BOOK CLUB

is a gymnasium for generative artists

…or a lab experiment

We are a club for people who play and make new things. Drawing on their training in the NYU Grad Acting and CalARTS Directing programs, founders Olivia Gilliatt and Marina McClure invite folks in to experiment and generate new work in a variety of genres. While we love to read (obviously), in our book club we take what inspires us on the page — of a novel, an instructions manual, a browser history, or a take-out menu — and use it as the basis to test out new ideas on our feet. We experiment with styles and forms that are daring, spontaneous, funny, and inventive, and we collaborate with people from all kinds of fields. No experience is necessary to play with us, apart from the experience of being a curious person.

WAYS TO PLAY

The Muck-Around

hosted indoors and outdoors, an in-person way to join us as we improvise our way through a series of “how do we make this?” experiments. show up with friends or strangers, and we will quickly build an ensemble by figuring out how to make scenes, songs, flash mobs, art pieces, and completely un-categorizable inventions.
(photo by Fern Diaz)

The Exquisite Corpse

just like the surrealists did it, but with a lot less absinthe. an old-school game of telephone we play over the interwebs, we create stuff and pass it on — removing the context but preserving the zeitgeist — resulting in some hilariously ungainly but amazing art-beasts.
(photo by Adam Patterson)

The Empathy Études

in-person and online, we experiment with ways to bridge the empathy gap by making multimedia objects together, simultaneously and asynchronously. we ask “how can i give someone a suspension of disbelief?” by experimenting with audio, animation, still photography, and all kinds of live performance.
(photo by Marina McClure)

LARGE-SCALE PROJECTS

**CIRCLE/SET:** An evening of two back-to-back radio plays with experimental foley effects, staged at Archival LA
**A RAPPING IN THE WALLS:** A Surrealist séance for tapping into the creative unconscious, set at an academic convention in 1954 and coming to a library near you!
**BACKYARD JOINTS:** Millennials examine the cultural reference-points of their childhood by recreating them in someone’s backyard
**ZZ’S SLEEPAWAY CAMP:** An immersive theater re-telling of some kids’ extremely disturbing experiences at a sleep-away camp for insomniacs
**SYNESTHETIC RETIREMENT COMMUNITY:** An exploration of Memory, Simulated Environments, and Synaptic Cross-firing
(photo by Jos Diaz Contreras)

Everything at Book Club is a Group Effort!