The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Troupe plugging into local history for next project, ‘Exchange’
NEW HAVEN >> In the hands of this local theater company, “exchange” is a deep concept.
Unconcerned about confusing people with the name of the thespian troupe — A Better Umbrella Theatre — and methodical enough to take more than a year to develop a theater work steeped in New Haven history, the group is laying bricks for its next ensemble creation, tentatively titled “Exchange.”
The show is inspired by the invention of the switchboard in New Haven. The end result — and there are miles of story wires to string before the curtain rises — will be performed in October in partnership with City-Wide Open Studios, the New Haven art scene’s festival of visual arts.
Work started in earnest in late January when ABUT (yes, that’s the acronym), supporters and community partners gathered at Baobab Tree Studios on Orange Street to hear from project leaders Jessica Mack and Charlie Alexander about the group’s research on the exchange (which was at the Boardman Building on the corner of Chapel and State streets) and ponder the definition of exchange. What is an equitable ex-
change, they wondered? What is gained, what is lost?
But the main reason to gather at a studio was to begin recording stories, memories of phones and exchanges. One of those who recorded was Onnie Chan, a current Yale-China Fellow who probably isn’t old enough to remember dialing an operator but has phone stories like everyone else. The plan is to cover everything from rotary dial to Snapchat, according to a release.
This week brings a new phase of that story-gathering when A Broken Umbrella publicly loops in partner New Haven Museum to assist in some of that research (in recognition of Women’s History Month) and host another story-gathering session Saturday from 1-5 p.m. at the Whitney Avenue museum.
The public, especially women, are invited to share their phone stories with production members from the theater for possible inclusion in the upcoming interactive theatrical experience. Women played a key role in the early phone service, since 1878 when New Haven telegraph office manager George Coy created the first commercial telephone exchange, according to a release about the research. With generally polite and efficient service, women dominated the field of switchboard operations into the 21st century (usually for lower pay than men).
Aric Isaacs, an ABUT ensemble member and producer, said in the release that “Exchange” will be a multigenerational and cross-cultural look at the exchange of information by phone. ABUT staff will stir people’s memories with questions such as “Did you ever get a call in the middle of the night, and, if so, what was your response?” or “Did you ever miss a call that you wished you had answered?”
“The phone has been involved in many of the most intimate moments of our lives,” Isaacs says in the release. “Sometimes it’s a matter of just asking the right question to bring that story out.” The stories will guide the final production. “We have no idea what stories we will end up with or what the result will be.”
Some of the narratives collected will become part of a “phone-booth-type contraption” — a “Mobile Story Exchange” — where people can “exchange” stories, recording their own recollections and hearing previously recorded stories in return. The device will make its debut at New Haven’s “ArtWalk” in May, a month later during the International Festival of Arts & Ideas and at outdoor events in the Elm City throughout the summer, said ABUT and New Haven Museum.
Broken Umbrella will return to the New Haven Museum in July for a “salon,” with readings, listening to previously recorded stories, and perhaps some music, officials said, as part of the development process.
A Broken Umbrella Theatre, committed to presenting compelling theater inspired by the history of New Haven, in recent years presented a show about the Shubert Theatre’s 100 years on College Street called “Seen Change,” a piece about A.C. Gilbert and his most famous invention, the Erector Set, called “Gilbert the Great,” and 2013’s play about the invention of the bicycle and the industrialization of the corset, called “Freewheelers.”