{"version":1,"type":"rich","provider_name":"Libsyn","provider_url":"https:\/\/www.libsyn.com","height":90,"width":600,"title":"Episode 373: RealTime Arts\u2019 Molly & Rusty on interactive happenings in Pittsburgh, where it's all about "Feeling the bean"","description":"In Episode 373, Molly Rice & Rusty Thelin, co-founders of RealTime Arts in Pittsburgh, talk about: The especially niche field of their work, which is the performance of live theater that aligns more with visual art and doesn\u2019t really check any of the \u2018theater\u2019 boxes, and how they have interactive elements but don\u2019t confront the audience the way a lot of performance art does (they describe a \u201clot of conventions around theater\u2026 that contemporary audiences have trouble with\u2026\u201d); their series \u201cPeople of Pittsburgh,\u201d whose tagline is \u2018Theatrical Portraits of Extraordinary Ordinary Pittsburghers;\u2019 the size of their audiences and how they\u2019re shows are often tailored to the neighborhood\u2019s they take place in, and how they make their performances as open to all as possible, with a \u2018radical hospitality\u2019 option whenever possible; their hosting of Little Amal, the puppet of a Syrian refugee girl that travels the world doing performances amidst community and how their version added a play that incorporated a massive local crowd; their rock performance, \u2018Angelmakers: Songs for Female Serial Killers,\u2019 which was a tight show, as compared with their more experimental and improvisatory shows, and how they got a much more mixed audience, including concert-goers to a rock concert, for that show. This podcast relies on listener support; please consider becoming a Patreon supporter of the podcast, for as little as $1\/month, here: https:\/\/www.patreon.com\/theconversationpod In the extended Full Patreon Bonus Episode, Molly & Rusty talk about: how they financially support their program, through a mix of fundraising, grants and occasional ticket sales; the gentrification that\u2019s happening in Pittsburgh, which they admit to being a part of, and moved there because they wanted to be somewhere they were needed, as artists, and was a perfect medium in between a big city and a small rural town; Pittsburg\u2019s cohesive art\/cultural community, which reminds Molly of 1990s Austin, TX, when she played in bands; how she consider their work multi-disciplinary, influenced both by site-specific work, and that they\u2019re descendants of the happenings of the \u201860s and \u201870s (including Claes Oldenburg and Robert Wilson); their current approach to social media (including looking into leaving Meta platforms); how connecting is a large part of success; and how they feel about connecting with the podcast\u2019s Open Call (the short answer is: \u2018really good\u2019). ","author_name":"The Conversation Art Podcast","author_url":"https:\/\/theconversationpod.com","html":"