After sitting in on handful of rehearsals during SuperGroup’s intensive week, I feel like I should have a coherent summary to share it with you. I’m searching for some grand thesis about this process of performance making that I have been witnessing. Instead, what I have for you is this: In Which___and Others Discover the End and I are becoming friends, and that is difficult to share. A performance that I see one time is like an interesting stranger that I see on the bus one day and with whom I have a short conversation. I could give you a pretty accurate summary of that person, tell you what we talked about, and what I thought of the whole experience. IW_AODTE is more like an interesting stranger that I met on the bus one day and then continued to see and talk with after that, eventually building a rapport and becoming friends. It feels easier to tell you everything about the single encounter than to sum up the friendship. When I try to talk about IW_AODTE I probably leave out important details that I take for granted at this point. The anecdotes that I do choose to share feel disconnected. Should I tell you about the pop songs that IW_AODTE sings that get stuck in my head? Should I tell you about how I think about IW_AODTE when I am talking with a customer service representative on the phone? That I think about them when I see two almost identical piles of trash on the ground? I am going to tell you about these things, and more, but I would also like to ask something of you (whoever you are!). After reading the posts I have written here so far, and as you continue to read future posts, ask me questions about IW_AODTE. I find that it is always easier to describe a good friend when someone asks me questions about them. That way I can write directly about what you want to know (Oh! You don’t know about IW_AODTE’s childhood, silly me!) and we can begin to follow your curiosities about the process as well as my own. Come October, when you go see the work-in-progress of IW_AODTE, my hope is that you too will feel like you are sitting down with an old friend, to experience something new together, rather than meeting them for the first time. So let me know! What are you curious about? Where are you confused? Send me an email at hannahgeilneufeld@gmail.com