Gerald Prokop was born in a box, and has since been trying to climb out. So far, his left arm and leg are free, as are his right foot and part of his tongue. This allows him to wander around, run into things, and taste them.

Sorry, in all seriousness, Gerald is a songwriter, recording artist and pizza delivery driver who, by some perverse twist of brain chemicals, feels a relief from the weight of creativity by designing web content purely by editing code.

In an already crowded field, why would anyone start a new theater project? Minneapolis/St. Paul are among the biggest theater communities in the country. What can we offer that’s different from the rest?

Creating anything new always carries an inherent risk. But when we start letting the risk of failure act as a pre-emptive censor, we know there’s a problem. Why write a new book? Why make a new movie? There are so many out there already.

As artists, we often find ourselves with a nagging, insistent voice in our heads that says, “Why don’t you do __ instead of __? You’ll have more commercial success that way.” Fear of failure is a powerful motivator–it can drive us to keep working on something even when there’s no immediate deadline bearing down on us–but it can also be a powerful squelcher of innovation. Failure is so painful, especially so for artists–after all, we *chose* to follow non-lucrative career paths at a time when the the world’s economies are struggling. Artistic failure can be an open invitation for public ridicule. But it is in the midst of such times when the need for fearless forms of expression are the greatest.

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Strange Weather marks Josh’s second stage managing gig of his semi-fledgling theatre career as a stage manager. Beginning with last summer with the Great Heresy Theater Company’s Fringe Festival debut of The Street of Crocodiles, Josh is happy to work with people who have such inspiring heretical creativity.

Josh’s community theatre credits include The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow at Chesapeake Arts Center in Brooklyn Park, Maryland. There he worked alongside Gary Adamsen, a renowned actor and Broadway stage manager for The Phantom of the Opera.

Spending most of his waking hours in Uptown, Josh currently works at Arts Midwest as an administrative assistant for The Big Read program, a national initiative created by the National Endowment for the Arts. Arts Midwest’s mission is to connect people throughout the Midwest and the world to meaningful arts opportunities, sharing creativity, knowledge, and understanding across boundaries. www.artsmidwest.org.

Finally, as if he weren’t busy enough, Josh is a part-time graduate student at the University of St. Thomas in the Masters program of Art History.

In February of 2008, snow crunching under her feet, a writer named Sarah Wash walked to the Mixed Blood Theater for the Fringe Festival lottery, where a transvestite named Coco Fondue drew a ping pong ball. That ball determined her fate: when the transvestite called out the number, the Great Heresy Theater Company was born.

But who is Sarah Wash? And why should you care? Sarah is an interloper who has never felt as though she belonged anywhere she’s ever lived. She claims to have been an artist from the time she was small. She made her first book as a gift for her younger brother Matthew at the age of five, her first ‘zine at the age of six (entitled “Happiness is…”), her first full length play at the age of sixteen, her first full length manuscript of poetry at the age of seventeen, her first short story collection at the age of twenty five, and her first novel at the age of thirty. And she has thrown out most of everything she’s ever written. You can read the stuff she’s kept on her website: www.sarahmwash.com.

It was chance that brought together the marvelous group of extraordinarily dedicated and talented individuals who created the first Great Heresy show in the 2008 Fringe Festival, Bruno Schulz’s The Street of Crocodiles. Sarah had been wanting to take this story from page to stage ever since graduate school. It is one of the finest examples in extant literature of synesthesia–meaning experiencing one sense as another, for example, hearing colors as sounds. She thought that the combination of color and sound and dramatic tension would be a beautiful way to bring the story to life. You can read more about that first work here.

Sarah is excited to be working once again with Michelle Schwantes and Josh Feist, and thinks that this year’s Fringe will be even more wonderful than she can even imagine!

Tonight (Monday, June 8th) we had our first auditions for Strange Weather. On behalf of all of us (Michelle, Josh, and Sarah), we would like to extend a hearty thanks to all who came out…and if you couldn’t make it tonight but wanted to, then stop by at Black Bear Crossings tomorrow between 6 and 9. We’ll be there!

The show will most likely be cast by the end of the week, so stay tuned for details!

What is the human impulse to create? Why do we have it? Is it inborn, like our reproductive instincts–a response to our human frailty, our mortality–the desire to leave something of ourselves behind so the world will remember us when we’re gone? Is it a mode of communication–a way of understanding and making ourselves understood by others in a deep and fundamental way? Are we playing god?

Whatever the answer is, it is clearly not just about making money–despite the fact that financial issues so often dictate artistic form. And as the times get tougher, we can anticipate ourselves, along with many of our friends and colleagues, asking difficult questions about what we’re willing to sell just to keep the pot boiling–our things, our time, our blood, our dignity…Where do we draw the line? What is too important to sacrifice?

We of the Great Heresy Theater Company love our work too much to sacrifice its integrity for the sake of financial rewards. We are lovers of not just theater, but literature, film, art, cultural analysis…and all of these things inform our work. We want what we to create to be our own authentic reflections of the world as we see it–the interface of our desire to create, wherever it comes from, with the culture around us and with our own identities as human beings. Sounds pretty basic, maybe–but in a time when so much of what is called the “air of truth” in any artistic medium is sacrificed to the Almighty McDollar™…well, maybe the idea of artistic authenticity, of simply submitting to the creative process and seeing what comes out of it, is kind of a heretical idea.

In this spirit, the Great Heresy Theater Company gives an enthusiastic two middle fingers up to the commercialization of culture. And if you out there, our friends and colleagues, are not in a position to do so yourselves at this time…know that our hearts are with you, and we invite you to join us with at least a little of your time and support, be a part of our community, so that one day you can make those bold strides forward yourselves.