CAP UCLA Presents 600 HIGHWAYMEN'S A THOUSAND WAYS

UCLA's Center for the Art of Performance (CAP UCLA) will present A Thousand Ways (Part One): A Phone Call, by 600 HIGHWAYMEN, on Sunday, December 6 & 13 and Sunday, January 24 at various times PST. Tickets are $25 per person and available for purchase once a time slot is RSVP'd for here.

The experimental A Thousand Ways, which will ultimately comprise three parts, plumbs the essence of theater-bringing people together in the creation of a moving live experience-to counteract social isolation exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. In Part One: A Phone Call, two audience members-nameless strangers to one another-follow a carefully crafted set of directives, revealing things about themselves and their lives. Over the course of the hourlong journey, a portrait of the other emerges through fleeting moments of exposure and the simple sound of an unseen voice.

CAP UCLA will also present the in-person A Thousand Ways (Part Two): An Encounter and A Thousand Ways (Part Three): An Assembly. Dates for Part Two and Part Three will be announced in 2021. In Part Two: An Encounter, a small table bisected by glass is nested at the center of empty space. Two audience members-a separate pairing from the one in Part One: A Phone Call-sit at the table, opposite one another, with a stack of index cards, a handful of objects and a set of instructions to guide them. What will come from this? It is a chance at being heard, a brave moment to show up. The not-yet-created Part Three: An Assembly will be a public convening made up of participants in the work's first two parts. Using a shared script, they will come together for a final collective experience.

The dramaturg and project designer of A Thousand Ways is Andrew Kircher, and its line producer is Cynthia J. Tong. The work is produced by ArKtype and was commissioned by The Arts Center at NYU Abu Dhabi, Stanford Live at Stanford University, and Festival Theaterformen. It was originally commissioned and co-conceived by Temple Contemporary at Temple University. Original support for A Thousand Ways was provided by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage, Philadelphia.

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