The Eyed Entity Podcast
Based on a one year long project called "The Eyed Entity Project", the experience of identity in the face of profound grief and loss brought forth questions: who am I when I am not who I was in relationship before? What is most important? How do we uncover our preferences? How do we follow them? How impactful are others in each chapter of our own individual identity? This process emerged in the face of grief and the role of identity in that experience, but evolved into what matters most in life.
Join your host, Kimberly, an LMFT and creative in the exploration of themes around mental health, grief, relationship, creativity and the arts, how we find community, self-empowerment, and related psychological and sociological topics in coming episodes.
The Eyed Entity Podcast
Self Revelatory Performance in Drama Therapy with Aileen Cho, LMFT, RDT/BCT, CEDS
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Therapy doesn’t usually come with stage lights, a hard deadline, and a room full of witnesses. That’s exactly why self-revelatory performance can hit so hard. We sit down with Aileen Cho, LMFT, registered drama therapist and board certified trainer, and incoming chair of the Drama Therapy program at CIIS, to break down what “self-revs” are and why they’re more than autobiographical theater.
We talk drama therapy fundamentals, then zoom in on how a self-revelatory performance asks the performer to work with real material that’s still alive to make an aesthetically poignant piece of theatre. Aileen explains aesthetic distance, the sweet spot between being flooded and being disconnected, and why the theatrical frame matters as much as the personal story. We also get honest about the director’s job: holding ethics, containment, craft, and the messy reality of making something out of nothing.
We dig into the rehearsal process from dreaming and gathering to shaping, scripting, and making tough cuts, plus how self-indulgence can show up as difficulty in editing or as avoidance. Then we turn to the audience, not as passive consumers, but as compassionate witnesses whose presence can support transformation for the performer and spark healing for themselves too. If you’re curious about therapeutic theater, trauma-informed creativity, drama therapy training, or why real-life ritual feels so rare in an online world, this conversation gives you language and a roadmap.
Subscribe for more season two conversations, share this with a creative who needs a stronger container, and leave a review with your biggest takeaway.
Guest: Aileen Cho
https://www.ciis.edu/academics/graduate-programs/drama-therapy
Host: Kimberly Koljat
https://www.kimberlykoljatlmft.com/
Music: Peter Joseph
Graphics: Big Love Designs
Welcome Back And Meet Aileen
SPEAKER_05Hello, everybody. Welcome to season two of the identity project. My name is Kimberly Coljat. I am your host, and today we're starting off season two with Aileen Cho. Aileen, thanks for being here. Yay! Happy to be here. Aileen is a licensed marriage and family therapist. She is a registered drama therapist, a board certified trainer. A should I go through your whole resume? Um please don't. She does a lot of things. She's the incoming chair for the drama therapy program at the California Institute for Integral Studies. Um, we'll we'll include uh, you know, a link to your website when we publish, so in case people want to learn more about you. But Aileen, thank you so much for being here. I'm so happy to be here.
SPEAKER_02Thank you for the intro.
SPEAKER_05Word. Um today we're gonna talk about uh drama therapy and self-revs. Self-revs.
SPEAKER_02Self-revs for short.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Um well, why don't we start with um since I know some people who listen to the podcast are drama therapists and some are not, why don't we introduce folks to what is drama therapy?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, let's just get us situated here. Um
Drama Therapy Defined Simply
SPEAKER_02so drama therapy, uh the short definition will be the intentional use of theater and dramatic techniques uh to serve in the purpose of some healing or change or transformation.
SPEAKER_05Right on in a nutshell. In a nutshell. That's it. Great. Um and so I mean, we've known each other for a minute, like a really long time.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Uh wait, what wait, let's do the I know, I'm like uh the math. Um 16 years.
SPEAKER_05It's 2026 now. Yeah, 16 years. Oh, I'm having an existential crisis moment. Right? The math is mathing. 16 years, yeah. Yeah, um, we we both went to the same school. This coincidentally, the school where you're working now. Yes, I never left.
SPEAKER_02Never really graduated. Um yeah, and you were one cohort above me.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_02We were like siblings.
SPEAKER_05Siblings moving through all of the things. So in in the program, we learn lots of different like all the ways drama therapy is applied. There's uh performance, there's process, there's applied theater arts. Um where's your favorite corner right now, today, of the drama therapy?
SPEAKER_02Oh my gosh. I mean, now that I'm really uh I have been teaching at CIS, um, but I now as I'm becoming head of it all, I feel like I cannot be biased.
SPEAKER_05And that's fair. That's a good idea.
SPEAKER_02To love all children equally.
SPEAKER_05That's very cool. You've done lots of different practices too.
SPEAKER_02I have, yeah, yeah. I I was a part of a playback troupe. Um, Kimmy and I are both uh DBT practitioners, and uh for all of you who are have been listening, I'm sure you've heard her speak about developmental transformations, and that's actually where we got to um become uh closer. And yeah, and self-revs that we're gonna talk about. I mean, but we really train in all, right? We learn about role theory, we do psychodrama, which is a cousin of drama therapy. Um yeah, I mean, I I I do love it all. I do love it all.
SPEAKER_05Because each one of them has their own, like whatever approach it is, it has its benefits for different different people, different contexts. Um, I feel like and and also like the different work sites that people work at, whether they're in like schools or whether they're working with like uh like there's so many different places. Well, why don't you share with everybody like different sites? Because you probably know more sites where drama therapists work than even than I do.
SPEAKER_02Oh gosh. Um, yeah, I mean, definitely clinical settings, right? Like hospitals, um, treatment programs, a lot of school-based drama therapy, um, clinics and centers, private practices. Um, incarcerator folks, yeah, um, a lot of in-between spaces.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Yeah. Theaters.
Where Self-Revs Come From
SPEAKER_05Well, today we're gonna um put a lot of our energy towards self-revelatory performance.
SPEAKER_02That's right.
SPEAKER_05Um Aileen's done a lot of self-revs. We call them self-revs for short, um, but they it's technically called a self-revelatory performance. Um do you want to share with folks the history of the self-rev?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I'm like thinking that you and I are kind of self-rev junkies. I am a little bit. Yeah, we gotta we gotta watch ourselves today because this could become like a five-hour podcast. We could go on and on and on and on. We really just nerd out about the form. Um so the term and the medium um has been coined by Dr. Renee Imuna, who is a pioneer of our field and the founder and current chair of the drama therapy program. Um, and it actually stemmed from her other drama therapy model, the integrative five-phase model, um, where it there's the flow and there's different phases that scaffold into the next. And, you know, one moment you're mirroring, and then the next you're doing a full-blown performance on something you're grappling with and have some moment of change or transformation. Um, and so I don't believe it started as full-blown self-revs, um, as we're gonna talk about today. And Kimmy and I will sort of uh share what we have witnessed in terms of kind of the history and our experience of being a performer and then directing, and I'm now I'm teaching the form and how it's um evolved. Um but uh it was it didn't become like a thing um until uh when she started the program, the graduate program in uh in drama therapy. At the time, Kimmy, right, when you and I went, there were two accredited schools in the US.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02It was NYU and CIIS. And um one of the options to uh graduate, so your final thesis, graduating thesis capstone project was to complete a 45 minute to, I think they used to be an hour. Um, longer. Yeah. There's there's different time periods or eras of self-revs, right? In terms of like expectations and standards um and whatnot. So yeah, and it's uh it's kind of roofed under the house of um therapeutic theater. And because they have been solo pieces, um they kind of are side by side next to autobiographical theater with some distinct um differences.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yeah.
