Theresa Buchheister
Who are you? What would be helpful or interesting for the reading audience of this interview and/or the experiencing audience of your show to know about Cameron Stuart?
Cameron Stuart
I’m a Queens resident, although I was born and raised on the Gulf Coast of Florida. When I meet folks, I often let them know that I am from Florida. I lived there until I was 26, and I think it has a big impact on my relationship to arts communities, performance, and collaboration. The creative world there is much smaller, with a lot of cross pollination between disciplines, activities, and scenes. It’s also important in Florida for everyone to step up and make shit happen, either with your own practice or with creating community — otherwise there wouldn’t be anything to do.
For the past 2+ years, I’ve been the Operations Director at the Brick Theater — which is great because I have a lot of experience holding space for other creative folks and now it’s my job. For instance, my friends and I started and operated the beloved Bushwick DIY space the Glove, and I worked with the Exponential Festival for a number of years. I love to write, and I’ve written a number of plays which I self-produced in DIY spaces in Brooklyn. My interests are pretty broad, and I love to discover new things or revisit old loves. Right now I’m digging back into Chicago blues music and Golden Age cartoons. I also just read a book I discovered in my library of folk tales from Greenland. Of course I like theater and see lots of shows (just went to Box Machine for the first time) — but I also enjoy exploring other creative avenues, like playing and composing music. That means I usually find myself winding through the myriad NYC art scenes throughout the year.
TB
You are certainly one of the most actively curious humans I have ever met. I think that curiosity perhaps helps you fuel your journeys through myriad scenes and forms and practices. Not unrelated… We are here to talk about a project of yours that dips toes into various creative pools – Vivian Oblivion. It is a book. A map for performance. A project that has been interpreted before and will be interpreted again at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn, NY this October. From where did Vivian Oblivion come? How do you think about Vivian‘s shape/vibe/purpose?
CS
Thank you — and likewise, your curiosity is seemingly endless! I always learn something new every time we talk.
For Vivian Oblivion, the idea began when a group called Space Pants — a musical duo that performs compositions with an otherworldly industrial tube — asked me if I would write them a piece. At first, I was a little uncertain about how to proceed. Then the group published this article for my partner’s online journal, which helped me get started. I also connected with Jennifer of Space Pants about text-based musical scores. As a quick primer, in the music world a typical score is written on staff paper. But in the mid-20th century, composers experimented with writing scores just in prose, often as a series of rules or activities. So I acquired a copy of Pauline Oliveros’ text-based scores and worked my way through that, while thinking of what I could do for Space Pants.
Although I like to write music, I’ve written mostly plays. For me, those texts operate like instructions for a production. So the stage directions tell the performers specific actions they should take, or important lighting cues or the like, while dialogue of course is meant to be spoken. Lots of plays have a “Where” and “When” at the beginning to give clues to the set and costume departments. However, I’ve always been curious about making a play that could be formatted on the page so it felt inviting to readers who didn’t have a connection to the theater. The trick would be to have this same text able to serve as the basis for a performance. Starting in 2017, I had the opportunity to see some of my plays in print thanks to Marshall James Kavanaugh and his A Freedom Press. That helped me think through how a book could achieve this sort of double role: as a mostly dialogue-fueled narrative yet also serve as material for performance. After reading some text-based scores, I realized my ideal format for this particular project. First, I wrote a narrative that employed all sorts of elements — dialogue, of course, but also poems, songs, prose that could double as stage actions, disembodied voices where the speaker isn’t clear, and more. Then I wrote performance instructions that I put after the text. Well, they are more like guidelines, alongside a handful of ideas and encouragement for performers to employ the text in original ways as they devise new work.
I wanted the book to have a similar visual impact as a performance. So I worked with my friend Lindsey Elcessor, who created some illustrations based on the narrative. Then I added a few archival photos from my family, and it felt complete. I call it a performable book. As for the narrative … well, the titular character is an apocalyptic space monster—but perhaps also a pop star? Either way, the book explores how stories get passed between successive generations, as well as the sacrifices one generation must make to create a future. Throughout the tale, lots of different mothers and daughters are introduced, with a couple hints at some mysterious grandmothers. And of course there is the pop tune-bearing space monster.
TB
Thank goodness for Space Pants! Their ask of you is also a great reminder that planting seeds can sometimes yield performable books. That rules. So, speaking of devisers that may take your performable book and present something based on it, there will be performances this October 9-12 (2025) at The Brick Theater. Who is involved in this Vivian Oblivion and why did you invite them into your worlds?
