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Patrick Keating

Maiko Bae Yamamoto

Andreas Kahre

Noah Drew

Adrienne Wong

Barbara Clayden

Alex Ferguson

Ilena Lee Cramer

Erin Wells

James Long

what we do

Inflatable Playwright, Inflatable Theatre

There are watershed moments in a playwright's development. There are moments when a creative challenge seems so huge its very size provokes an impulse of equal magnitude, an impulse charged with the desire to achieve one's maximum potential. I experienced such a moment back in the summer of 1998. Norman Armour sat me down in a chair on my front lawn and proposed I take on the job of writing a huge millennial piece for Rumble. He said it should include Orson Welles, The Theremin and elements of the 1938 radio broadcast of War of the Worlds. In addition, a New Music ensemble was to perform live and play an equal role in the story telling. To date I had written two one acts (one with Lesley Ewen, The Relationship Book of the Dead), and a 5 minute piece for the now defunct Kiss Project. For a brief minute I thought, "Why is he entrusting me with such a monumental task? Shouldn't Caryl Churchill be writing this?" And, "Did he just put the fate of his company in my hands?"

I still don't completely understand Norman and his amazing instincts, and I don't know if I helped Rumble at all. I do know that he pushed my writing to a level I would never have achieved without him. He forced me to think as big as I possibly could. In the end, I think the project almost killed us. I remember, with shame, the night we yelled at each other in the stalls while the audience was still in the house. I love artists like Norman. Their waters run so deep you can always rebuild the bridge you think you've just burned.

The artistic challenge Norman put to me is the same one he puts to every artist, every administrator, to everyone in the community. And look at the results: the whole community has grown bigger. I think we all take ourselves that much more seriously because Norman treated us as if we were capable of working at the highest conceivable level.

Recently I got to work with him on San Diego at Studio 58. I was amazed and sometimes disturbed by the way he treated the students. He treated them as if they were veteran professionals. Anything less than the highest standard was not tolerated. By the end of the run, every one of those students, including the stage manager who had to deal with over 300 cues, had grown in stature.