Photo by Ursula Rothfuss
Performed at Highways in Santa Monica, CA in August of 2003.
This piece was made possible by a BAX (Brooklyn Arts Exchange) space grant and premiered there in May of 2002.
The Summer is Cork is an adaptation of Michael Martone’s short story, “The Safety Patrol” (1985 Pushcart Prize). The setting is a sixth grade classroom. The title refers to what a school’s bulletin board looks like in the summer (empty, just the cork background). The story is told and danced through dictionary drills, spelling bees, and a sociogram. I was inspired to make this piece by a question that Michael’s teacher/narrator asks in the story: “Tests test what? What was learned or how it was taught?”