“It’s the assertion of many that we are on a planet in hospice. Rehearsal was about finding ways to make the news palatable.”
Responder: Dan Kinch, performer, founder of Brooklyn Culture Jam
Name of Company: Brooklyn Culture Jam
Name of Show: PLANET PHUCKETT
1. Why should anybody see your show?
Because we face human extinction in the near-term and it’s nearly impossible to see a way out. People should know what we’re up against. It isn’t about recycling and driving a Prius. It’s changing the whole way we LIVE. There’s a line in the play about yeast dying off in a champagne bottle and I return to it at the end to say ‘Why am I telling you? Because you are not yeast. You deserve to know’
2. Why Atlanta?
Atlanta is one of the American cities that adopted both the Occupy Wall Street Movement and the Extinction Rebellion (which I’m part of in NYC). I think it’s a city ready for a real talk about the future.
3. What inspired you to create this?
I had a radio show in 2014 and I interviewed Dr. Guy McPherson, sometimes called ‘Doctor Doom’ and derided by some in the science community. He laid out a compelling case for the science that predicts we’re in the Sixth Mass Extinction. He’s not the only one anymore—people like Oceanologist Peter Wadham, Dr. Jason Box, Dr. Natalia Shakhova of the Arctic Research Center and others have changed their point of view. The worst job in American science right now is being an honest predictor of the climate future.
4. What’s your process for creating and rehearsing something like this?
I asked Dr. McPherson if it was okay to do a sort of parody of his standard lecture, while keeping the science. I read voraciously on the science, and I also tried to connect his predictions with my then-recent experience of a parent in hospice care. It’s the assertion of many that we are on a planet in hospice. Rehearsal was about finding ways to make the news palatable. I experimented with adding music and jokes and puppets.
5. What have you learned from working on your show so far?
I can’t leave it alone. Whenever I’ve ‘fixed’ it, some new piece of science comes out that changes what I’ve written. I expect to be writing up til the last minute.
6. Tyler Perry, Jane Fonda, Killer Mike and Donald Glover roll up at your show. There is one ticket left. Who gets it?
Jane. She and the rest of the Hollywood elite get it, though most don’t want to get involved. Fonda has put her career on the line in the past in the name of the causes she cares about. She would write me a check to continue touring. She might even throw a party to talk about the issues.
7. Atlanta’s foodie scene is really on point these days. What does your show taste like? (Bonus points if you can name-check an ATL restaurant.)
I’m going to guess Herban Fix. We need a lighter footprint on the planet, and we’ll be more inspired by vegan chefs than by the people who think Americans will all be eating a protein plus a side plus a salad. Im a fan of all things coconut. The spice will not be killing, but it will be startling.
8. Fringes are the place to really push the boundaries so we gotta ask: would you want your parents in the front row or would you tell them, “Maybe skip this one, guys…”?
You cowards and sissies.
My DW dragged her whole suburban LI siblings to my 2016 show at the United Fringe. Try telling people with an aggregate total of 16 kids and grandkids that it’s game over by 2030. My parents are gone, but I had lots of controversial stuff produced when they were still with me. I didn’t get in this to tell you the story of Dorothy Dandridge (not that there’s anything wrong with that)
9. Will your show save mankind?
I doubt it, but I hope so. I hope that we will become a kinder and more sharing people when we finally accept what is our fate. My experience with Hospice is that people care about the things that should have always mattered. When you’re in hospice, you don’t care if you get the last dime on the table.
10. Oh boy! After your first show a genie pops out of a bottle and offers you a choice – world peace or your show enjoying a ten-year run on Broadway. What shall it be?
If I were to get the ten-year run, we’d have world peace. We’d be living in a world that understands that nature bats last. As the good Doctor says in all his videos, at the end of extinction, only love remains
11. Describe your show in three words.
Dark, funny (in a gallows humor sort of way) and heartbreaking.
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