Two weeks ago, the Creative Writers gathered to decide on a theme for our first show of the year. A lot of our ideas had in common—from the Pussy Riot in Russia to the ban on ethnic studies classes in Arizona—the occurrences of censorship happening around the world. Of course this would be the case. As artists, there’s nothing more important than self-expression. What happens when that freedom is taken away from us?

Thus, The Nature of Offense. Thematically, we talked of Banned Books, Censored People, Evolving Terminology of “offensive” objects to mitigate the offense; to bring it closer to home, we also thought about Censoring Poetry, a bit of Audience Participation during the show to open up the circle of discussion towards the ultimate question: What Offends Us?

We are going all out for this show, with three spectacular Artists in Residence, Tony, Carol, and Rachel each taking a separate element of performance: Tony at the helm of our collective ship, Carol working with our body movements, and Rachel incorporating multi-media aspects to further enhance each CDub’s reading. On Friday, each CDub auditioned the pieces he or she would like to read, and like always, we have a spectacular range– from poetry to prose, long to short, serious to light-hearted, and those are only the more exterior aspects. Special shout-out goes to Jules Cunningham, who has yet to fail in delivering a performance piece utterly different from the “norm.” He won’t fall short this time, either, and we are eager to welcome Dorian Cunningham as a special guest star in Jules’s piece.

Join us this week for a Behind-the-Scenes look at our rehearsal process, all leading up to Friday, October 12th at 7:30, for Creative Writing’s undoubtedly sensational show, The Nature of Offense.