Creation & Performance of Solo Show Their Eyes Get Big

Abstract

Their Eyes Get Big is a solo performance about the reverbrations of sexual assault and bystander responses in my life. In this performance, I attempt to bring the audience into my own experience of sexual assault, using stories from my life that have been abidingly influential, in order to offer a lens for current and systemic sexual violence that I and my academic community have been witness to. By all audience reports, I was successful: Audience members responded that they found the piece moving, and that they were still thinking and talking about Their Eyes Get Big much later. The success and impact of the performance can be directly attributed to synthesizing and application of learnings from the Professional Actor Training Program: Identifying and honoring my impulses; my expanded capacity for self-reflection, self-assessment, and constructively seeking and incorporating feedback; and using rehearsal and performance to learn, respond to audience, deepen work and make discoveries.