Tarnival: Director's statement

Directors Statement

Thank you for visiting this site and for your interest in this project! Any and all feedback regarding this play is warmly accepted and will be carefully considered. It may be submitted to this e-mail address: theater@tarnival.org. You can also fill out the form at our "Comments" link.

To create this piece, I started by selecting a group of artists who were interested and experienced in using theatre as a teaching tool and in "devising theatre" or collectively creating a play with as little hierarchy and as much creativity as possible. To ensure that the piece was born from a diversity of viewpoints, this group has a wide variety of skills and training, and voices spanning two generations, both genders and four races. Together we decided that our goals were to encourage critical thinking, to reveal new information about the implications of using tobacco, to provide a moving aesthetic experience and to engender curiosity, interest and empathy about tobacco and the people it effects.

We aim to guide the audience to question the entrenched normative status of tobacco, with the hope of leading them not only towards better critical thinking skills but healthier choices as well. We specifically teach about the covert practices of target marketing,, the multiple messages inherent in advertising and the tobacco industry’s impact in developing nations.

By using the power of story we hope to provide an opportunity for all spectators to look at tobacco use in a new light. Through providing new information about the impact of tobacco on the environment and communities of color we hope to also reach people for whom the health impacts of tobacco alone have been insufficient impetus to avoid or quit smoking.
In revealing the ways in which the industry manipulates the individual we wish to appeal to the disenfranchised youth who are most susceptible to initiating a smoking habit.

One pitfall of health education can be over simplifying issues. By setting the intellectual bar high we avoid insulting the intelligence of our teen audiences or telling them what they already know, which were concerns expressed by the teens we have met with in our many focus groups. Therefore we have moved towards addressing the larger issues the tobacco industry brings to society, and uncovering some of the lesser known aspects of tobacco use and cultivation.

We hope to encourage you by example to question, to investigate and to take creative, compassionate action not only regarding this issue, but about any topic that inspires passionate thought for you.

Naomi Stein