CAP UCLA Presents 600 HIGHWAYMEN'S A Thousand Ways (Part Two): An Encounter

UCLA's Center for the Art of Performance presents A Thousand Ways (Part Two): An Encounter by 600 HIGHWAYMEN on Sunday, May 2, 9 & 16 at various times PDT. This performance is $25 and includes admission to Part Three, RSVP here. For more information on engaging with or supporting the arts and artists presented by CAP UCLA, visit support CAP UCLA.

While Part One engaged two remote participants in an automated hour-long phone call, Part Two: An Encounter brings together new pairs of strangers to share physical space in the creation of a private piece of theater. Seated in an empty room, at opposite ends of a table and separated by a pane of plexiglass, two participants follow prompts on a set of notecards. This elucidating experience invites us to reconsider, in real-time, what we think we know about a person - including ourselves - at a moment when virtual interactions have further fractured and flattened our already-strained co-existences.

Part Two: An Encounter brings us back to a fundamental question of pre-pandemic life: how do visual cues become assumptions? How much of a person do we construct with our imagination the instant we see them? Both are prompted to ask the other a series of short, dispassionate questions, the answers to which somehow at once give shape and dimension while at the same time introducing uncertainty. Interspersed are moments of poetry-emotionally evocative portraits that allow each participant to see all the possible selves of their partner. Over time, the pile of notecards shrinks, foretelling the eventual end of this intimate connection, even as it intensifies.

COVID-19 protocols are in place at the venue including but not limited to: masks required, no more than two audience members will be seated across from one another and separated by a clear partition. Hand-sanitizer units are placed throughout the building. There will be no physical contact between audience members or with staff. We will be sanitizing chairs and surfaces within the venues after every performance. All props are either new for each performance or have been disinfected based on COVID-19 protocols. Upon arriving you will be asked to fill out a short questionnaire via QR code (paper copies available if needed) and have a temperature check. Distancing will be enforced in the lobby at check-in with staggered arrival times.