IV: A Documentary Intervention

One of my most favorite things about the trip to DC this year for the Metavivor Stampede and METup’s Die In, was the opportunity to participate in the first public readings of IV: A Documentary Intervention. We’ve been reading the script in workshops via Zoom for the last several weeks and I was familiar with the lines.

Yet

I wasn’t entirely prepared for the emotions of reading the script in front of other people. I wasn’t entirely prepared to see and feel the emotions from the room, from the family and friends of fellow metsters, alive and dead. Not only did they get what we were trying to say, they lived the words we read.

Talk about powerful!

Our words and the emotions behind them encompass the experiences of living with a terminal illness. All of the readers the first night were metastatic. We didn’t have everyone together the second night, but students from Mercer filled in ably. The significance of people reading who 100% get every word cannot be discounted.

On 10/10/2019, Act I only was read before a metastatic and supporters audience. There were literally no dry eyes in the room when we were done and that includes the readers/cast.

Cast and students together after the very first performance of Act I. The people in this picture are some of the most amazing men and women I’ve ever had the opportunity to meet and get to know. They have changed my life. As my dear friend, Emily, says, MBC is the worst club with the best people.

I was privileged to read poetry written by Anya Silver.

Emily Garnett read the words penned by Beth Caldwell on her blog and elsewhere. Beth’s advocacy and her exhortations to the world at large and the metastatic community framed the play and the subjects we talked about.

10/11/2019 Acts I and II performed at the Smith Center in DC to a smaller crowd, yet the impact was no less profound.