What Makes A Self-Rev Different
SPEAKER_05So an autobiographical theater, I think a lot of people assume that's just like, you know, somebody getting up on stage telling the audience the story of their life, like in scenes. Maybe they play different characters of people in their life and then show's done.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_05In a self-rev, what's self-rev versus autobiographical?
SPEAKER_02So there are autobiographical elements because the the main thing that anyone needs to know about a self-rev is you are performing as a drama therapy client, which is you, like for real. This is not a fictional story. This is you and your life and your personal material. And you're also demonstrating you as a drama therapist doing drama therapy on stage, live in front of an audience, right? So the the issue that you're grappling with has to be pretty present. It can't just be, oh, I went through that and now I'm gonna show it, and then therefore that is cathartic. That could be, right? We are seeing I think overall in um the umbrella of therapeutic theater, uh, one could say that just by expressing and um revealing one's struggles uh can be therapeutic or cathartic, but self-rev says, no, we're not gonna end it there. We actually want to see some kind of an intervention or transformation happen in front of a life audience. So it's quite juicy and hard.
SPEAKER_05And hecka hard. It's so visceral.
Aesthetic Distance And Onstage Healing
SPEAKER_05And I think like um the one um, and anytime I've talked about self-revs, whether it's on social media or on the podcast or with clients even, um, the one thing that I end up kind of like lingering back on is the concept of aesthetic distance. Because I think about that as a component of performance with self-revs, of course, because they're viscerally wrestling with something that's live, active for them that they're trying to transform in real time in their life as part of the piece. But also just like now I look for like when I'm watching pieces of theater or when I'm listening to music or uh any any expression of art. I'm thinking about like under distance, meaning like the actor or the performer is flooded with emotion, or over distance, meaning there's just not a lot of uh connectivity to the felt sense of what they're expressing. And so like finding that sweet spot of flow in the middle, I'm like I am fascinated by this whole the if I could focus like years worth of research in this in a lab, in a lab, it would be on aesthetic distance and flow because I'm just so I look for it in concerts, I look for it in theater, I look for it's just everywhere, but in self-revs, it is a key component, I think, to uh how transformation happens on stage. So when we say transformation, what what what's an example of what that might look like in somebody's rev for somebody who's never seen a self-rev before?
SPEAKER_02I mean, I think it depends. First of all, I want to back up a little bit and say I think it makes sense to people, even if you haven't seen one or have been in one, because I personally think that healing, the act of healing, in and of itself is a creative act.
SPEAKER_05Yes.
SPEAKER_02So it's like, duh, that makes sense to make theater out of something that you want to heal. And when we say transformation, I think we can use that kind of um interchangeably with healing something or changing something. Cause um, sometimes people aren't necessarily dealing with a gaping, bleeding wound. Right. I know a lot of the pieces I think recently have been more trauma-centered, but I mean, I've seen all sorts of different um themes and issues being grappled with. So um with that, the transformation can be big, a you know, a big act that is cathartic or dramatic. But we also do warn the reverse that that's not like the healing doesn't stop or end there, right? There is a reverberation that happens. Um, healing is also not an event. It's not like boom, this, you know, the show and done, and I'm I'm healed. So I I think so. When we say transformation, some moment of a shift, even the slightest, right? Or a rehearsal for an alternative narrative, um uh, you know, a new perspective, insight, outsight.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, because connection, something new. Something new. Because I think for so many people, whatever it is, they're so accustomed to the narrative that they tell themselves about what is that just having what else could it be? Such a DBT question. What else could it be? What else? But like what else? What else? But like and also a very could be a very anxious written question, but like just that slight shift to oh, it could be it also could be this, and pondering whatever that is is enough of a shift in a in a self-revelatory performance.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I think why I mean, I we could also probably do this with so many different artistic modalities, right? Um, but I think what's neat about being in the theater is it feels very um kind of sacred almost, right? This act of ritual. And so it marks a moment, it's a milestone or a rite of passage. Um, and again, that's not when all the change happens, but for for humans, for the history of mankind, womankind, um theater or theatrical rituals have, I think, always had a place in in how we've collectively made meaning, right? And process. I mean, this is like before therapy existed, right?
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And then you have churches and temples, right? Like there's it's it's very theatrical.
SPEAKER_05It echoes, like it's it's all to me, uh it's all the same.
SPEAKER_02Like I mean, different renditions or genres, I guess.
SPEAKER_05Yes, they're they echo each other for sure. There's something in that that's like I don't know, it's spiritual, it's spiritual, it's holding a space or a moment that is being like marked. Um yeah.
Self-Revs As Graduate Training
SPEAKER_05So like a lot of the students choose to do a self-revelatory performance as part of their like end of their the cumulative, what I forgot what the title is.
SPEAKER_02Oh, the capstone project to yeah, to really kind of wrap things up, but you know, to show um and demonstrate their mastery as they're graduating with their masters in drama therapy of what they've learned um and apply it to themselves.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um, so I guess maybe for the listeners, we also want to um delineate that um the self-revs that Kimmy and I are going to be mostly kind of talking about as references or examples are done in the school, which is very different, I think, when done with pedestrians or civilians. Um, because the expectations are higher, right? This is like their thesis project. So they have to be um, I don't know, psychological depth and nuance and also showing what they've learned and what they're integrating. Um, and they're budding clinicians. So we're looking for self-awareness and insight, right? Um, versus if we were to do this with clients, um a lot of those expectations wouldn't wouldn't be there.
SPEAKER_05And there'd still be like the theatricality, the aesthetic representation of with with anyone you'd work with. But at school, because so many of the students have options, folks know students have options for their capstone. They can, you know, do a project, they can write a paper, or they can do uh self-rev. And a lot of students tend to choose self-rev because there's there's just so many pieces to it. And a lot of it, especially throughout the graduate school experience as a drama therapy student, so much of it is around like you're learning experientially what drama therapy is by doing it, but you're also learning about yourself as you're engaging. And like I things people don't know out listening to this podcast. When I was running a mental health program, I had to work with lots and lots of different interns from different programs. And I always found that people had been who had been through this program, of course, recognizing bias, right? Like I went through this program. We're not biased. No bias. What are you talking about? Self-awareness, but like you really do have to kind of put yourself through the ringer while you're doing this. I mean, mindfully, but like to really know yourself, because the idea behind that is if the more you know yourself, the less it gets in the way of your work with your clients, with you know, and also just as a clinician, knowing where your strengths are, where your challenges are, and and so much of that is tied to our own personal histories and experiences and culture and all these things.
SPEAKER_02It's a very intense journey. It's a it we demand a lot, not just um academically, it's very rigorous, but also emotionally, interpersonally. I mean, we didn't even get into the group dynamics of being in a cohort, going through a process that's very evocative.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um, and then you're in your personal psychotherapy. I mean, it's a lot. It is a lot. It's like a self-boot camp.
SPEAKER_05It is. It kind of is, though. And so then it ends with this, like many students choose the self-rev. So they've already been doing this work right in classes and with their own personal therapist, and then it culminates by working with a director in this process and then with this teacher.
