Blackout

This workshop speaks directly to those who want to have an in-depth conversation and create space for crafting performances to directly encounter social justice issues. We will discuss the need for both caution and bravery, the importance of trust and sensitivity, and challenge attendees to expand their understanding of what serves as a "social justice" performance. Our flagship format, The Swag Hat, has allowed us room to be in constant dialogue with both our audience as well as the happenings of the world around us. This workshop will engage attendees in how to manage the delicate nature of sensitive topics and the brutality of truth with honesty, creativity, and freedom. From the silly to the serious, we will learn to express ourselves safely to a public who is often uncertain of their own safety.

"Blackout presents: The Swag Hat" is our honest take on various issues concerning our society. In Swag Hat, we create a dialogue with the audience by having you anonymously submit topics, questions, and comments to us by writing those subjects down on slips of paper and putting them into a hat before the show. We then take that hat of suggestions and have you, an audience member, reach into the hat to randomly select which one we will use as our suggestion. What follows is an honest conversation about the suggestion - relating it honestly to our lives, to various aspects of our culture, to whatever it is that is the suggestion brings to our minds - and then we break into jubilant longform improv rooted on the conversation we've just had. That’s it! We weave all of the topics brought up that night into an austere experience that you, the audience, creates with us. The entire room has a stake in what becomes a hilarious back and forth between the performers and audience. Honesty above everything, filled with community. You're gonna love it.