Blindspot Collective finds opportunities for innovation, experimentation

Combining performance, education and advocacy, the local theater company Blindspot Collective has occupied a significant place in the community since its founding three years ago. Now co-founders Blake McCarty, director of artistic development, and Catherine Hanna Schrock, director of community development, are looking to play a role in the very different social and educational environment in which we find ourselves.

“We really do feel like in moments like these, where people are deeply desiring to be connected, Blindspot might be able to innovate and have a role,” Schrock said.

“One thing we’ve started is a happy hour every Tuesday and Thursday via Zoom. We share it widely with our network using social media primarily. It’s an hourlong happy hour meant to be a moment when people can check in with each other, share something that is maybe challenging them or inspiring them at the moment, and also to exchange something playful and connective. We also do some version of online theater games.”

McCarty added that during this month, “Some of the other programs that we would typically conduct in person, particularly education and outreach programs, will move online. We’re in ongoing conversations with some of the schools and institutions with whom we partner.”

Both McCarty and Schrock emphasized the value of writing as, in his words, “an opportunity for experimentation in how we can encourage vulnerability and conversation.”

One initiative invites primarily writers to collaborate on an “adventure play.”

“That’s a project whose ultimately performance is intended to take place after COVID-19 ceases to limit us,” McCarty said. “For us, it’s an opportunity to engage artists and be creative in this time, to remind us of our humanity as artists across social distances.”

On the education front, Blindspot Collective, which calls its company “Theater for Social Engagement” as opposed to straight theater, is focusing on students, too.

“We’re really interested in inviting conversations that allow students to express personal narrative,” Schrock said, “to be thinking about other stories and learning to be more vulnerable in their creative writing and their verbal expression.”

“The tools we are developing are about engaging them personally and in terms of how they see the world.”

Coddon is a freelance writer.