SPEAKER_02Right. So um it is a four-unit course. Um, so you're in a class with the same people who are going to be performing the same weekend, night, or weekend. Then you're in your intensive rehearsals with your director. And you're right. Um, so the the actual rehearsal process is give or take five to six months from when it starts with your director, who by the way, um is also a trained graduate drama therapist who has most likely done their own self-rev. So they're um a doula or a midwife of some sort. And um to the day of the performance is about, yeah, five or six months. But like Kimmy said, you learn about the form and you do a little mini 10-minute um, you know, mini rev, we call it. So you kind of have a seed planted early on, and people can be thinking about it um for a year or two or maybe even three. Oh, for sure. You know, or dreaming about it at least. And I don't know if about your court, but our court, anytime something happened, because there's just so much that happens and not enough time to process, they would we would just look at each other and be like, put it in your rev. You know, just just save it, save it for the rev. Save it for the rev. When you get to deep dive, right? And you know, everything is just gris for the mill. So it was it was kind of funny. Um, yeah, just like save it for the grand finale.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, so real.
SPEAKER_05So the thing that's different in these, I mean, so it it it gets uh the by the time you arrive at that point in the program, uh, there's so much that's already started to like rumble. And so you go through this process of rehearsal with a director. Um and how I mean, I can talk a little bit like both of you've directed a lot, a lot of revs.
SPEAKER_02I have. I want to say directed and consulted maybe over a dozen, well over a dozen. Something like that. It's it's a lot. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05So and honestly, like so many years ago that there was a course in in you know directing revs. I remember taking that and I remember leaving that and going like, cool, I can't wait to wait to direct a rev. And but I also was like, how, how am I how would I do that? I don't I don't know. Um now it's a very different experience. Uh it used to be that the the the director and the actor would go off in their own rehearsal space and and do it, which is honestly, as a drama therapist who practices in a city where I think I'm the only drama therapist around, um that would be how I would approach it here. It would just be like go off, work with your person and be on my way and probably call you and consult and say, like, alien, help. Um but uh now in the school environment, there's lots of supports, there's lots of scaffolding, there's lots of uh guidance and hand holding. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
The Director Role And Ethics
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I mean, what's neat about this podcast or this conversation I was excited about is um the As Kimi said in the very start, I've had many hats and have had different drama therapy roles, but my all-time favorite and um where I get to use every drama therapy skill I have ever learned is in the role of the self-rev director. But the ironic thing is that there's never really been given much attention to this role. It hasn't really been written about, standardized, studied. And so that's just starting to happen now. And I think that's why it feels different to step in now, because I always, I mean, as a teacher, I think I how I teach is informed by how I learn. And so that kind of applies to everything I do. How I have directed was informed by, or how I direct is how I um how I am informed. Oh my goodness. How I direct is informed by how I was directed. Yes, an English grammar test. Um and so how I'm trying to grow directors is also um informed by how I directed. Um yeah, and it's a really fascinating role because it's not quite all clinical, although we are learning more and more that that really is um vital.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_02Um the clinical skills. And so we do uh try to encourage the directors to be seasoned clinician. And then you have to have the theatrical background um because it really encompasses both. You really are a director, um, and it's such a I don't know, like a marriage of the two.
SPEAKER_05There's like I found there's so there's a a space in the rehearsal process of a rev for literally not only every part of the drama therapy self that I am, like the drama therapist that I am, like holding it clinically, holding it like like all of that part, especially at the beginning, right? So the beginning of the process, just like any any creative process is play and exploration of like where what is this? What are we doing? What are the themes? But as it continued, I found that like okay, at times I'm I'm therapist, like clinical therapist. At times I am a theater, like I'm really pulling my theater director or theater history directing, like knowing what the the principles of aesthetics and and blocking and lights and sounds and yeah, and the tech theater piece and and the stage manager piece that's like okay, we've got to have this and this by this point, like all of those things. And like I've had I had in the whole process of directing had to pull on pretty much every chapter of myself as a theater professional and every chapter of myself as a drama therapist, and also some of my own, like just the parallel process of like my rever going through it and then me also going through it alongside them and it bringing up stuff for me. Like, I think as far as like why it's important to have somebody seasoned in that director role, because if I didn't have that awareness, that could really muck up that rehearsal process.
SPEAKER_02Um, yeah, and I think there's been um, you know, ongoing conversations because it's not like there's a uh whatever a certification or a license you need to be doing autobiographical theater. I think in the world of theater, it's so free. You can do whatever you want. And I I don't know what the ethics are. I guess there are no ethics um about it, but there I know that there's been different panels and conversations about you know mental health and solo performances when people are grappling and working with their own personal material. And what we're trying to do in the world of drama therapy is to do it ethically and then effectively, right? Therapeutically effectively. And I think when Kimmy and I are talking about the process and product, it's really both and both feed on each other, right? Um, it's not that when we're so focused, hyper-focused on the product, that we're just going like whatever, we don't care about the rever as long as we put on a good show. The theory is that if we take care of the audience and make sure that everything is coming off clearly and they're able to follow and that the autobiographical material is clear to really illuminate why this is so um emotional, impactful, important, then they are riding on this kind of journey with you. And then therefore, that really keeps the what we call in therapy the container, right? Where one heals firm and not shaky or wobbly. So you are taking care of the performer as we talk about making sure that the product is a, you know, um uh finely tuned. I don't want to say the word good, but um like what is the word?
SPEAKER_05Um but the container is everything, you know, the frame. So I I've been reading this, uh I've read it twice now. This is the second time I've been reading through it. It's it's um, I don't I I'm forgetting the author, which I made a comment on my big water jug in case people are wondering. Like, what is that? Um I've been reading, rereading again, Art in the Age of Artifice, and it's a book about uh essentially like what is art in in the world that we live in, but also throughout time. And uh just yesterday was rereading the section around the frame. And so, like the frame, like if you think about a photograph, um uh, you know, uh how a photographer what they choose to put within that frame of the shot is everything because it's them everything in artist storytelling, no matter the medium. And so in a photo, how they choose to frame it and where the focus is and how the light hits is the story of that. And I think that translates to theater and self-rev so uh directly in that, like without the frame being held in such a very specific way, right? We lose the artistry, we lose of what a self-rev really is. Like it's beautiful and it's also uh full of so much energy that it's gotta have a frame. And it can't be like this tiny little uh like minuscule shot. It's gotta be enough information that we've brought the audience along with us to actually invest in whatever's going on by the time we reach that culminating scene where there's something happening and shifting and transforming.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I think um the frame, we can also call it limits or boundaries. What's so interesting is um it's pretty high stakes.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Meaning that there is a firm deadline. We the performance date does not change um financially, scheduling-wise, to pass the class and graduate. Um, to uh there's a whole team, right? Uh technical team. And so stakes are high, and you know, uh we scaffold that with deadline, different deadlines and whatnot.
