Unexpected, beautiful and thought-provoking — La Jolla Playhouse's Without Walls (WOW) Festival is here once again and serving up more out-of-the-ordinary art experiences.
This year the programming will take over parts of UC San Diego’s campus.
“This is a fox and a stag and that is a sea dragon,” said artist Bridget Rountree, describing giant puppets she helped to create. “We love mixing different animals together to create mythological creatures.”
Rountree and her husband Iain Gunn form the group called Animal Cracker Conspiracy. They're putting on a dream-like show at the WOW Festival called “Spectrum: Society of Wonder.”
“It's like an awesome bedtime story for all ages,” Gunn said.
The performance includes a string quartet from the San Diego Symphony Orchestra and enormous handmade puppets that will glow in the night.
Gunn said the animal figures are “representations of constellations that are brought to life” in the show.
“This is actually going to be more of a sit down show where the audience is participating as a star cluster,” he said.
Another local group performing at the festival is Blindspot Collective. Their “iykyk” event stages theater performances at the Che Café — a center on the UCSD campus known for its punk music scene and art.
“At any given moment both inside and outside of this facility, four short plays or musicals — all of which were developed for this production — will be performing simultaneously,” said the group’s executive artistic director Blake McCarty.
Since its inception in 2013, the WOW Festival has been staged at various places around San Diego and has become one of the biggest don't-miss theater events in town.
“The audience gets to explore freely or with a little more intimacy. It gives the audience a little bit of a shake up and you find yourself surprised,” said WOW Festival producer Amy Ashton.
This year’s festival features more than 20 local, national and international artists that specialize in theater, dance, puppetry, music and spectacle events. Many of them think outside the box.
One of Blindspot Collective's plays occurs in a cramped and heavily-graffitied bathroom at the Che Café.
“The audience will kind of come in and stand in various spots and the play will happen right here by the sink,” said the group’s producing artist Shellina Hefner.
For “Spectrum: Society of Wonder,” it's about refreshing the mind with the help of some large, inanimate creatures to find the beauty and joy in life.
“For us, it shifts our perspective of what the world can be and what's possible in the world,” said Rountree. “That's really a large part of what the show is about — is how we perceive the everyday.”
Ashton said there’s something for people of all ages and backgrounds at the festival, and that traditional theater rules don't apply.
“This is our chance to kind of completely blow up those rules and say this is a place where everyone is welcomed,” she said. “Hopefully you will find a spot you feel comfortable in — and if you don't let us know because we want to fix it.”
Blindspot Collective said they'll cover a wide range of issues through their theater performances.
“They're all about student activism and they're all about student experience,” Hefner said. “They're also all set from the lens of people who may work or volunteer here in the Che Café.”
Animal Cracker Conspiracy is trying something new this year, which poses big risks and rewards.
“It's going to be either absolutely stunning or kind of a crazy, chaotic unfolding of a story,” Gunn said, while Rountree laughed.
This year’s Without Walls Festival runs from April 4 through April 7, with exhibits during the day and evening.
All of the performances will be presented free to the public, but some shows need reservations. More information can be found at wowfestival.org.
