Girl in a box (not defined by it)!
By Rebecca Gerstung
Creating a one-woman show is hard work. Try creating a one-woman show with over 25 characters. And then shove it all in a box. A real 3 foot square box. Then put it on a stage and perform the whole show inside of it. What?! Dominique Salerno brings her critically acclaimed The Box Show to The iO Theater April 19, 20, and 21st.
Women In Comedy: You’re in a box! The whole time!
SALERNO: I created the first draft of this show while I was still in graduate school for acting. At American Conservatory Theater, we had this two week festival where students could propose their own projects. I had asked to be left alone in a room to create a solo show on my own — I didn’t have any idea of where it would lead, but I knew I wanted to clear my head from the outside influences that can invade your creative process and just follow my impulses. The administration had randomly assigned me to a rehearsal studio that had a small cupboard in the wall for AV equipment…. and I climbed in there to think. I caught sight of myself in the mirror, and played around in the cupboard. I showed a few characters to my advisor on the process (the brilliant Stephen Buescher) and he said to me, “I love that. Why don’t you just do the whole show from inside there?” And then it all clicked! I wrote the first 40 minutes of the current show inside that cupboard in 12 days.
Women In Comedy: What can we expect from “The Box Show”?
Salerno: The show doesn’t follow a narrative format, but when I consider all of the characters of this piece, I think they are all exploring the edges of their own limitations. The sole connecting thread between this show’s radically changing stories is the shared space of the Box, and that physical limitation reveals something about each character’s worldview or personality. Does the Box define them? Confine them? Liberate them? Do they manipulate the Box to get what they want or do they yearn to break free of their circumstances?
The first title of the show was “Limited: Unlimited” because I wanted to explore and explode the idea of limitations. I think that I was subconsciously drawn to this concept because I was frustrated by people in the entertainment industry constantly typing me into various boxes. As a woman in this business, you are constantly “too something”: too quirky, too curvy, too old, too young, too ethnic, not ethnic enough, and it can feel like people cannot see your talent or creativity because you don’t fit into some ridiculous ‘industry standard’ type. I was exhausted from enduring three years of superficial feedback while in graduate school, and I wanted to re-engage with what I loved about theatrical creation, which is quite simply: pure and utter creation. I think with The Box Show, I wanted to see what I could create if my resources were incredibly limited and it was just me. Instead of asking “Why?” I wanted to make a show that asked, “Why not?” And by the end of the play, I think that The Box Show asks irreverently, fully, and joyfully: “Why the F*** not? I hope that my audience will leave the theatre invigorated and inspired to leverage their own limitations to create new possibilities.
Women In Comedy: Tell us about some of the characters.
Salerno: I think there are technically 30 characters at this point, and they are all fun to play. Some of my favorites are a drunken couple in the middle of a fight in a Las Vegas hotel, six guys inside of the Trojan Horse, a lonely Giantess, a postage stamp, and a misguided pope! Every sketch is different, and I love diving into each new reality!
Women In Comedy: The team behind your shows is all female!
Salerno: I love working with female collaborators, but this female-driven team was mostly due to coincidence! In addition to being an incredibly accomplished director, Sash Bischoff has been my dear friend for nearly 20 years. We grew up together, so asking her to come onboard with this passion project was a logical next step for me! Sash reached out to our set designer Ann Beyersdorfer whom she had worked with before, and connected us. I think Ann joined the team both because she loves working with Sash, but also because the quirky nature of the show really spoke to her. My two stage managers on this project are also wonderful women (Rachel Heine and Lindsay Kipnis)! So, it has been a lot of ladies calling the shots with this show!
