for the time and effort this company put into all the Friday nights during the summer of 1990.

Thank you, Reponde for this precious memory.