Story
Town Choir is the musical iteration of Theatre Replacement’s Town Criers project, a continuing series of site-oriented performances created with local collaborators in each location it travels to. The narrative of the piece takes shape through the relationship between the writers and crier/choir, and the public site. In each case, the artists are looking to take the everyday, often mundane experiences of one person, writing from home or a place that is very familiar, and then subjecting those observations to an epic transformation as they are sent to an awaiting crier or choir who then publically proclaims them to both an intentional and incidental audience.
The writers write about the time of day and what they had for breakfast. They write about their children or their pet, what books they love and where they would still like to travel to. They write about their deepest fears and desires. They sometimes speak directly to the crier or the choir — or the audience. Sometimes they send messages home. They predict what will happen one day to the very site where the audience is gathered. In the time it takes to send a text message, these private thoughts are flipped, becoming universal.
To date, the piece was performed in parks, along the shores of rivers, by the ocean, on a tiny island in a fjord, in libraries, community centres, universities and shopping malls. The artists have collaborated with writers, musicians, elders, visual artists, children, choirs, mothers and daughters, mothers and sons, grandmothers, grandfathers and best friends.
At its best, the exercise reflects a community back to itself, while at the same time sending the message out into the atmosphere, to travel through a lingering echo or hum of sound.
