Open Call: Pitch Reels

The Pitch:

Fueled by the tension of opposites dominating our country -- a country more polarized than ever -- we offer an analog snapshot of American election mores for the digital age.

In 1997, Echo Theatre was formed in Dallas Texas to “unearth of the power of the female theatrical voice.” A feminist theatre in a Red state in the Bible belt. Go figure.

In 1965, Bob Dylan created “Subterranean Homesick Blues.” The song -- an electric piece by an acoustic guitarist -- put a hero of the 60’s protest movement in the Billboard Top 40. The video was featured in a documentary called Don’t Look Back, but here we are.

Performance artist Rhonda Blair is a professor at Southern Methodist University from an evangelical Christian upbringing with radical feminist beliefs -- who served as President of SMU’s faculty senate during the negotiations for the Bush Library.

In 2004, Blair created and performed “Rules for America: Spoken (and Unspoken).”
Abortion Is Murder (But Killing Iraqi Children Is Okay),
White Men Belong In The White House (Black Men Belong In The Big House),
and so on.

In 2008, an African-American man faces off against a former First Lady for the privilege of battling an aging, white male conservative. Republicans vs. Democrats. Democrats vs. Themselves. Red vs. Blue.

Us vs. Them.

Echo Theatre’s proposed video: “Rules for the Electorate: Spoken (and Unspoken).”
Everybody’s Vote Counts (Except The Ones That Aren’t Counted),
Think For Yourself (But Vote For Your Party),
and so forth.

Our video sample is a rough cut of Blair’s 2004 performance piece. Our actual video will be an updated version, voicing our take on rules for voters, and done very much in this style (our style) -- grassroots, hand-made and hand-held.