Deadlines Pressure And Breakthroughs
SPEAKER_02And it's interesting, I'm kind of flashing back to a student um not this semester, but the one before. So a year ago, uh, she had dealt with uh part of her piece on um an old trauma that she said she wrote in her final reflection paper, um, had talked about in therapy for probably about 20 years with various therapists and talk therapy. And it really, to the core of it, not something that never kind of budged from that. So it's like repetition without transformation. And she was very skeptical um about what it would really do to make a performance out of it, and she said something really shifted. And why I want to mention that is that um the stakes are high and there is a push, right? There's a the pressure to kind of push out this unexplored territory around the healing, right? Um, and people do not enjoy it. It is not an enjoyable process. I mean, you got a taste of it too, but resistance is putting it lightly. I mean, all the force that's maintaining equilibrium to keep things the way they are because it's so painful to deal with otherwise, there is no deadline, there is no final performance, there's no act in therapy. And I do therapy, I'm a therapist, you and I are psychotherapists, and we're not poo-pooing on the fact that you know therapy is not healing, but there's just certain um walls we hit, I think. Yes, in one-on-one individual therapy, especially when it comes to like collective traumas, um, you know, where the healing, it's like it's like ironic, right? Like this massive thing happens to us, and then you go into a room with one person for 50 minutes once a week, right? Um, yes, and it can be very powerful and effective. But yeah, so I think I always tell the students, you know, the motto or the mantra we're gonna adopt is whatever is in the way is the way. So the thing that you keep complaining about or avoiding, or like when you have the thought of like, oh, if only this was not in the way, then I would be so creative and free. No, no, no, no. That is what is making the creative juices flow because creative means it hasn't been there before. So you need to push up against whatever that is, that barrier.
SPEAKER_05Yes. Like all the research and creativity talks about there has to be an element of novelty. In DVT, we talk about it as like the non-repeating element, like the the emergent that comes in, and then you're like, ooh, what's that? Or again, whatever the feeling around the the novel idea or feeling or whatever it is comes in, that has to be part of that process, or else there's no creative juices. It just it falls flat. There we lose the story, we lose the storytelling.
SPEAKER_02Right, right. Uh, I have another example in this last semester too. We had a student who um her practicum, so this is where the students are sort of interns at their clinical sites, um, was in a um memory care with the elderly. And so that's been her year-long practicum site. And she's been living at home with her grandmother with um dementia for like over a decade. And um in the process, you know, she's like trying to do her, you know, write her script and rehearse and come up with, you know, her self-rev. And uh for a few weeks it was like, I like it's like I'm trying to focus. And then my grandma's asking me, like, what's for breakfast? And what do you do? You know, like the the constant um uh distraction. And we were like, why don't we put her in there? Yep. And she became a full blown character in her piece, and then um it was really neat because great, we embraced it, she's in there more of like uh for for humor and like lightheartedness, but then in the pivotal kind of healing moment, we often kind of ask for like a you know, who is a therapeutic guide or a higher being or, you know, your wise enlightened character or self. And she really was like, I really do not have any elders who can play that role, you know. Um it's just non-existent in my life. And we could have gone like, okay, well then we'll try to do something else. And we're like, wait a minute, why don't we do drama therapy on this grandma character? Right. So she takes drama therapy pills and is like wise for like two minutes, um and gives her all the messages that she needs to hear for her her healing moment, yeah, right.
SPEAKER_05So, I mean, talk about embracing what's in the way, yes, and it's so visceral too, along like dementia, there's often those like little windows of like clarity for like at least earlier on in the process. This was way later, yeah. True, 10 years a long time, but like it it's like, and also for the actor, they get that like also they're the the the thing we haven't talked about yet is the the like the trajectory of like how do we create a self-rev that's right, but like it's all self-generated between the director and the actor, and so the actor's writing this, and and so it it still comes from the actor themselves, correct?
SPEAKER_02It's just fit through this character, yeah the projected you know, um, object, yeah, but it's her words, it's her own innate um ability to heal because she wrote it. Her grandma would never in real life be able to say these words, but oh, so powerful, right? On stage, hearing it come from her, yeah, and funny uh with and hilarious. I mean, the actor who played the grandma also just um nailed it so well. So that's sort of a clear example, yeah.
From Dreaming To Drafting
SPEAKER_05So let's use this as a jumping off point to talk a little bit about the process, too. So, like at the beginning of a self-rev, um, the the actor might have ideas of what they think the rev is about. Um, so in in a school setting, like in at CIIS, uh, they have to write a proposal of here's why I'm choosing this modality for my um capstone project. Um and from that, that's kind of the jumping off point for the director and the actor. Um beginning phase I I talked about a little bit earlier is like a time of play where they're exploring the themes, the the whatever emerges at the beginning.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I kind of call it the dreaming stage, right? And I say, your budget is a million dollars, you know, just go all out, do not put limitations, right? Um do not edit, do not just go off. And and actually, in that stage, I also encourage the performers to find other entry points to um the theme or material. Don't stay in just drama. I mean, most of our students come from different backgrounds of art, music, uh, you know, whatever it is that they're into that's embodied, that's creative. I mean, we've seen it all at this point, you know, poetry, spoken word, uh rap, uh, all sorts of kind of movement and dance. And so uh yeah, we just say gather, gather, gather, um, images, music.
SPEAKER_05Oh, the Pinterest boards.
SPEAKER_02Yes, yeah, we should call that the Pinterest board phase of self-revs.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Um, yeah, so at this stage, it's it really is like no edit because you don't want to edit your creative process before it's even launched because we don't know yet what's gonna end up the way I it's similar to developmental transformations. I'm always looking for what's repeating or where's the energy, like where does it abruptly stop? Like maybe we quickly pivot. And I'm curious why did we quickly pivot? What is it about that that made us pivot? And it's to me, it's the same in a self-rev introductory phase, which is like, oh, this is this keeps coming up and this keeps coming up. And I know you said you want it to be about this, but I'm noticing it's kind of about that. But what it's really showing is like it's there's things around this that's kind of emerging. Oh, you've got feelings about me even saying that. Like, like that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so I always have like a I call it the dead babies folder. And this is very common in a lot of creative processes, right? Where you're so attached from the inside of something that feels really um precious and like, oh, this has got to be there, and that is a part of the process. I say great, but we're just gonna stick them right in the dead babies folder so it doesn't we we're not letting it go. And it's kind of amazing how many times we revive some dead babies and it mix it back in, but it needed to be in a kind of a holding place so that we're not getting too lost. Yeah, but it is an intricate process. And I know, I know from the inside too of like, no, I might like this has to be in there. Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_05Oh, I was like that with my own Rev years ago.
SPEAKER_02Oh, yeah, no, I and then with my co-rev. I mean, maybe we should talk about our own experiences a little bit because we both have been on the inside of it, uh-huh.
SPEAKER_04And honestly, I don't really remember a whole lot about my own, which is diagnostic, right? Like that's yes, let's psychoanalyze that, everybody. Um that's true.
SPEAKER_05But it's intense, and like I really held on to at that beginning, especially. I want it to be about this, I want it to be about that, and I had to learn to like loosen my grip on it and like look at what I was actually holding. I think even throughout the whole rev process, it took me, I mean, I think well, for me, I think things have transformed obviously since then. It's been a long time, but it took years for me to like digest what was in my rev after it was done. Um which is good, but like I think that's also speaks to the medium of what it is. Like it it cooks, it continues to cook.
unknownI don't know.
SPEAKER_02What what was your experience being inside it? Oh my gosh, um traumatic in the best sense. Yeah, like I mean, there's so many exposure factors to it, right? And so I think even in just the rehearsal process alone, um, there's desensitization that happens if I'm talking like more trauma-centered language. Um it was intense, it was uh life-changing, and I probably sound cliche. Um, but it's almost like I have like a in my mind, like a pre-self-rev a-line and a post-self-rev a-line.
