"Threads" Explores Identity and Art in LunART Festival

After two seasons of virtual programming, Madison’s LunART Festival is back, hosting eight in-person events across six area venues to support, inspire, promote and celebrate women in the arts. This year’s diverse programming, scheduled for May 31 - June 5, will showcase more than 50 artists performing in many different media, including world premiere chamber concerts, public lectures and community panels, a jazz concert, and an evening of comedy. It also features the world premiere play/spoken word piece titled Threads.

Written and produced by Deborah Hearst and Dana Pellebon, Threads examines how our identities are grounded in relationships and connections with others, and what happens when those identities – or threads – become untethered. Over the course of the hour-long piece, the performers consider how to move forward now that many of the pandemic restrictions have been lifted, and how to create a new version of ourselves in the wake of so much change. Threads will have just one performance on Friday June 3 at 7:30 pm at the Bartell Theatre.

When local actor and writer Hearst was asked to participate in the 2022 LunART Festival, she was particularly intrigued by this year’s theme, “Identity.” “I’ve been thinking a lot about myself as a woman and an artist and how the pandemic has affected those identities,” she said in a recent phone interview. “If my art – live theater – is something that I can’t engage with, how do I feel about my sense of self?”

Ruminating on this theme led her to partner with well known producer, director, and theatermaker Pellebon, to create a script that explores each woman’s reaction to the loss of in-person contact and live arts events during the last two years when COVID-19 has limited access to both. 

When asked about her choice of collaborator, Hearst explained, “I reached out to Dana, in part,  because I couldn’t think of anyone more different from me. She is an extravert where I am more internal. We process things differently, we are affected by trauma and respond to change very differently. I thought our experiences would make a great juxtaposition. The result is that every element of our pieces stands in opposition to each other, while actually telling the same story.”

Hearst and Pellebon began working on the project, meeting virtually, last December. In March they met in person to discuss ideas and concepts for the piece. In the month of April they wrote pieces separately. In May they began to combine their writing into one script and rehearse together, refining and rewriting as they went. 

“During the pandemic I was struggling to find myself as an artist,” said Hearst. “I thought I had a plan and then I didn’t. I couldn’t participate in art or engage with it, and as a result I felt extremely isolated.” But as she wrote each draft, she found working on Threads became very therapeutic. “The only reason I write about personal things and say them out loud in front of an audience is to create a connection with other people,” she explained. “I let the audience know that I see their struggles and I identify with them. I do this to get out of myself and find myself again.”

Each artist contributed about 25-30 minutes of material and then combined it into one narrative with the two actors taking turns speaking, while referencing the script on music stands in front of them. At the suggestion of LunARTS founder, Serbian flutist Dr. Iva Ugrcic, the performers added bass player Laurie Lang to the ensemble. With a background in jazz, Lang improvises a musical accompaniment throughout the performance. 

“She listens to the piece as we perform it and matches our energy and our emotional experience,” Hearst commented. “The addition to music, and Laurie in particular, is taking Threads to a different level.”

During the show and post-show talkback, Hearst hopes to spur conversations about reimagining and reinventing identities, as we collectively re-emerge from the long, enforced social separation of quarantine and re-enter the world. “Human beings need connection,” she said. “We need each other, not just to define who we are, but to make us feel whole. I’m looking forward to sharing the journey back to interconnectedness with an audience.”

For more information about Threads or the LunART Festival, visit lunartfestival.org. For information about tickets to Threads, visit bartelltheatre.org.