Washington, DC 20002
312.607.8037
alecwild@gmail.com
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Over the years I've developed a deep interest in complicity, which I understand as a kind of quantum theory approach to theatre. I don’t ask simply, “How do we engage the audience,” but rather, “How do we make the audience complicit in this story? Put another way, how do we develop a space of tensional integrity between the artist, the play, and the audience? Ideas are like sculptures. Once they’re put in the space, everyone in that space has to engage with it, deal with it, acknowledge it. That’s the enormous power of an idea – the act of putting it in the space changes the world.
I love seeing actors soaring into the spaces in the theatre where actors don't usually go. For Tempest and Taming of the Shrew, we used thirty-foot high metal towers - actors climbed them, played scenes up there, and even leapt off of them on occasion. For A Midsummer Night's Dream, we constructed a metal dome that opened, closed, and spun around the stage with actors climbing all around it. Othello was less acrobatic, but just as physically daring. And withThe Maid's Tragedy and Pericles at the ACA, I explored how complicity could be achieved through minimalism and physical storytelling.
Physical virtuosity on stage is riveting: it makes manifest the extraordinary things the human spirit can aspire to. When coupled with clear text, tight scene work, and clarity of story, it's transformative.
OF THE SHREW
NIGHT'S DREAM
TRAGEDY
Below are three of my favorite projects. First, Whisper, which won nearly every category in the St. Louis 48-Hour Film Project, and was an official selection for the St. Louis International Film Festival. Second is Arcadea, my very first film, which won Best Film in the i48 Film Festival in Idaho. Last is a project I worked on with some of the most talented St. Louis slam poets, in which we chose locations for them to film their favorite pieces.
To see more of my film work, including my corporate films, visit SharpField Films.