CS
Yes, I’m very excited to be producing an evening of works devised from Vivian Oblivion. And I’m super thrilled about the line-up of artists I have involved. Leonie Bell, Matthew Antoci, and Rawya El Chab are all regular performers and patrons at the Brick Theater. When I started thinking of this event, I wanted to involve artists who have a big connection to the space. That way, the showcase will have the feeling of an organic community event. Also, all three of these artists had either read the book or seen the first iteration of performances devised from it, which I did at Brick Aux in 2023. So when I asked them if they’d like to create a piece, they were all super excited to join — so I’m feeling blessed that they liked the book and concept!
I think they will compliment each other in exciting ways, and each of them will bring out different elements of the book. Leonie’s work is often about family. As a native German living in the States, she is often exploring communication across the generations, and a certain feeling of dislocation in time and space. She also has a hilariously cartoony style that I absolutely adore. Rawya is similarly a total clown, both by training and by nature. But beyond her sense of humor, her work never shies away from dealing with the huge soci-political issues that shape our world, like war, diaspora, greed, etc. I’m really interested to see how her perspective as a native of Lebanon shapes her reaction to the more apocalyptic aspects of the book. Her family stories are both fascinating and harrowing. And Matthew is always creating work that both delights and surprises me — and, honestly, challenges me too. They share my love of Ludlam’s Theater of the Ridiculous, especially the camp aesthetic and the joy of being very outré out of pure rebellion. They also embrace technology in advanced ways that always breaks my understanding of theater — in other words, they always take risks and I totally love it.
Of course, all three could create a Vivian piece from completely different angles than what I wrote above. That’s the beauty of this project. I’ve given all of them complete freedom to make their own project. We are in communication, but I am pretty much just producing and have no idea what they are up to. So I’ll be just as surprised come show week as the rest of the audience.
TB
This is truly an inspiring and delightful group of artists who will interpret your book in so many unpredictable ways. And yet, it is important to note your familiarity with them and their work. This is a great example of the freedom building trust can allow. Speaking of, are there collaborations that you have had that, upon reflection, shifted your perspective? Your trajectory? Your artistic process?
CS
Wow, that’s probably the toughest question you have asked so far.
I think collaboration is one of the most intoxicating and rewarding aspects of my creative life. I was lucky enough to run my own theater company in NYC for about seven years and I feel I owe a debt to everyone who was involved — I’m just so grateful to the way everyone of them changed my perspective on performance and writing. I have to restrain myself from listing them all!
Although it is excruciating to pick, I will choose this one: when I was a student at FSU, I was in an outsider art group called the Organic Artists Forum (or OAF). The group rented a house on the edge of campus where some of us lived — as I did, off and on, for a little bit over 2 years. At the OAF house, we held art events, group meetings, and general hangouts. The founder of the group, Maggie Ginestra, suggested that the group build a small theater in the stand alone garage. So Bobby Z, the de facto house manager, dutifully built out the garage one summer, adding a 1 and 1/2 inch tall stage, wood benches, and sort of a cardboard proscenium arch. I remember helping nail the stage floor in, and hammering the benches back together when they fell apart.
For the inaugural theatrical event at the new space, we put on an evening of short plays. Maggie directed a self-adapted version of stories and poems by Sandra Cisneros as a one-person show called Other Fish starring Frances Inés Rodriguez — who is actually a current resident of NYC, and recently came to the Brick, to my surprise! Anyway, this show absolutely blew me away. I can still recall Frances’ face in the light of the desk lamp — I was steps away. For Maggie’s next project in the garage theater (which was called the Slusher Street Theater, by the way), she did Alcestis — the Greek tragedy as translated by Ted Hughes. I played Heracles. I know, that doesn’t make sense, right? And even crazier, Maggie had me singing all these songs written by Robert Hill, our genius songwriter friend. Despite my non-Heraclean pedigree, the intimacy of performing for a house of 20 or so, nearly eyeball to eyeball with all of them, really changed my life. I became a total DIY theater convert.
Of course, after that experience I had to write and star in my own play at Slusher Street Theater. So a special shout out to Ken Jordan as well, who took a chance and directed my first project and really cemented my DIY theater initiation. I definitely would not be doing theater right now if it were not for Maggie and Ken.
TB
That is such an incredible list of humans. I always have editors tell me that we cannot just have lists of people that did things in my essays and chapters in books and things… but I disagree and the list stays! I think it is really important to share who has been along the path with us and shaped the art and the worlds we are creating.
Not unrelated, is there a moment of something you made with Saints or otherwise that sticks with you as magical or poignant or reverberant in a way? AND, is there something someone else has made that you have seen in the last few years that made an impact?