SPEAKER_05I certainly did too.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Uh, and then in terms of like the process, I had been working with a DBT practitioner in my own DVT therapy, and then I had sort of, no, I did. I had a non-clinical director. So she was a very a pure theater director, was a drama therapist, but just didn't practice clinically. And so I kind of had to fuse those two um figure, uh, authority figures together um to make it what it was. I think missing either of those would have um not made it possible for me to create what I did. Um yeah. And it's so funny because now when I look back and the students, I I show them my piece uh as an act of solidarity. Um and it's so interesting to watch now and then again because we're we're sharing it in class because I feel so far and removed from what those issues were at the time. Um and I have some criticisms about, I mean, constructive ones. Uh and I don't know if that speaks to just me being more seasoned or my ego strength. Like I, but as an art, both as an artist and from a clinical lens, I'm like, oh gosh, like we really could have done something there. And you know.
SPEAKER_05Well, and also you've been exposed to so many more rehearsal processes of revs that like now you have different, like your tea space around it has expanded.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_05Like when you were doing it, it was like, okay, well, this is my material, and I really this is how I'm gonna express it, this is how I'm gonna wrestle with this, and now it's done.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_05And you also had your director being like, we want to express it like this, or we could express it like that. And now that you've been on both sides of it and seen other people tell their stories through this medium, there's just more things to pull from.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah. Um, and then 10 years later, I did another, and I said never, never. I said, never will I ever do one ever again. Because I mean, I tell my students, any students who have like chronic illnesses, from what I've noticed from like my colleagues, is that people get really stressed. I mean, you really pierce through whatever threshold you thought was like your limits. Um, and people who with chronic illnesses get really sick, you know. Um, people without chronic illnesses, I think it like really it's like there's the recovery period because it's so intense. Um, where was I going with that? Oh, I said that I would never ever, ever do it again. And about 10 years later, I was like, oh my gosh, I think I really need to. And so I um yeah, I partnered up with the co-uh um co-rever. So we coined the term co-revelatory performance. Um, and Sarah Harkness, who I'll give a little shout-out too. Um, yeah, another fellow drama therapist and self-rev director, has taught the course. Uh, we created a piece over Zoom because it was during the pandemic. We were both um mothers quarantined in COVID, if we can all remember, back in those days. And we were in a year-long process over Zoom. Um, and we created over Zoom. And so then there's a point of like, well, is that really theater then and not film? Because it was filmed.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_02Um And the interesting thing about that was we were like, you know, we're both, we've both done our pieces, our individual pieces, and we're both directors. So we could just direct each other, right? And then about a third way in. So this goes to the point of like how hard it is on the inside and how much support you need. Uh, we had to hire, we had to outsource a director for us. Which was a huge learning point on so many levels on this role of the director. They're not just someone who tells you what to do and like witnesses. They really, yeah, Rebecca Siegel, another shout out. Um, yeah, she was our our container, so to speak.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. What was your the biggest challenge in in like when you arrived at that point? Like, actually, what was the moment where you realized, oh my gosh, we need we need somebody else to to join us in this?
SPEAKER_02We probably had some deadlines and a whole calendar. You know, we we say whatever you can structure and have um pillars of stability is very containing because remember, folks, we're creating something out of thin air. I mean, this is what art is, but there's just nothing. And so that feeling of kind of falling in mid-air is how I like to describe it. Yes, is very unsettling. And, you know, like most other art forms, like let's say, like um, I'm a pianist and I'm preparing to, you know, play something. There's things we can do, right? Like practice our scales, show up at the piano and like tinker around. But it's um we came to a point where we just uh were not meeting any of the deadlines, we couldn't do the homework, nothing was we were generating, but it was just like all over the place. And what was tricky was there was also interpersonal dynamics that we didn't account for. First co-rev. First co-rev. So we're totally like experience experimenting with a new form, a new constellation. So there were elements of surprise in the process that we did not foresee. And yeah, both of us came to like a head and we were like, either we get a director, we I don't think this is gonna happen. Yeah, I mean, we could also just like we just spent we would spend rehearsals just, I mean, we're very close and playful, so we would just vent and play and generate and then call it a day because no one was like, uh-uh-uh, right? We're gonna be workshopping now.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_02You we gotta be in script form.
SPEAKER_05Yes. So that kind of leads us to like that that after that stage of exploration, we start to clarify, we start to like really hone in um in that second stage of the the rehearsal process. So, what's the kind of the goal of that of that process uh at that time?
SPEAKER_02You can't have it all and you can't do it all, uh even though amazingly it will all be there at the end in some shape or form or element, even if it is just meaningful to you, it's it's gonna be there. But yeah, you have to kill some babies, yep, and make some decisions. Um and yeah, start to shape, right? Really shape. Like what are the dramatic devices? What are what's the style? I mean, and then when you think about drama therapy interventions, there's just like a million of them that you know, and so many different ways this can go. Um yeah, that part is really uh yeah, you're you're like in the muck of it. It's like, what is this? Oh, I think we know what it is, but then do we know what? Like what it does. This kind of, I mean, similar to kind of like a research paper, right? They say it like you zoom in on something and then you veer just a little bit, and then yes, right, it opens up a whole other thing, and then you have to rein yourself back and then get focused again, and then it it's it's that.
SPEAKER_05Yes, yeah. I feel like especially I mean the whole process, but especially in this stage, it's why every rev is just so unique to who's performing because it's so much about the two people, the director and the performer, where they kind of gravitate towards uh in their like drama therapy style, but also their personalities. They're like like I was lucky enough to work with someone who has a great sense of humor and hilarious, hilarious, your performer was hilarious. I adore her, and like also I also tend to really like humor a little bit. Yeah, yeah. Um, so when we would get to lean into that, I was like, we are gonna go. So let's use every bit of training we know around like how to build to like a thing to like make that pop. But also like the shaping of it is like you get to use your theatricality, your personality, your relationship together. Like everything starts to like, I feel like it starts to percolate, but it's not yet exactly how it will be in the final performance because if we were to do that, we'd probably have like a five-hour long self-rev.
SPEAKER_02Right, right, right.
SPEAKER_05Um, and it's only 45 minutes long. So we've got to find ways to creatively tell that story and be economical.
SPEAKER_02And sometimes I think people misconstrue that as oh, um you're taking away more of my expression. But again, if we're coming back to the audience, an audience can only hold so much uh focus. Yes, and you can only hold their attention for so long. I mean, even more so these days, I was just talking to we were just talking about those VHS versions of the self-rev where they're over an hour long. But I do think that back in those days we could hold our attention, yeah. Um, for that like me, Shakespeare are like long, long soliloquy kind of forms of theater we could hold, we could engage.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02But um it's harder and harder. 2026. Well, attention span. It's like, give me a one-minute rather transform.
SPEAKER_05Well, you know, like how in LA they're now writing like scripts that it's this breaks my heart, actually. They're like dumbing down their scripts so that people can be on their phone and kind of pay attention to what's on the bigger screen. They're called a vertical vertical storytelling or vertical traumas or something like that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, like you um awful, like it's the times we're in.
