We love the messaging behind Dirty Gold, specifically the emphasis on “sustainable process and mindfulness”, Rebecca, could you share your thoughts on what that looks like in theatre?

Rebecca: “It really started with being a performer my entire life but it wasn’t until I went through yoga teacher training that I realized the level of burnout that came with putting on a production. I didn’t really have the language to describe what was happening to my nervous system and how I was intentionally disregulating my nervous system both on stage and in rehearsal. We’re taught as artists and performers to build characters but we’re not taught how to let them go, not just at the end of production but at the end of a rehearsal. Intellectually we can understand, as actors, that there’s a difference between me and my character but our bodies do not know the difference. If our bodies are experiencing grief, frustration, and anger, our bodies are actually experiencing those things. That was the moment that I was like, how do I bring this to theatre? How do I provide myself and other performers tools to be able to easily and quickly reset their nervous systems through mindfulness practices every single day? The structure of our productions is mindfulness-based, when we’re in rehearsal we check in AND check out with mindfulness exercises, meditation, and movement every single day. When you’re in DG production you do three mindfulness workshops over the course of production, these are pillars that we keep coming back to. The whole conversation was, how do we do the type of theatre that we like safely and sustainably?”

Roy: “To add to what Rebecca said so eloquently, Rebecca’s main focus is on the mindfulness aspect, making sure that we can do the type of theatre we want to do in the healthiest way possible. And the other element that I’m passionate about, that we commiserated over is making sure that we do theatre in sustainable spaces as well.”

We’re curious Roy– Dirty Gold is defined as provocative, how provocative are we talking about, NYC being the most provocative?

Roy: “Provocative is kind of a moving target and its totally subjective and up to an audience. When we talk about provocative, we think of that as “provoking thought”. I once heard Ethan Hawke say “the best films start when the credits roll”, meaning the best films make you think. And that’s really what we want to do. We’re currently doing Word Perv which may not be the most provocative to us but it will provoke thought.”

As described in your values; Dirty Gold facilitates affordable and accessible art. An ongoing conversation in the theatre community is about the price of theatre and how inaccessible live performance has become. How is DG contributing to the accessibility of theatre in the Austin community?

Roy: “The barrier of entry for theater is so high, we’re reading a book called “Theater of the Unimpressed” and in that book they talk about how a lot of productions continue to cater to the same audience. So something we’re thinking a lot about is, how do we broaden our audience. We know multiple people who are teachers, how do we bring our productions to the students? We started this theatre company with the idea that we need to get theater to as many people as possible.”