News

Mixed Reality Performance

As a John Wells MFA Directing Fellow at Carnegie Mellon, I am part of The Contemporary Performance Think Tank, which researches specific topics on contemporary performance each year. This past year, I researched "mixed reality performance." As defined by Steve Benford and Gabriella Giannachi:

mixed reality performances deliberately adopt hybrid forms that combine the real and virtual in multiple ways and through this, encourage multiple and shifting viewpoints

My research was just published in full on Contemporary Performance. Read the full write-up here to learn more about mixed reality performance and some of its practitioners, including Blast Theory, Rimini Protokoll, The Builders Association, CREW, Yehuda Duenyas, and more.

Situation Rooms by Rimini Protokoll

Situation Rooms by Rimini Protokoll

Rachel Gita Karp
"How to Put On a Sock" success!

How to Put On a Sock had an exceptionally successful run! With sold-out, engaged, and thoroughly moved audiences, the interactive sex ed show rocked its performances at CMU. Thanks to the many, many extraordinarily talented people who helped make it happen, including actors Harry Thornton, Roma Scarano, and Jonathan Eric Norwood; dramaturg Emma McIntosh; and designers Yijun Yang, Yujia Zhang, Alex Fasciolo, Aaron Landgraf, Giada Sun, Joyce Wang, and SooA Kim.

Read more about the show in an interview I did for CMU's website, available here.

How to Put On a Sock.jpg

Additional pictures coming soon!

Rachel Gita Karp
"How to Put On a Sock" opens tonight!

How to Put On a Sock, my investigation into sex ed and abortion policy and legislation across the United States, opens tonight! 

How to Put On a Sock.jpg

Those in Pittsburgh, make sure to come out! Those in other places, stay tuned for pictures and more! 

Rachel Gita Karp
"Stories Women Tell"

To keep on the video train, I'll share one of the most powerful videos I've found in my research: the abortion documentary "Stories Women Tell," which is available through HBO.

According to HBO's summary: "Awarding-winning director and Missouri native Tracy Droz Tragos sheds new light on the contentious issue with a focus not on the [abortion] debate, but rather on the women themselves – those struggling with unplanned pregnancies, the providers who show up at clinics to give medical care, as well as the activists on both sides of the issue hoping to sway decisions and lives."

Hearing from all sides made for an illuminating and heart-rending 90 minutes.

Check out the trailer below.

And check out the companion website here.

Rachel Gita Karp
How to Put On a Sock: Spotlight on Mississippi

If you're wondering where my show, How to Put On a Sock, got its title, wonder no longer. It comes from a very well-meaning YouTube video, below, in which a sex educator in Mississippi demonstrated how to put on a sock because--under Mississippi law--he was not allowed to teach about how to put on a condom. 

To learn more about sex education in Mississippi, check out this article from the Los Angeles Times. It's one of the first articles I found when I started researching sex education, and I haven't been able to look at a Peppermint Pattie the same way since.

TUNICA, Miss. — Marie Barnard was delighted when, after decades of silence on the topic, Mississippi passed a law requiring school districts to teach sex education. But the lesson involving the Peppermint Pattie wasn’t what she had in mind for her sons.
— "Sex education stumbles in Mississippi," Alana Semuels, Los Angeles Times
CMU Semester 2

My second year of grad school starts tomorrow! The summer was wonderful, with devising a new play, directing a new play, and seeing tons of new plays across New York. Now I'm back in Pittsburgh and ready to dive in to everything that the coming semester holds.

Chief among that is the show I'm creating and directing called How to Put On a Sock, which looks at sex education and abortion policy across the United States today. It's inspired by Frank Wedekind's classic play Spring Awakening and actual sex ed curricula and abortion legislation. It'll be my biggest project to date, by far.

I've been doing endless research to create the show, and I'll share some of it here throughout the semester.

To start, here's a recent article from the New York Times about abstinence-until-marriage education--and how problematic it is.

Enjoy (as much as possible)! And check out How to Put On a Sock at CMU November 1-3.

#liberated nominated for NY IT Awards!

#liberated, which I co-created and -directed for its premiere at IRT Theater in June 2016, has been nominated for TWO New York Innovative Theatre Awards!

Frank Oliva was nominated for Outstanding Set Design.
Scot Gianelli was nominated for Outstanding Lighting Design.

Congratulations to Frank and Scot for their incredibly well-deserved nominations!

Read the full list of nominees here.

New Summer, New Website

Hello and welcome to my new website! The old one was, well, old, and it couldn't do lots of things that websites tend to do these days. This new one can do it all and makes it easy to update on all things happening in Rachel Karp Directing Land. And so--here's update #1!

After finishing my first year of graduate school at Carnegie Mellon University, where I directed two shows (Oil and Watercolor by Seanan Palmero and Giant Slalom by Jess Honovich), assistant directed one (Opacity by Big Art Group), and learned more than my head can honestly hold, I am back in New York for the summer to work on a number of projects:
- directing Motherland by Cecilia Corrigan, presented at The Brick Theater through its This Is Not Normal: an Arts & Activism Festival, June 24th through July 2nd. We got a great mention in The New York Times' write-up of summer festivals--get tickets here and check out some activist art!
- devising and directing a new piece with Ben Hoover through theater company The Instigators, going up June 24th and 25th at Access Theater
- workshopping my big grad school second-year project, How to Put On a Sock
and more!

Check back here for update #2--and beyond--coming soon!

Motherland by Cecilia Corrigan

Motherland by Cecilia Corrigan