Blindspot Collective to Make San Diego Fringe Debut with UNTOLD

Untold weaves music, movement, and excerpts from over one hundred interviews to explore the mental health crisis in America, creating an evocative meditation on hope and resiliency. This world premiere production, as part of the San Diego International Fringe Festival, marks the San Diego debut of Blindspot Collective, an organization devoted to the development of new work, new audiences, and new perspective.

Created by Blake McCarty and co-directed by Catherine Hanna Schrock, Untold is the culmination of more than a year's work in partnership with local schools and organizations. The creative team collected interviews with social workers and therapists; individuals struggling with addiction and eating disorders; veterans battling PTSD; and survivors of suicide, all conducted and recorded by local students. Excerpts from those interviews lay the groundwork for a show that provocatively portrays these individuals' bravery, vulnerability, and resiliency.

"Mental illness impacts us all in profoundly complex ways," says McCarty, "and the stories that we were able to collect are staggering. To hear the divergent and overlapping experiences of a combat veteran, transgender teenager, and local teacher who has lost three students to suicide in the last year is profoundly moving." Untold marks McCarty's local directing debut since moving to San Diego. Locally, his work as a designer has been showcased at Cygnet, Lamb's Players, New Village Arts, Intrepid, and Ion, where he received the 2016 Critic's Circle Award for Projection Design for his contribution to Sunday in the Park with George.

Prior to living in San Diego, McCarty was based in New York City, where he produced and directed numerous shows, including Off-Broadway's Play/Date, which Time Out NY declared "pushes boundaries - both artistic and personal - and takes theater one step further in the process." While in New York, he met co-director Catherine Hanna Schrock, artist and activist who frequently facilitates community programming for The Old Globe and La Jolla Playhouse.

Untold arrives at the San Diego International Fringe Festival after a workshop presentation at New York University, where it was showcased during the International Forum on Ethnodrama earlier this spring. The cast includes graduates of several local universities, including UCSD, SDSU, and Point Loma Nazarene, as well as recognizable local talents Wilfred Grant Paloma and Wrekless Watson (who can currently be seen in Blacktop). The production is the professional debut for Carter Davis, a United States Marine Corps veteran who met McCarty and Schrock while attending a class at Veterans Village of San Diego. Davis brings this unique perspective to the work with him, noting that "I come from a family history of these kinds of issues and I myself struggle with mental illness. Because these are actual, personal interviews, I hope that when people hear them they might also hear some part of themselves or those close to them."

Performances run Friday, June 23 at 4:30 pm, Sunday, June 25 at 6:00 pm, Wednesday, June 28 at 10:30 pm, Thursday, June 29 at 6:00 pm, Saturday, July 1 at 7:30 pm at the Lyceum Theatre Space in Horton Plaza. More information about Untold is available at www.BlindspotCollective.org. All tickets are $10 with the one-time purchase of a $5 Fringe Tag. To purchase tickets visit www.sdfringe.ticketleap.com/untold.

About Blindspot Collective: Blindspot Collective develops artistic programming to illuminate voices, communities, and stories in the blindspot of our society. As a 501(c)3 nonprofit, the organization is devoted to people and practices that exist in our culture's margins, and sparking dialogue between artists and audiences by developing new work, addressing new audiences, and encouraging new perspective. Since its founding in 2016, Blindspot Collective has established partnerships with local schools and communities; workshopped Last Night in Town, an immersive experience based on the music of Ben Folds; and presented the site-specific musical Hall Pass in New York City as part of the inaugural Future of Storytelling Festival.

San Diego International Fringe Festival is a project of Contact Arts, a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization founded in 2003 along with Actors Alliance of San Diego with the purpose building a network of creativity & communication. Contact Arts & AASD aim to connect ideas with social action through progressive performance & community engaged projects.