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Why create and direct a show called
Kill Your Boyfriends?
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 Derek Van Barham, an Artistic Associate of Pride Films and Plays, is the creator/director of this fevered dream of movement and text, woven together into one story line featuring an ensemble of six.
Please spend a few minutes to read what Derek has to say about creating the work, the title, and - oh yes - the nudity.
We will hear next week from the actors about the challenges of performing in the Naked July Fest at National Pastime.
But until then, I was curious about how Derek put this work together, and asked him to write about it for us.
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MY BACKGROUND AS A
SPEECH AND DEBATE KID
My background is in competitive speaking, debate, and interpretation of literature.
Some call it speech and debate, some (like me) call it Forensics. My high school had a dying drama department that was unable to produce a single show in my four years of high school. Forensics was my only creative outlet. I didn't get to be in a play until freshman year at the University of Mississippi, where I majored in Theatre and competed with the Forensics Team. For eight years (and a few nostalgic days since then), forensics played a huge role is my development as an artist. It all revolved around this odd world of getting dressed up to compete and be judged. I was never anything but nervous and extremely happy.
I preface everything with my speech background because it's an important facet of Kill Your Boyfriends. Speech and debate are my roots, and very much inform all the work I do, including this show. First, communication is essential. What am I communicating? Is it persuasive? Informative? Both? From an audience perspective, I never like to to leave a theatre thinking "I don't know what I was supposed to think." I'm quite alright with a show not giving me answers, but I prefer it at least go so far as to make me think of my own questions. I think KYB asks some questions, gives some answers, but still allows the audience to have personalized interpretations. Like a good debate, we show multiple sides and arguments, and leave a lot on the table for the audience to decide.
An insert from David Zak - "Derek completed his theater eduction with an MFA in acting from Roosevelt University. He has sinced acted in many theaters around town, including PFP, BoHo, and many others."
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ON THE STRUCTURE OF
KILL YOUR BOYFRIENDS
The other way that speech has bled into the KYB process is in its structure.
Rather than work from a single script, I've used the work of several different authors to tell this story. The majority of the show is composed of existing poetry, with dialogue devised by the actors during rehearsal.
Sometimes, our story does not fit the parameters of one existing work. So, this structure allows us the freedom to change pieces and follow the story (rather than bend the story to fit an existing script).
For example, we use a poem from Richard Siken's "Crush" until our story takes a stark turn, so we jump to Sylvia Plath's "In Plaster". When admiring one of the bodies onstage, the words are Walt Whitman. When that admiration turns ugly, we go back to Sylvia Plath. There's a specific moment in the show that echos one of my favorite moments from an Edward Albee play. At that moment, we paraphrase a few of those Albee lines. Almost everything has been said before, so we literally have found the words for what we want to say.
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 IF I WERE TO DESCRIBE THE SHOW TO YOU IN 10 WORDS... Couples. Bed. Music. Dance. Words. Violence. Insomnia. Sex. Hurt. Morning.
BUT ENOUGH ABOUT THE WORDS...
This show is hot. It really is. I'm very lucky to have a wonderfully talented, beautiful, brave, risk-taking ensemble. I knew this process would be challenging.
It's movement-based, it's a new script that's occasionally changing, and....
it's full of nudity.
I cast several close friends (personal friends and friends of PFP) because I knew that trust and safety were going to be vital. This cast has been exceptional, constantly generating new ideas and personal touches to the existing words. Because of this, there have been moments where the vulnerability and the intimacy have been breathtaking. Each of the actors has a stake in this story, so it really has become our show.
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 AND THE NUDITY...
This is the Naked July Festival, so there is nudity. This show is meant to be an exploration of bodies as much as it is an exploration of relationships.
Whitman writes "If anything is sacred, the human body is sacred," and I could not agree more. We worked hard to realize the appropriate amount of nudity for this show, and how it fits into the script just like the words and the movement. We also played with the differences between moments of presentation and moments of intimacy. We highlight the difference between stripping and undressing, and between dressing and hiding. Our goal is that eventually the nude body becomes another costume, and just like any good costume design, we hope you admire it, but that you quickly realize it's not what the show is really about.
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 WHAT ABOUT THAT TITLE?
Kill Your Boyfriends is a poem by
Alex Dimitrov, a young poet from NYC. Alex is a friend, and a source of inspiration for this show. The title poem speaks specifically to the gut feeling this show brings out for me. I've attached a link below.
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We hope you want to see how it all turns out.
There are only ten performances at the Naked July Fest at National Pastime, at 941 West Lawrence on the fourth floor.
(Make sure you allow some extra time for the elevator ride up.)
Performance times are Saturdays at 8 on July 6, 13, 20 and 27.
And Sundays at 3 on July 7, 14, 21, and 28.
There is also a special midnight show on June 26.
The show will run about one hour without intermission.
Tickets are $20 and can be purchased here.
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