Dallas Theater Center’s Public Works Dallas Aims to Make Summer ‘A Little Less Lonely’ – NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth
In the pre-pandemic era, the Dallas Theater Center’s Dallas Public Work was an annual music competition with more than 200 parishioners that reflected a vibrant city. This summer, Public Works Dallas is transforming that pageant into A Little Less Lonely, a film about a community’s resilience and the promise of a post-pandemic world. The film will be available on August 10th.
Tatyana-Marie Carlo directed 60 parishioners from her Rhode Island home via Zoom for over eight weeks before moving to Dallas to film. Developed by the participating community members, the film begins in the world of Zoom and finally moves into a fantastic dream world that embodies the community’s hopes for the future after the pandemic.
The production combines scenes filmed on zoom from the participants’ homes with fantasy scenes filmed on location at Bachman Lake Together, the Janie C. Turner Recreation Center, and the Jubilee Park & Community Center.
Carlo talks about directing Zoom, the inspiring power of persistence in a community and her new tattoo.
ABC-DFW: When the Dallas Theater Center approached you about the project, what made you say “yes”?
Tatjana-Marie Carlo: Originally, this wasn’t the project I was supposed to be working on. I was to assist Christie Vela on Twelfth Night through a Drama League scholarship. The Drama League was so amazing. They asked me if I want them to reward me with the scholarship money or if I want to take on this project that the people at Public Works Dallas dreamed of? I took the opportunity to be part of everything at the Dallas Theater Center. For me it was an easy yes. My work comes from the community, it’s a lot of the work I did before I went to graduate school and when I was in graduate school. I love working with people who are not actors or what we think of actors in some ways. I love working with people of different levels of experience. I took the opportunity to say yes because it was my own passion to work with the community.
ABC-DFW: This is an original production created and performed by sixty members of the community. What did you learn from the community about creating theater?
TMC: How important it is to stay present and meet people where they are. So much has happened in the last year, people are in different phases of life. People have lost family and friends, people have lost jobs, opportunities have come and gone – we’ve made our rehearsal room sacred. Anything we can do as directors or leaders to make someone’s day better, we should be doing. I will take that with me in my future projects.
ABC-DFW: What were the challenges of directing Zoom and then coming to town to film?
TMC: This piece was completely made up! We literally started with no text! We had the designers, me, and the Public Works Dallas community. We had a concept based on information we got from the community before rehearsals started, but we didn’t have a script. Overall, that was definitely a challenge.
Are you working on Zoom? You have to learn to be patient! You have to learn patience because the internet will go down, people will freeze, things will happen. We only had 90 minutes per site. Losing 5 minutes out of those 90 minutes is a big deal. So that was a challenge. The BEST was to film in person! Finally see what people look like. I remember some of the kids saying, “You look so different”! It was really cool to finally be together and see everyone in person, also socially distant.
ABC-DFW: What did you learn about the emotional impact of the COVID-19 pandemic while working on A Little Less Lonely?
TMC: Everyone lost something. We have lost family members from my family. Other people have lost their jobs, lost opportunities, there is community loss and sadness. I think sometimes our own experiences can feel so individual, like you’re the only one going through these things. Going through collective trauma and realizing that everyone is doing their best. Everyone tries their absolute best. I learned that from there. People were doing their best at a really challenging time. It taught me that people are amazing! We are amazing! We can endure beat after beat, after beat and still persevere. It made me so much stronger to see that in everyone. It made me feel like I was in community with other people, knowing that we had been through a really tough thing, we are still going through something that is extremely challenging. Yet we can get together and create work and find joy and be a little less lonely despite the sadness and loss of all of these things.
ABC-DFW: What did you find out about the city while filming in Dallas?
TMC: Before I came to Dallas I found this great photographer, Cin Photos. I found her on TikTok, she does all kinds of photography. I made an appointment to have my headshots done. She was wonderful and such a resource to me! She gave the best seats.
Xaman Cafe – they do this horchata and espresso. If you haven’t had horchata and espresso, I don’t know what you did to your life! This creates a brilliant iced coffee situation.
Trompo – they make their corn, but instead of using hot cheeto dust, they use taki dust. This is revolutionary! It was so good.
Yolk – it’s a breakfast place right across from the Dallas Theater Center. You were the nicest people! I wanted to try different restaurants but went back to Yolk 3 times! The food was so great and the people were amazing.
Tatjana-Marie Carlo
Getting her first tattoo was part of Tatyana-Marie Carlos’ Dallas experience.
I have my first tattoo! I found a great tattoo artist through Instagram. It starts from Ham’s tattoos. I got it in memory of my Abuelita that we lost on November 16, 2020. He was so nice. He was literally holding my hand.
I really tried to explore as much of Dallas as possible. I even went to Austin. I need to see the bats. And I had Kolaches for the first time on the way to Austin.
Learn more: https://www.dallastheatercenter.org/
[ad_1]