Fringe Festival Fundraiser Friday Night at Bas Bleu

The writer of the experimental play "Mad & a Goat" tells the story of her work and why it is so important to support new, creative pieces through venues like the Fort Collins Fringe Festival.

FC Fringe Blog Post By Diana Lynn Small

 Mad & a Goat is a two-person play about one woman who, to free herself from college debt, joins a goat farm she inherits from her occult-leader birth parents. There is seduction. There are biscuits. And let's not forget about the goats. The play is funny, fast, and favors the absurd over the reasonable. It exposes the madness of playing pretend and the fever that two bodies can conjure up from a good story. I have been working on the play since my first year as a graduate playwriting student at UT Austin. I began writing M&G in January 2012 with the intent that it would be for me and Heather Johnson to perform in and we would develop the play over a series of workshop productions, between our two cities, Austin and Fort Collins, which I would direct. These workshops, putting the thing up in front of audiences, would be how we'd develop the play solve the story, sharpen the poetry to mine new things from the play at each stage of development. Now 2014, M&G has had two workshop productions: The Fort Collins Fringe Fest (Aug 2013) and FronteraFest (Jan 2014). Both were immensely fruitful in teaching me about the piece in how narrative, image, and theatrical style work together to tell the story. The text is now in tight shape where the story and poetry are rolling and working. I learned that while I enjoy performing, the piece needs a full-time director to give the play its full body. And the play is ready for a design team to enrich the staging. , pacing, and thoughtful launching is necessary to building new work that will have a life beyond one performance. From its beginning, I've wanted it to be a piece that collaborators and I spend good time with as I learn to self-produce pieces of art that have tour-able and rich lifespans. It's a major part of my mission as a professional theatre maker. I have every intention of working with these artists in the future; every show is to get to the next. And here we are in Fort Collins. Paige Tautz has stepped in to play Woman opposite Heather Johnson, so that I might invest in the work as a full-time director. I'm so pleased to bring the piece back to Bas Bleu after a year and a half. To witness with returning audiences how the play has evolved, and get impressions from first-time audience members. I think it a rare opportunity we have as theatre makers and goers to commune over a piece in this way. I'm grateful to the Fort Collins Fringe for making it possible. See you Friday for Mad & a Goat!