An interactive play to be performed for tiny audiences in public toilets. Via text, music & ritual – different in every city & with every group of makers who collaborate on it – Toilet Opera can explore anything from privacy, gender (btw: toilets were not always gender-segregated [link 1]), sexuality, criminality, the politics of public space & personal safety, & collective anonymous communication (i.e. bathroom graffiti). A two-week residency in 2018 kicked off development of this concept, first created as a collaboration with vocalist, theologian & theatre-maker Jimmy Grzelak & performer Mal Cherifi (Philadelphia, PA); we devised it in restrooms across Philly & hosted a single performance by Jimmy & Mal in the men’s bathroom at FringeArts [file 1]. Wherever it’s performed, Toilet Opera brings together an audience to occupy a bathroom together, asking: What are these places like, & what are we like in them? It’s a way to tell stories & create rituals that help exorcise the demons & celebrate the lovely oddities of these waystations we share & pass through.