CS
In terms of my own work, I think I’m actually most proud of Vivian Oblivion. I tend to get really jazzed about whatever I’m currently working on. I also like to think that I’m improving as I make things. I just wrote a new play/dialogue, Showdown with the Shadows in the Fortress of Reptiles. I’ve been playing around with arranging this more play-like text as a performable book. I am finding the results very exciting. Writing is the creative activity I love best, and I want to start writing something brand new, like, yesterday!
As for work by other people — two things stick out today. Bradley Bailey, my good friend and frequent collaborator, found a way to make a singing sound on any guitar simply by rubbing different objects against the strings. He used to do it with all sorts of objects, but my favorite was when he used a real human femur bone. The sound was very eerie — hauntingly beautiful, rich with overtones, and occasionally grotesque. The simplicity of this action combined with its depth of sound and meaning has had a lasting impact on me. Whenever I make this music myself (he taught me how), it brings me to a very calm and restive place. Sadly Bradley is no longer with us to make this music, but those who know how can bring those eerie sounds back into the world.
And more recently, I went to Box Machine to see Leah Plante-Wiener and Laia Comas perform their Mobile Wash Female Locker Room in a small room in Leah’s apartment. After seeing that, I fell in love with small space DIY theater all over again. The intimacy between the audience and the performers just really changes the experience of theater and makes everything feel different and mean something else.
TB
I have said before, as when you were interviewing Sleth for Fucked and Jolly, the Exponential Festival 10 Year Annversary book from 53rd St Press, you could just talk at length for hours about the shows you have been to and the things you have witnessed. I think a lot of then would take place in strange, intimate rooms. Speaking of, can you recall what drew you to Bohemian Grove and The Glove? Do you recall the first times you beheld those spaces? What is the strangest moment you experienced in those spots? The most beautiful? The most questionable? I love talking about spaces with you as much as I love talking about writing and books! Do you recall your first Brick show?
CS
Ah these are fun questions!
Of the three spaces you mentioned, I actually went to the Brick Theater first. When I was visiting NYC in January 2010, I wanted to see if there was any theaters in Williamsburg because I heard it was “cool.” I must have used Google Maps or something similar, maybe a listicle, because I found the Brick Theater and randomly bought a ticket to whatever they had showing. It turned out to be a play about werewolves. Crazy, because I was a werewolf at the time.
It was two years later, in January 2012, that I first went to the Bohemian Grove. I had just moved to NYC — Washington Heights was my landing spot in the city, which was kind of a haul to Bushwick. Frank Hurricane had a show at the Grove and I went to see it and ended up playing along with him on a broken harmonica that was lying around. Jake Merrick played too, on his singing saw — it was kind of a reunion of the tour we went on together in the summer of ’10. And even though the harmonica was broken, we sounded pretty good! Our trio played in a living room, and then everyone went into the basement, which was totally unfinished at the time — no floor, no bathroom, no real show setup. Frank did his project Knight Howls that he had with Adam Foam. The basement was pitch black, and these two guys just ran around shirtless and screaming — no mics or anything — while jumping up on the pews behind us and acting like insane people. It was fantastic, one of my favorite shows of all time.
As for the Glove, the shows that I remember the most fondly are the showcases I booked for Lichen Bouboushian. I just looked through my emails, and the first event we did together was in the spring of 2017 and it was called “The Sound of Pain: night of the banshees.” The concept was, and I quote Lichen here: “Lament, grief, cry, cackle in the face of it all, tear it down with a deep scream, whistle while you burn. Pain is all sound.” I remember someone (it was Raki Malhorta according to this archived FB event, thanks internet) presenting this amazing performance where they had a couch cushion with this really weird pattern on it, and Raki just tossed it around while screaming (or maybe yelping?), and there was also this video projection on our giant screen of the pattern on the couch cushion. I’m not accurately capturing how incredibly weird and moving it was!
I think it was the second showcase I booked for Lichen that featured Crackhead Barney — who was very friendly and absolutely hilarious. I remember her getting into our trash can and, you guessed it, screaming and yelping. I guess I’m a big fan of screams and yelps in a performance! As I recall, at that time Crackhead Barney was a bit less well known — in our community at least. So in my memory, some of our regulars were at the event, folks who would come to the Glove primarily to check out odd noise rock, and they were having their minds absolutely blown by this person in a diaper jumping into a garbage can. Almost makes me want to start another DIY performance space!
TB
This has been a fascinating and enlightening back and forth so far. I would love to project a bit into the future before we come back to the present. Do you have a dream project that you would love to actualize in the next decade? Is there something that you have never done that you would like to do? And, if someone wanted you to work on something with them, what is their best approach? What intrigues you in that regard?