SPEAKER_05It makes me want to throw up in my mouth because I'm just like, wait, but there are those of us that are like really deeply craving, like I want transformation part I consume. Yeah, but but you know, nope, we're gonna just yeah, yeah, the long form. That's a whole different Oprah. We won't have that. Yeah, but um, okay, so we're we're in that second stage where we start like really clarifying and and honing and shaping, and then what comes next?
SPEAKER_02Well, before that, what comes next is the other thing is um there the speaking of element of surprise, sometimes people will play with or rehearse with something so much in rehearsal. Oh, yeah. By the time we're like trying to get to a final-ish script, they're like, wait, I'm not really feeling anything about that anymore. So then we can't quite call it a self-breath because you're over or desensitized. Um, and that's not not useful for the audience. And we always encourage you to have some part of that. Uh so many of these pieces you can tell what the process was like, the meta process, because that gets woven in to the storytelling, which is so yummy, right? For us, my favorite.
SPEAKER_04Like give it to me, all of it.
SPEAKER_02That's what that's what our rebel was was just meta city. So much meta city. I mean, uh, you know, your your piece, uh, her piece was called the bold second draft, because it was literally right, like just like ripping through and getting rid of drafts and then you know that whole process. Um so there's also that where the clinical hat is still, you know, on you halfway, like right, you know, because even though maybe that's not bringing a lot of emotionality that's not, you know, palpable enough, there's still something tied to it or a different. So there's a constant pivoting that needs to happen. Uh and I've seen people throw out literally their entire draft like three weeks before and like start a new one. I mean, your person was still on the nose of what they were working on, but you know, we we get people who are like, oh, a brand new like brand new starting from like Yeah, it's not recommended, but it is, yeah. I would cry. As what, the director or the teacher?
SPEAKER_04The director, or probably both, as the teacher and the director. I'd be like, what the former and the performer because, like, what are you doing? The element of surprise seems very exciting to you. Surprise.
SPEAKER_02That's what the title of my piece is. Um, and then speaking of that, you know, there's all these unaccounted for and unscripted elements, right?
Script Structure And Live Surprise
SPEAKER_02Yes. There was a question about like how much of this is improvised and scripted, and we actually want you to write a script that's where that we're able to follow through again, the limits and the boundaries that allow creative expression. Uh A, because we as the witnessers need to understand what's happening and we're checking for that, right? That the instructor and the director, the technicians need to know very clearly when the cues are. So you're being held by the technical aspects of the theater. Um, it was a little funny because last semester we had a dance theater uh performer and a professor. And I remember, I think it was the first day or the orientation, he was just like, you know, I don't write scripts. And I was like, what do dancers do? They don't have scripts. You know, it's like the blue girl jumps and then the light comes on, and then when the green frog does the roll thing, then it's the cute, you know. Uh, and I said, Well, we I guess we're gonna learn how to write a script. And and he did.
SPEAKER_05Which I think also highlights the fact that, like, depending up upon the performer and their history, like there's gonna be like growth edges in very different corners of the process. Yeah. Yes.
SPEAKER_02Or sometimes we'll have someone um without any theater background who are beautiful, excellent writers, but then to think how much of this can we show versus tell?
SPEAKER_05Yes.
SPEAKER_02And there's which is also a big challenge. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05There's so much in the showing.
SPEAKER_02I think like that's the I mean, that's why we're in the theater. Exactly. Exactly. And I say the rule of thumb is if we can listen to this on a podcast, we gotta work on that. Yeah. Why are we in the theater? Why do we have real bodies in the theater co-regulating with us?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Uh, and so to to speak to the the unscripted moments, the elements of surprise, right? Um uh the act the the sorry the level of presence when the performers have rehearsed enough, are off book and really have mastered the piece, know it inside and out in terms of the structure and the lines and the cues. The beautiful magical thing that happens is the interaction with the audience, the live audience.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Which which brings up the whole the concept of an audience at a rev is very different than like a traditional theater
The Audience As Compassionate Witness
SPEAKER_05audience.
SPEAKER_02That's right. That's right. So we should mention how we prime them.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. How do you prep an audience for a rev?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so it's not completely a closed or private group. I know there's other therapeutic theaters who do that. Um, it's not quite public either, but we do have people, I mean, I don't know, could be almost half or a third of people who don't know the performer personally. And so um, the instructor or the MC of the night will come out and say, uh, you know, the final ingredient or the uh yeah, the final ingredient to this kind of healing process is the audience, the compassionate, empathic witness, and that their role is not to just kind of sit back as like a passive witness being entertained, but to really actively engage, um, laser beam support from their seats. And uh because some of the material is very um evocative or triggering, you know, uh, we say to take care of yourselves by identifying like what is coming up for you and hope that some healing happens for you. And and I, I mean, if I've directed 10 or a dozen, I've probably watched at this point like a hundred revs. And as an audience member, I've often left healed, right? Left with something like that I didn't know that needed to be healed.
SPEAKER_05Because I think that's what like theater does it overall, and then self-revs really drive the point home. It's like in the specificity of that actor's storytelling and transformation on stage, you as audience member are taken on that ride with them and immediately have associations in your own lived experience and felt sense of like, oh gosh, I feel like this rhymes with my own experience of that, or I never saw that from that perspective. And now I know I can approach whatever this is differently. Like there is some sort of like in psychodrama, they they talk a lot about like different players having like it's not tele, but like having some sort of shared experience of witness and uh and uh active participant, but I think that's true of revs as well, where the audience is it's not like they're sitting there going, yeah, although in some cases, yeah, the actor on stage might evoke something from the audience. I mean, in my rev, uh I I had a piece which is like uh a piece of my rev was supposed to be the house lights came up and I was meant to address the house as a specific community I had been a part of. And I that was supposed to be a transformational moment, and I did not do it. I I said, you know what? I will share this with you. I'm not ready to hear back what you want to say to me. You can pull the house lights down again, which was feedback. They were like, You did what? Now I just couldn't take it in, right? I couldn't stand there, and that would have been transformational. Now, over a decade later, this is like how revs really impact you as a performer.
SPEAKER_02Right, right, right, right.
SPEAKER_05Over a decade later, I turn in my unedited DVT paper to graduate from the DVT Institute. I'm sitting in a chair similar to a chair in the same spot of a theater on a stage.
SPEAKER_02I happen to be on a stage, yeah. It isn't always, but it is for your graduation.
SPEAKER_05It was. And and it was very similar to the space where I did my Rev, where I was standing or sitting, I can't remember.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, sitting, yeah.
SPEAKER_05Asking the audience to engage, and then I said, actually, no, but in DVT graduation, you are meant to sit there and take in what uh the audience has to say to you about who you are as a practitioner, uh, their experience, what all the different feedback they have for you.
SPEAKER_02It's so intimate and vulnerable so much.
SPEAKER_05And it's really a practice of like, can I take this in? Can I take this in? And like over a decade later, I finally got that moment from my rev that I didn't have the capacity to.
SPEAKER_01Wow.
SPEAKER_05Which I was like, oh, these revs are something.
SPEAKER_02The final, final act, yeah, 10 years later.
SPEAKER_0510 years later. Yeah, legit. Wild. Yeah, so it's wild. I I don't remember why. Oh, the audience. Being an active participant in that, like what the feedback I got from my own rev when I was like, no, thank you. No, thanks, I can't, bye-bye. Uh uh, someone who used to run the DBT Institute, Randy, um, in in California, came up to me after afterwards and said, Hey, there were so many things I wanted to be able to tell you that I didn't get to. And here's what I would have said. And I carried that. I was like, Oh my gosh, that was actually an intervention unto itself of like, uh oh, oh, oh.
