Stolen moments of interaction in ‘Art Heist’
Among the selling points for “Art Heist,” a brand-new interactive performance and downtown walking tour, is that it’s based on a true crime that remains an open case with a $10 million reward.
“Anybody could see the show and go off and make themselves a cool $10 million,” said TJ Dawe, who co-wrote the show with Ming Hudson.
“Art Heist” premiered in September with a sold-out run at the Vancouver Fringe Festival. It will make its U.S. debut this weekend in San Antonio and Austin. The Alamo City performances start today and run through Nov. 1. The departure point is the Tobin Center for the Performing Arts.
Audience members will take on the guise of FBI recruits working the case with the help of a guide. Working in groups, they will scan QR codes for clues and interview suspects who will be stationed around downtown. After they’ve done all that, the groups will return to the Tobin Center for a socially distanced discussion of who might have pulled off the heist.
The crime that provided the inspiration for the show is the 1990 theft of 13 works of art from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston.
The works — including pieces by the likes of Rembrandt, Degas, Vermeer and Manet — were valued at $500 million, according to the New York Times. The museum has offered a $10 million reward for information that leads to their return.
Dawe and Hudson did a lot of research to shape the show. Rather than writing a script, they compiled information about the crime and the real-life suspects, which the actors use to create their performances.
Everything hinges on audience interaction, Dawe said.
“We’ve all been taking in works of art passively, watching Netflix, watching movies, listening to music,” he said. “This show hinges on audience inter
actions. And people have been hungry for that.”
The show has been created specifically for the coronavirus era. Justin Sudds, co-founder and executive producer of Right Angle Entertainment, had been toying with the idea of a roving show for a while, Dawe said. When the pandemic hit, decimating live entertainment, the time seemed right to put the concept on its feet.
In the past, the company might have pulled together a touring cast, but that isn’t possible right now, Dawe said.
“It’s just doesn’t make sense
to travel,” he said. “So when this production runs, we have a local person in whatever city, they help us find a cast and scout our locations and do things like gather props and costumes. And then, when the show actually opens, where people are doing it physically, they’re going around with a phone, recording it and sending it to my co-director and I.
“It’s a strange way for a director to direct a show, but by phone, we get a good impression of what’s going on.”
In San Antonio, actor Rick Frederick is coordinating. The
talented cast of San Antoniobased actors holds Marisela Barrera, Catherine Babbitt, John Fitzhugh, Pamela Dean Kenny, Sarah Cosgrove, Greg Hinojosa, Jordan Peña, Georgette Lockwood, Rob Barron and Heather Ortega.
“We did a national call for it, but the San Antonio crew really showed up and got excited and are making it happen,” Frederick said. “That’s a real treat.”
The real-life folks are — or, in the case of those who are dead, were — all white men, he added, but the casting was blind, meaning actors were given roles without taking into account race, gender or any other traits.
The show’s been fun to work on, he said. And it reflects the determination of artists to find new ways to share their work in the pandemic era.
“I think in the beginning of all this, it was really harrowing, and then finally, you’re like, ‘I have to do something,’ ” he said. “The innovation that’s happening right now, it’s inspiring.”