Hit Factory

Five short-ish years ago I found myself wrapped up in a little show called WRLS 4 with the one and only Strawdog Theatre Company. This show was begun by a group of ensemble members wanting to create original material, using the platform of a live radio show, with wacky characters playing the parts within the pieces, as well as in the show as a whole. Show within show within show… It was fantastic madness. However, it began to detour from its original intention and format. With the ambition of aiding and abetting the future of this ensemble driven expo, a writing workshop was created for interested ensemble members, actors and designers alike. As luck would have it, Strawdog made the acquaintance of Hank Boland, who penned our first musical. Hank is a playwright and writing teacher at Columbia. Focusing on the medium of live radio, this workshop became a sound board for experienced writers and newbies to set loose their hair-brained schemes… I mean, ideas. Thus, The Hit Factory was born, though WRLS went the way of the dodo.

(moment of silence)

Hit Factory still retains a lot of the foundation that was laid by WRLS.

(moment of silence)

A live radio show complete with a foley artist, a band (if we can wrangle one together) and a group of versatile actors with nothing but their voices, a mike and a music stand for their script (if we can wrangle some together). There’s no smoke and mirrors here. What makes Hit Factory different from it’s predecessor is the performers and their relationships with the stories they are telling. WRLS used the device of characters performing as other characters. Follow me? Hit Factory uses actors. Period. There is no extra veil of performance. So, instead of layering the delivery, you simply have an actor sharing an experience. What’s even greater is the fact that the actors know the owner of the brain from which these stories were born. Pretty slick, right? Right.

In the first round of Hit Factory pieces, I contributed as an actor. Lending my voice to breathe life into the characters created by these wordsmiths for the very first time. Next, I was given the opportunity to direct. Just recently, I was able to contribute all of myself as a personal essayist. Having donned so many skins, I feel like I’ve grown up with Hit Factory. From adorable and utterly forgivable infancy, through the messy brat phase, eking over awkward adolescence, and finally emerging into a decently scarred adulthood; the stories shared and explored were consistently genuine and infinitely entertaining. However, what I’ve gleaned as a participant, and ultimately a Word Jammer (I have a certificate…), is that the end result is less than half the aim of what Hit Factory is about.

Everyone in this business has a talent that they’re good at, or at least recognized for, but living within a creative community you begin to breathe your fellow artists’ air and like the taste. Maybe it’s the grass is greener mind-job we pull on ourselves but I like to think it’s admiration for your peers and wanting to tap into other facets to fine tune your own artistry. The Hit Factory has provided a safe forum for that desire to stretch and re-form ourselves amidst family. That being said, we don’t handle each other with kid gloves. We are, after all, a family. There have been no brawls (to date…) only criticisms to further the progress of the individual and challenges to make sure it’s a grand slam success.

For example, the last Hit Factory was centered on personal essays. Being someone who likes to tell a story (though in the past I’ve been accused of being long winded and divulging insignificant details i.e. <---) I was interested in sharpening this quality. My first story was an absolute mess. If at one point it wasn't scattered, it was cluttered. In other segments, I was using someone else's voice, not my own, making it impersonal and false. Best part? I didn't finish it. I couldn't. It wasn't until I read it out loud that I was clear on why my tale went nowhere. Simply... I started telling a story I wasn't ready to tell. My peers understood and after some pointers to help dig me out of the trap I'd laid for myself, I tried again. For the record, the story still isn't finished. It's progressed but...

What Hit Factory has actually done is extend our family's reach into outer space with Stella Stargirl (by Aly Greaves), into a gritty crime world fantastically with John Henry Robert’s Dr. Night and hilariously with Michael Dailey’s drunk lady detective, Nelly Quinn. Hit Factory made us shudder in the alternate realities of Shelf 13(Hank Boland) and quenched our thirst with a cool pint in the company of the the patrons of Anita Deely’s Dooley’s Public House in Galway, Ireland. The people in these stories are other versions of ourselves and we want to share them with you. If you’re willing to listen but in our experience we’ve learned people like being told stories.

It’s just that simple.

Come see it this Saturday. I’ll be performing.

Michaela Petro

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