SPEAKER_02Oh, right.
SPEAKER_04There is the other person as a part of this equation. Oh God. That is why that's important.
SPEAKER_05And so, like, yeah, I think how the the audience doesn't realize how active of a wit of a witness they truly are. Um, but it's transformational for the actor and for audience. That was a long monologue.
SPEAKER_02It really is. No, no, and I I mean, to what the other thing I want to add, I guess if we want to get scientific, is that um, you know, your mirror, your mirror neurons are firing as the performer is going. As in in in any story we watch or read about, we identify with the protagonist, except they're doing this brave, courageous act of healing oneself on stage. And so even though you're not the one up there and you don't know the person, and the specifics of their story has nothing to do with yours, except that's what makes it really universal. It does stir up things in you. Yes. Right.
SPEAKER_05The more specific it is, the more universal it is.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So then we also remind the actors, you know, this isn't just for you, this is larger than you. Yeah. We're doing it for us. Right.
SPEAKER_05That's what changes. I think in theater of all the art mediums, theater is the one that really grabs that. I mean, music can in its live performance as well. Um, it's it's similar, it's like a cousin, but it's not exactly the same as what theater can do, which is pretty cool. That's my my scientific.
Ritual Theater In An Online World
SPEAKER_05It's pretty cool.
SPEAKER_02Conclusion. Very cool.
SPEAKER_05Very cool.
SPEAKER_02That's my research paper. It's uh it's wild, and I wish um no, maybe I take that back. Maybe I don't wish. I'm like, do I wish that this was mainstream? I mean, in a lot of ways it is a gift, and I do hear a lot of people say that because one reason, one common reason why students do choose this is they say, this looks very scary. Oh, for sure, like terrifying to do. Yeah, and I want to do it, and I don't think I would if the stakes weren't this high. So let me put myself through this.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um, so I don't know. I mean, we've talked about adapting, of course, and there are is there, I mean, I I want to make sure that we're not like claiming this um as our thing only. I mean, there's so many different adaptations of therapeutic theater and big big small, you know, um various sites and settings. But I I feel like it's um gosh, so needed.
SPEAKER_05Oh my gosh, yeah. Well, it also we we didn't I didn't bring this up when I was like, hey, you want to talk about revs on my podcast, but but it's like in my brain right now. In the in a world that is living online in social media where everybody's a protagonist, revs end up becoming this grounded version of like I feel like online worlds are very ungrounded. You don't know who your audience is, you don't know like it's kind of untethered. It's untethered. There's like there's not really a container except for the little box that you're I always say I'm talking to a green dot. Like it's like there's a projecting onto yeah, I don't know who's gonna watch it, but here you go. Here's me babbling about cheese. I don't know. But like revs actually become the grounded uh storytelling that I think a lot of people are seeking through what social media could have been had it taken a different path. But instead, they're like held by a community in real space, in real time, being like following a trajectory that's going through very specific stages, and uh there is a optimistic, hopeful, I want you to grow from this. How can I help you? Which we're kind of missing in other spaces.
SPEAKER_02I mean, this is where we did come from. I feel like in the world and times we're living in, self-reps are super inconvenient. Legit. Like the amount of energy effort that everyone, not just the performer, but everyone involved has to make in order to get to this theater physically and make this thing happen. It's I mean, ever since COVID, it's like a different, it's a different time, right? Um, super inconvenient and expensive. And I want to stay home and scroll my very convenient way of connecting and transforming, you know, and I say that because I do, I you know, it's it's so much easier because it's right here. Right. But that that is the whole point of ritual acts. It takes so much prep work and yes, yes.
SPEAKER_05So, like in the whole process, yeah. And I think like even getting people like during tech week, I remember hearing like conversations of people who are like, Oh, sorry, I'm late. I was I was on my couch. And I'm like, I don't remember having conversations like this about tech week prior to 2020, but now people are like, Oh shit, I gotta be at the theater because I've been just like dissociating on my phone, and I'm like, wait.
SPEAKER_02Well, and so much of our work is here, you know, and and here and yeah, crazy.
SPEAKER_05Um, I feel like, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Like, what a thought to gather in a in a space together and perform something and take that in and you know, express and cry and laugh together, yeah, and then leave and go home. It'd be changed, and we changed. And yeah, and have these pieces. I mean, so many of the pieces in this recent semester are still kind of like um simmering inside of me, simmering and swirling.
SPEAKER_05And yeah. Um the the one student, the poor I I I won't name their names, but the one student, that poor student, I messaged them, I think, twice. I saw them and then messaged them. I was like, I'm still sitting with your piece.
SPEAKER_04Like they were like, Thank you so much. I'm like, no, you don't understand. Understand. I am sitting with your piece. It is moving something in me. I am changed. Thank you. Like it's empowering.
SPEAKER_02How many people say thank you? The audience when they come up to the performers, because it it is, it is a gift, and you can see the labor, the blood, sweat, and tears that have been put in to get to that that final moment. It is an act of service, I think.
SPEAKER_05Totally, totally.
SPEAKER_02We should charge people.
unknownAmen.
SPEAKER_05Um, okay, so we going back to that structure. So we really are creating something out of nothing. We're we're gathering, we're we're clarifying, we're honing, we're shaping, and then there's scripts, actual scripts. Yeah, and then we perform. Um what is the I guess my question is why would anyone want to do this?
SPEAKER_04I mean, yeah.
SPEAKER_02This inconvenient, emotional, traumatic expensive, traumatic, painful. I mean, and the funny thing is, well, it's not funny when you're in it, but uh, it's like when you embark on the journey, you write your proposal and you start magically, shit starts to get stirred up in people's lives, and the very thing starts to happen. And everyone's like, what is going on? Uh, and that's sort of like the laws of what I don't even know what the theory is, the laws of some attraction universe theory, you know, like it just movies law. I don't know, one of those things. Yeah. Um yeah. And they're like, wait, why is this happening now? I'm trying to work on it. I'm like, that's exactly why it's happening, it's happening because you said you wanted to work on it. Um yeah, it's so why? Um, I mean, there's some selling points once you're on the other side, right? People say that was so worth it, that was so special, that was so meaningful. Your person was like, I'm a believer now. And I was like, were you skeptical the whole time? I'm like, wait, what? Yeah, you know. Um, and that's why it's also important, I think, to have a director who's gone through the process because that's where you're kind of like a like an older sibling um who's gone through it and goes, like, listen, like I I get it. Yeah, connecting with you on how hard it is. And like there is this other side. And we're we're starting to implement TAs who are sort of like the um another older sibling kind of role who have just gone through the process. Um, because yeah, to birth something, I often use the metaphor of it being a birthing process. You can't do it alone in a closet. Nope. I mean you try, but I don't know.
SPEAKER_05You try, but you would probably it would probably be meandering and and like not really have a lot of focus because it really needs being held by multiple people with different perspectives to say, what about this?
SPEAKER_02Tell you when to push, tell you when to breathe, tell you when to yeah. Yeah. Um but uh we and and we we do, we do need more studies and research on it. Like hopefully, if we're talking about the future, um my dreams are to have conduct some studies on the therapeutic effectiveness, or actually even like just what it does. Maybe the study will be like stop doing this. This is very unethical. We got harmful, harmful, very harmful. Um you know, or maybe it'll say very cool, very cool and harmful.
