Theatre

The Feast of Jovi Bono - an innovative play

• Ingenious
• Soulful
• Authentic

Here is the official trailer for TFOJB that will show what we will do, theatrically and out in the community!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hlts5aD_s2k

TFOJB is a new play, a challenge to actors to tell their stories in slam poetry/spoken word art. It's the story of forgiveness between mothers and daughters, exes, the life-beaten and the life that beat them. What if a tent city moved next door to your house? You're just one person -- what can one person do to help create life from destruction?

Most plays in this century do not have a narrator, but ours has a snarky chef to make us laugh and tie the Feast together.

Here's some background: Maria Giovanna Bonomo was a saint from the 17th century in Asiago, Italy who asked the question, "Does it seem right that we should give the worst to the poor?" She gathered a wealth of donations from the community to provide for the poor who would gather outside her door to listen to her play the violin.

In modernizing the story, Jovi Bono is a thirtysomething single mom and caterer who has enough to deal with -- her estranged mother and stranger ex show up back in town at the same time; her best friend, Malcolm, is acting strange; she's just trying to raise her sixteen year old daughter, Adrian, and survive while filling the impossible demands of her rich catering clients. A tent city has moved in next door. Jovi and Malcolm come up with an idea to have residents of the tent city come inside for a fabulous dinner and the chance to tell their stories. It doesn't solve their problems, but it does create something from the destruction in their lives.

Guests include a mother who ran from her life with her young daughter, disappearing into Children of the Underground. Now she has a sixteen year old who's seen her missing poster and wants answers. There's Tawny, a woman deeply obsessed with her hair and hair products. Deb took a risk in leaving her life for her Internet boyfriend, only to find out their love was vapor and she was really alone. Christopher is Jovi's ex and Adrian's father, an addict trying to achieve glory. Brock is a medical cheese sculptor and Christopher's narcotics anonymous sponsor who's chased him all the way from Alaska.

There's a rugby game, cake getting all over, an expanding table that Malcolm keeps tripping over, padparadsha oranges, and stories that light up the night.

***

This play is important to our community because the Spencer, Iowa area up through the Iowa Great Lakes, which includes Okoboji and Spirit Lake, Iowa, considers themselves an arts community. Spencer has been declared by the State of Iowa an arts and cultural center for the State. There is a loose network of artists and writers here, and coming together for TFOJB will bring us closer.

This is also an area that was solidly middle class in which the disparity between rich and poor has grown considerably in the last few years. Writers, actors, poets, hip hop artists (oh yes -- Hartley, Iowa has its own version of Eminem!) and others can collaborate on creating in the ruins of some of the destruction and lost hope that have happened here.

In the midst of all this, our area has some gems in performing arts facilities. In addition to the Spencer Community Theatre and the Pearson Lakes Art Center, we also have the Sami Bedell Center for the Performing Arts. It is here that TFOJB can draw in the most diverse crowds, find and inspire its audiences.

ADDITIONALLY -- this is not just a theatrical performance, scheduled for Labor Day Sunday -- it is also the launch of a new barter initiative for Spencer and the Lakes area. Let's use our skills and talents to help each other in this economy. 

***
Let's talk money.

Two notes about RocketHub to start:

1. RocketHub is not an investment or charity. It is an exchange: funds from fans for rewards from me.

2. It's an All & More funding mechanism: if I don't reach my financial goal I get to keep what I raise. But if I do reach my goal, I get access to exciting opportunities

Why do I need $20,000?  This amount will allow us to create in the Sami Center's rehearsal and performance spaces, to recruit actors, designers, builders, lighters, director, costumers, and more -- perhaps individuals with amazing skills who are currently out of work. Give artisans here a paying gig and thus stimulate the economy.

Our goal is to keep ticket prices low and to design a system of bartering or donations to the community in exchange for tickets. It is our hope that TFOJB will be the launching point of a time-dollar system in the Spencer and Lakes areas. The time-dollar system would value the skills of indivduals in the community. It would be set up similarly to the highly successful system in St. Louis, Missouri.