Whether it’s a pitcher of beer, smoking a bowl or compulsively shopping, many people have felt the effects of unbreakable habits. One New York University theater group travels the country provoking discussions about addictive behaviors.
Quick Fix, a reality-based theater group, will hold performances at 7 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday in the EMU Ballroom. Free tickets for students are available at the EMU Ticket Office.
During the 1999-00 school year, Quick Fix began as a project at the New York University Tisch School of the Arts, said Josh Koenig, an actor with the group. He said the year-long project started when a theater class at the New York University conducted more than 100 interviews with students, faculty, lawyers, advertising executives, tobacco executives and people on the street. Then, they put those interviews into a performance piece.
“Those were our classes,” said Ginger Legon, who plays several characters in the performance. One of the roles she takes on is Mikki Jordan, a girl who has dealt with eating disorders and bulimia. She said each cast member plays about five different characters.
Quick Fix never changes anyone’s words, Legon said, and what the audience hears are the actual words used by the person who was interviewed.
Dr. Richard Keeling, a national leader in health issues on college campuses, saw a Quick Fix performance in New York. Keeling and InnerView Theatre, a non-profit performance group founded by faculty, staff and students at the Tisch School took the show around the nation, according to Lee LaTour, the EMU’s marketing director.
LaTour said as the show moves to different venues, more interviews are conducted to find out what addictions are most prevalent in that specific community.
“It’s about people’s stories,” LaTour said.
The cast members arrived at the University on Sunday and have begun interviewing University students and faculty members for material to use in their performance. He said students are usually willing to speak with him about their addictions.
He said once students find out Quick Fix is not a way to bust them, they open up to him. Koenig said anonymity is very much respected, though audiences might recognize friends or family members in the characters.
Though Quick Fix has sometimes been viewed as a mediator between students and faculty, Koenig said they act as more of a “catalyst for discussion.” He said the discussions that happen after the troupe leaves is the most positive outcome of the performance.
“Administration sees it from one point of view; students see it from another point of view,” Legon said. She said communication can be difficult between the two sides.
“There’s more than two sides to every coin,” Koenig added.
Koenig said the troupe expends a lot of energy breaking down preconceived notions of what the performance is about and convincing people they are not there to preach at them. He emphasized that Quick Fix is not about stopping addictions or judging whether an addiction is right or wrong. He said the program serves as a way of making people conscious of addictive behaviors.
“There’s no moral to the story,” Koenig said. “This is not an ‘Afterschool Special’ — this is real life.”
Legon said the cast is playing various types of people with various types of addictions.
“It has a fast-paced, upbeat structure,” Legon said, adding that she hopes audiences will become more compassionate toward those with addictions and less set in their own ways.
“Storytelling is so powerful,” Legon said.
The show will also feature a segment where cast members confess their own addictive behaviors, she said.
“There’s no characters, no costumes — raw, in the moment,” Legon said.
LaTour said Quick Fix is designed to capture culture, and then reflect that culture back to the audience.
Quick Fix “gives all varying views of addictive behavior for all ranges of people,” LaTour said.
She said the program isn’t about assigning blame; the audiences choose where to lay the responsibility for addictive behavior.
“We all share addictive behavior,” she said. “Some are perfectly OK, some are not.”
LaTour said there are no easy answers and no solutions.
“Quick Fix’s job is not to give a quick fix,” she said. “Their job is to provoke discussion.”