SPEAKER_04Conclusion, very cool. Don't ever do it, do it, yeah. Yeah, so um, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02So in an academic sense, I would love to do studies, yeah.
Self-Indulgence Risks And How To Watch
SPEAKER_05Um if someone wanted to watch a Rev, yeah, how do they go about doing that?
SPEAKER_02It depends on who the someone is. Um most of our students consent to it being shared, not like on a public um platform like YouTube or anything, but um for educational purposes. So it's not too hard to get your hands on one. Yeah, but that's also an interesting experience to watch a rev by yourself.
SPEAKER_05Um I will say, so like when you're in school and they're like, go watch revs so you can understand what they are, and then you're gonna make a mini rev at the end of your first semester. So my first experience before I ever saw one performed in real life was watching recordings of other people's revs. Yes. And I thought this is stupid. Why? I just thought it was kind of pretentious. Like, this is totally showing you like the culture that I grew up in, and then I show up in San Francisco. And where you were, yeah, yeah, and where I was in my journey of life and all the things. I was like, this is stupid, this is pretentious theater crap. Uh, this is self-indulgent.
SPEAKER_02Oh, talking about we touched on it, we just didn't label it that's well. Maybe we should highlight for the audience, you know, uh the word I don't I kind of want to change the terminology, but I can't think of a better word. There's a uh a concept and a term called self-indulgence in self-res. And that's essentially when something feels really good to you to say and express as the performer, but that doesn't necessarily invite the audience in or give them new information or serves as like a therapeutic driving force that always has to be negotiated uh with a very trusting director and instructor. Because I will say from the inside, those points feel very important.
SPEAKER_05I feel like they're everything, they're the biggest part of shaping the whole piece because if we miss them, we've lost the audience.
SPEAKER_03I think.
SPEAKER_05I've I've witnessed those revs where I'm like, ooh, why are we still here? Why we back on this again?
SPEAKER_02Nothing's why was that five minutes long when it could have been like a statement? Yeah, but I also want to say there's self-indulgence and there's there and then self-indulgence via expression, and then there's self-indulgence via avoidance. So unwilling to show and share the things um that kind of need to be there for both yourself and the audience. Yeah, because we need context. Right. Right, right. Um, yeah. I mean, we could have talked about, yeah, we could do a whole other segment on trauma and self-revs, but yeah, we're trying to keep it more more broad here.
SPEAKER_05More broad. Um yeah. I don't know, is there anything else in terms of future for you? I mean you want to do another one? I do. Yeah, so future of self-revs in my life, which is hilarious because when I finished my self-rev, I I also said absolutely not, never again. That sucked. And I never even want to watch it. I did it, great, bye. Check. But I also didn't like so. My preferred uh approach in drama therapy is developmental transformations, and I didn't do DVT as part of my rehearsal process.
SPEAKER_02That's right.
SPEAKER_05I it was very psychodramatic and five-phase style, which are great up app approaches. Um, but for my creative process, DVT just kind of aligns more with who I am as a human and a practitioner. And so I think one of the coolest things that came out of me getting to direct this year was, or last year now, um, was uh getting to use DVT in the rehearsal process. And just and I didn't realize how much I actually just think uh in a DVT mindset at all times. And so even through uh the directing role, how I held it felt like a play space the whole time. And whole time, yeah. I feel like now I just want to do that. I want to direct more, I wanna and for the first time said, okay, Aileen, what if I did do a self-rev again? And you were like, do it, do it. Yeah. I think I I'm also super interested in the research because there is no not specifically on self-res.
SPEAKER_02I think there was a um kind of a survey study that they did on um some graduates uh and were measuring certain things. Um, I still have a really hard time trying to locate that article. It was when Antonio was still on faculty and Gary and uh Renee, I think, wrote it together. Um, but I do want to say when I did it again for the Co-Rev, uh, we didn't have to do it. It was not required or mandated for a class or anything. It was really because we do remember jointly, I think I could speak for Sarah, um, the therapeutic values of it. And, you know, we were like, we we need to do something. Uh actually, we were inspired by um Katrine DeBon, a shout-out, and my director, Christina Lewis, who did a sort of a uh co-rev-ish um performance during COVID that was recorded and they presented it at the NADTA conference. Um, it was a little bit uh more looser or abstract. They didn't want to put it in the confines of a revelatory piece. And we thought, oh my God, that looks so fun because we're doing it together and it's creative. And Sarah and I must say that was one of the lifelines that kept us sane because not only were we quarantined with our kiddos, we were doing Zoom therapy day in, day out. Yeah um, you know, and we were just going absolutely bonkers. And so uh the reason why I think it's a good idea that you do it or why I'd highly recommend it is um a lot of parts of it was so much fun and to have this creative project um to be working on, to show up to and to be dreaming about it and making art, that really was so, so helpful for us.
SPEAKER_05You and I have talked about this in the past, about how both of us are the kind of humans that are like actually when it was about doing another rev, but just the idea in general, like how through this whole process I've realized as a as a creative human, I have to be making something in order to feel like alive alive in the world. And like I think I've gone through periods of my life where I wasn't creating, I was consuming more, and and just hadn't realized I had not made the connection that the cons the consumption of everything was making me so much more like just depressed as a human, but also just not alive. That my the vibrancy of who I am is like threaded in my cells in the act of creation. I think it's why I'm obsessed with creativity and and imagination and why this process specifically, because you have to something out of nothing, and to me, there's nothing more human and alive, yes, right?
SPEAKER_02The expression piece because the consuming is I mean, I do it too, but you just get so filled up, filled up, filled up, and then it has nowhere to go. Yeah, other than that was cool, right?
SPEAKER_05That was cool, and I want to share like I will like piggyback on stuff, but it's not my own, and it has to, I think that's also why from your source, from my source, yeah. So, like sit me down in in front of a drum set, heck yeah. Get me singing, heck yeah. Get me doing this, heck yeah, chalk on sidewalk, chalk on the sidewalk, yeah. Yeah, but like if if that's not like uh yeah, so when you say like with a future, I'm like, oh it's that, but we've talked, yeah. I just had to mention that as part of the podcast.
SPEAKER_02I hope so. I can't wait. I can't wait to see your next self-rev or co-rev.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, you and me both. I don't know. I I still have a few more years before I want to do another one. That's fair. That's fair.
SPEAKER_05Oh we should probably bring our conversation to a close.
Contact Info And Closing
SPEAKER_05Aileen, thank you so much for coming on. Um, if people want to like learn more about you or um sure get in contact with you, where where can they find you?
SPEAKER_02Uh I guess my personal website or the CIS website. Okay. Um, should I say it out loud or should I?
SPEAKER_05You can. Um, I can I'll put it in the the description of the podcast as well.
SPEAKER_02Great. My um actually Instagram handle, Kimmy's been inspiring me to be more active on there as um Aileen uh underscore B underscore C H O. And then my website's the same www.alenbeachhow.com. But you'll mostly be finding me in CIS related things. Uh but yeah, I'm this was so much fun. Yay, thank you for thank you for having me. Woo!
SPEAKER_04Thanks for having me. Finally, we made it happen. I know we've been talking about this for maybe a year. Awesome. Bye. Bye.