The Buzz Intro Interview | MerryCat - Atlanta Fringe Festival

Responder: Melissa Simmons, Founder, Director
Name of Company: MerryCat
Name of Show: The Picture of Dorian Grey

“I believe that allowing artists to be ruled entirely by their creative instinct, as opposed to what will sell tickets, can result in some of the highest quality work possible.”

Why should people see your show?

Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Grey is a seriously underrated work. It truly has it all – romance, humor, immortality, decadence, corruption. What more could one want? Well, my adaptation seeks to introduce three new elements to the classic work- the celebration of queerness, the exploration of gender performance, and, an original and entirely devised movement piece.

What about festivals intrigues you? And why the Atlanta Fringe?

The main pull of Atlanta Fringe is that there is no board of directors or governing body telling makers what they can and cannot produce. This excites me as an artist because there are literally no limits or restrictions on what you can do creatively. I believe that allowing artists to be ruled entirely by their creative instinct, as opposed to what will sell tickets, can result in some of the highest quality work possible.

What inspired you to create this?

I have always been drawn to works of literature that have a horror element, and so Dorian Grey has long been one of my favorite gothic works. For my birthday this year, my friend Mary gave me a beautiful copy of The Picture of Dorian Grey. I took this as a sign that this work should be adapted for the stage. I am also very interested in the techniques of physical theatre and devising work, and this show will hopefully be a good blend of the familiar and accessible(scripted) and the unknown (unscripted).

Life has been weird the last few years, to say the least. How has the “real world” affected the art you’re creating?

Oscar Wilde said that “the artist is the creator of beautiful things.” He also, in the very same paragraph, declared “all art is quite useless.” I agree with both these sentiments. Art doesn’t need to be moral or useful – it just needs to be beautiful. It just needs to distract us from the drudgery of daily life; to enchant us.

What have you learned from working on your show so far?

So far I’ve learned that anything is possible! It sounds cheesy but, here, in Fringeland, it’s true. Fringe is teaching me how to trust myself as an artist.

There’s a mysterious stranger in the back row of your show, wearing a big ol’ N95 mask and a baseball cap and there’s something weirdly familiar about them, and then they come up afterwards to tell you they loved your show. In your WILDEST DREAMS, who is this mysterious stranger? (Bonus points if your mysterious stranger is an Atlanta celeb.)

2 Chainz

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…”

Yes, of course they will be invited – even my two nieces under the age of five! My family has seen me involved of theatre of all types of the years – from your typical spring musical /Christmas Carol to that experimental piece I wrote in college about a young man who gets drawn into the deep underbelly of clown (and drug) culture by his wayward (and PCP addled) clown uncle. Honestly, very similar themes to Dorian Grey. What can I say? I love a good descent into madness.

Will your show change the world?

This show will corrupt people and they will act on their most sinful thoughts and capitalism and the ancestral internalized puritanical moral traditions will crumble and men will fall into the pit and we will all be ruled by beauty and brutality, two non binary monarchs.

Or so we hope 🙂