Respondent: Brian Bannon
Position in Company: Writer, performer, producer.
Company: Sob Sax
Show Title: The Elements of Euclid
“Instead of trying to write a novel, I adapted the story for the stage as a kind of La Bohème or Rent set in L5P.”
- Why should people see your show?
It’s a comedic love triangle set in Little Five Points. A celebration of the neighborhood and refresher on Euclid’s elements.
- What about festivals intrigues you? And why the Atlanta Fringe?
It’s a chance to binge on a lot of different shows and sample a variety of live performances. Theatre festivals are as old as Euclid, so there’s that Greek connection too.
- What inspired you to create this?
I first wrote a version of this story 10 years ago for the annual Creative Loafing Fiction Contest. I tried to enter every year and was a finalist twice. I think the prompt that year was math so I settled on Euclid’s Elements but made it a love letter to Little Five Points.
It didn’t win, but I always wanted to do something more with it and Fringe seemed the right time and certainly the right place.
Euclid Ave. runs at an angle compared to most of Atlanta’s street grid and creates triangles at a lot of its intersections. I created a love triangle to go along.
Euclid’s Elements is a classical text that was a foundation for much of Geometry and is still admired for its logic and reason. Little Five Points is often irrational and celebrates the arts more than STEM.
And not always the classical arts but the strange or experimental. That’s an interesting contrast.
Last Nov., instead of trying to write a novel, I adapted the story for the stage as a kind of La Bohème or Rent set in L5P.
- Life has been weird the last few years, to say the least. How has the “real world” affected the art you’re creating?
Having autism, I was way ahead of the curve on social isolation. Now I’m just trying to turn my powers of obsession into something entertaining.
- What have you learned from working on your show so far?
Apart from researching Euclid the mathematician, I looked into the origin stories of different spots on Euclid Ave., like El Myr, named for an art forger, and 7 Stages, a reference from the I Ching.
Every place has a name and a back story.
- A mysterious stranger asks to meet you and your cast and crew after loving your show. In your WILDEST DREAMS, who is it? (Bonus points if your mysterious stranger is an Atlanta celeb.)
Hmm. Maybe 7 Stages founders Del Hamilton and Faye Allen. People who were making a space for experimental art in Atlanta and this neighborhood even before most of us wound up here.
Or Puddles the clown from Puddles Pity Party. We could all use a good Sob Song.
- Fringes are the place to really push the boundaries so we gotta ask: are you inviting your family to this show are “Hey, maybe sit this one out you guys…”
My family came to the Krog show I did with Bill Taft but I kept them out of Bannon and Friends: A One Man Show.
This is more light-hearted, no Steve Bannon, and has a love triangle so I may let them come. We’ll see how it goes in tech.
- Will your show change the world?
If somehow the script displaces the original Elements of Euclid our entire system of Geometry may be upended.
- AI: the death of our art form or just a new tool to create?
Haven’t tried using it for anything in this show yet. Maybe for the flyers. I keep thinking it’s the start of some neo-vaudeville routine:
Tall guy: “Did you hear Old McDonald now uses artificial intelligence to create animal sounds on his farm?”
Short guy: “AI?”
Tall guy: “AI!”
Short guy: “Oh.”
- We’re making an excellent Fringey Feelings playlist. Describe your show in two or three songs we can add to keep the jams flowing.
Modern Art by the Black Lips,
Time Waits for No One by Alberta Hunter,
Desire Lines by Deerhunter.
Sounds amazing, right? Click here to learn more and get your tickets to this show today.
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