T1 Presents Newest Immersive Event CAR PLAY: A MOTOR PERFORMANCE

As theaters across the country embrace spectacle, one production dares to go smaller. This month, TheatreFIRST brings you the Bay Area's newest immersive event. Car Play: A Motor Performance is an exciting new show performed for just three audience members a night inside a 2004 Chevy Impala.

"How do you put the artists at the center of their own stories? What is it to build work from the ground up, from the origins of the artists that should be telling the story and have not had the chance to tell these stories?" Jon Tracy, artistic director at TheatreFIRST

This theatrical journey begins at a secret location in Dowtown Berkeley (emailed to you twenty-four hours before the show) and ends at the Rockridge BART station. Along the way, local Bay Area artists - Liam Collier and Ellen Boener - treat you to an exclusive performance in motion with a few stops for fast food, synchronized dance, and absurdity en route. Every member of Car Play's limited audience will have a unique experience, including a private one-on-one scene with a performer. Of the many exciting events in Bay Area this Summer, Car Play is one of the most fleeting, so get your tickets today!

"I want to know why we're still doing this. Making theater. I'm sure that sounds naive, but since November 8th it's a question that won't leave me alone. Car Play is small. Okay, it's tiny. But for me it's part of a much larger, essential conversation." - Liam Collier, co-creator of Car Play

After directing several immersive shows at Vassar College and Florida State University respectively, Ellen and Liam both moved to the Bay Area to work with We Players, a leader in site-integrated, boundary-pushing productions. Outside Car Play, Ellen is an associate director with Epic Immersive, an company currently expanding their work into the heart of San Francisco. Car Play is Ellen and Liam's debut as co-creators. They are thrilled to create this intimate piece of theatre with the support of TheatreFIRST, a company dedicated to telling the world's stories through multiple, simultaneous viewpoints.

"I like to think of Theatre as an excavation. We are all scratching away at life, trying to get the right angle or tool to clear away the rubble. Creating Car Play has been the perfect tool for me. It connected me with my friends and carved out a home for me in the Bay. It wasn't about creating a platform. It was about finding a few broken bits, cleaning them up, and sharing what we found. That being said, we did choose where to dig." - Ellen Boener, co-creator of Car Play

More about TheatreFIRST

TheatreFIRST, in residence at Berkeley's Live Oak Theater, creates a social hub where, through the art of storytelling, marginalized voices are amplified. Dedicated to telling the world's stories through multiple, simultaneous viewpoints, TheatreFIRST has redeveloped its lens so that a more actual world will be reflected and a more actual world will attend. Inspired by the above tenet, TheatreFIRST looks to foster new, necessary stories by new and established artists through collaborative residencies; the work produced ultimately becoming their next main stage season. TheatreFIRST's productions are supported by an outreach program that gives the community entry points in to their stories as well as next-step programming that build on our work's themes.

More about T1 Presents

T1 Presents furthers our mission to bring the world's stories to our community. Co-producing music, dance, film, theatre and cultural events, T1 Presents will help reclaim Live Oak Theater as one of the East Bay's cultural mainstays.

Photo credit: Irene Tai

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