The inspiration for Whereupon came from two places. First, I had been experimenting with memory theatre as a way to organize and memorize speeches, as well as to improvise stories, lectures, and poems. Secondly I was inspired in reverse by a cadre of poets in Columbia who were fixated on elegy and death. Whereupon was composed to start in elegy and memory and move toward the moment of creation, the eternal present. For that final set I had the audience generate words I then arranged according to a simple mnemonic device. From that device I improvised (the opposite of elegy) 10 minutes of lyrical poetry to close the show.
Players included Mike Barrett, Mike Land, Trudy Lewis, Trae Mustoe, and Zeb Rains.
Mike Barrett Archive 