Trademark Theater Presents WHAT YOU CAN'T KEEP

Trademark Theater continues its 2020-2021 season with a digital workshop and virtual presentation of Part One of WHAT YOU CAN'T KEEP, by playwright Harrison David Rivers featuring the talents of Miriam Schwartz, Eric Sharp, and filmmaker Braddon Olson. Directed by Artistic Director Tyler Michaels King, this short film presentation combines video and voice-overs with visual images that evoke intimacy, art, love, and relationships. Capturing the poetic language of Rivers' script and elevating it through a filmmaking lens, WHAT YOU CAN'T KEEP breathes new life into the traditional staged-reading/workshop.

WHAT YOU CAN'T KEEP will stream live on Thursday, April 22 at 7:00pm. A recording of the event will be available on demand through Sunday, April 25, 2021. The workshop presentation includes a talkback with Harrison David Rivers and other artists.

Rivers' experimental new work is the second project from Trademark's commissioning platform to receive a workshop and presentation. The artistic team chose to develop Part One of Rivers' three-part play for the upcoming virtual presentation. By focusing on a single act, Trademark presents a more fully-produced version of the intimate, visuals-driven script.

"Rather than present another zoom reading of another play, we wanted to stretch the limits of what we as a company can do," states Founder/Artistic Director Tyler Michaels King. "At the company's core is risk-taking partnered with innovation, so what better way to explore a piece that can fit many forms than by breaking it up into sections and trying something different with each piece?"

Exclusively told through monologues and voice-overs, WHAT YOU CAN'T KEEP is a three-part experience that dances through memories of past loves and misdeeds. Blending theater, art, storytelling, and visual imagery, Part One is crafted as a short contemporary film exploring the inner thoughts of two characters as they experience and contemplate intimacy, art, love, passion, and their own relationships.

"When we first sat down with Harrison [David Rivers] we really encouraged him to think outside the box and try something he'd not been able to explore before," states Founder/Artistic Director Tyler Michael King. "I think his writing over the past year has led us to a unique and captivating blend of styles and forms."

"For me, the play is like going to an art gallery, to an exhibition of black and white photographs, where every canvas features a different part of the human body," states Harrison David Rivers. "I've been thinking a lot about intimacy during the pandemic. I've been thinking about how storytelling is an intimate act. And about how artmaking, in general, is an intimate act... I wanted to explore that and make space for that."

WHAT YOU CAN'T KEEP will stream live on Thu., April. 22, at 7:00 pm CST and will be viewable on-demand thereafter through Sun., April 25, 2021.