CS
Great question! I actually really love what I am doing. I think what I am working on now is my dream project. And more than anything, I’d just love to amplify it. That doesn’t mean necessarily bigger productions, bigger spaces, bigger & Bigger & BIGGER. Although, I *do* think it would be lovely to see what one of my plays looks like when done by a professional producer and director in a more “traditional” theater space. But what I mean by “amplify” is I want to expand my energies in all directions. So I want to be working with both emerging artists/performers as well as established folks. I’d also love to work with folks from other disciplines — open-minded musicians like Space Pants, for one, but also dancers, video artists, puppeteers, and many other creative people doing things I haven’t even thought of yet. I’d also collaborating with a press (or presses) to get my texts in front of more eyeballs. And also I’d love to make more performable books and host more showcases of people doing pretty much whatever they want with these texts of mine.
You know, I’d say my goal has always been to end up in print. And so I’ve always wondered it would be like to write a “novel-like” work of prose, or a book of poems. But I think that my particular and unique perspective permanently grounds my writing in performance — to quickly summarize, I started out as a high school theater dork and then I had a long phase of dwelling in a number of DIY spaces up and down the East Coast. And that’s fantastic, to have a ground. I really appreciate it. And with the performable book concept, I feel like I can have my cake and eat it too. Basically, no matter if I am writing poetry or prose or dialogue or whatever, I can always leave my writing open to performance. It’s the idea idea that a book could always generate something else and the act of reading would not necessarily exhaust the material for any given reader. And also that a reader is automatically given permission to take the text they are reading right to the stage, and they are empowered to perform it however they wish. Those ideas are incredibly important to me, and also lovely. So I feel really blessed to discover this format for my own practice, and I’d love to see other people give it a try too.
So if someone wants to work with me, get in touch! I like emails (I’m a millennial).
TB
Thank you for being a person who lives in the terrifying and expansive space of being present and being rooted and being evolutionary. I’ll say, just for my own self, it’s been vital to my existence to know you. Not unrelated, do you have thoughts on our human capacity for depth? Do we block it? Do we go hard? And to what extent? And how do we extend our capacity for depth into our lives?
CS
The question of depth is an interesting one. I feel as though, beginning with the establishment of psychoanalysis as a field, that the idea of depth and the individual was a major concern of the 20th century. Often, we are ready to assume that there is some thing deep inside a person that needs to be revealed: a secret motive, a hidden aspiration, a forgotten trauma, an unrealized dream. However, I’m opposed to depicting interiority in this way. That’s actually how the story for Vivian Oblivion came together. I wanted to write a tale about Outer Space — spaceships, comets, aliens, etc. But then I started to consider that Outer Space always implies an Inner Space. So I started with the characters’ anxieties about an Outer Space monster. And then I juxtaposed those emotional reactions, which we often think of as residing somewhere deep inside of us, with a more physical interior — cavities we have inside our bodies where the future takes place and grows, often without our consent or guidance.
I think another way to think of depth is the impact we have on other people. A delicious pop song might have an impact on millions of people, adding a small but measurable amount of joy into their lives. However, that impact is nowhere near as deep as the impression my mother left on my life. And I feel quite blessed that her impact on me was an overwhelmingly positive one. Thanks Mom! (I do touch on this comparison in my book, too.)
It’s cliché but true — we add depth to other people’s lives. Other people are probably the major source of depth in any given individual. Creative folks aspire to make objects and experiences that impact people in this same way. At best, those aesthetic experiences become like adornments to a rich life. But there are lots of ways to add depth to people’s lives, and many of them have a deeper impact than any artsy encounter. Caring for people, holding space, being present, etc. are some of the most important and long lasting ways we can add depth to the people around us and our communities.
So I think we should avoid trying to discover people’s secret interiors in order to pluck out their heart of mystery and play them like flutes, from the lowest note to the top. Instead, we should take them as they are and judge them by their actions and impact. I’ve heard this approach described as considering someone’s sincerity rather than their authenticity. For example, the question of whether Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, was genuinely mad is much less significant than whether he was sincerely involved in a plot to depose Queen Elizabeth I.
One last thing to consider regarding depth: do acts of kindness beget rewards? In other words, do we become deeper by adding depth to others? It is hard to say, actually; I think the verdict is still out. But we have all the evidence we need, from history and from our own lives, that violence only begets more violence.
TB
This is exactly how this interview should end. It’s beautiful. Thank you! I guess, as a post script to the interview, do you want to shout out anything else coming up? Books, albums, shows of other people?
CS
I just want to add that folks should come to The Brick this fall to check out our awesome season. It’s going to be a lot of incredible performance. And also, Theresa should do another Title:Point show. I’m a big fan of their work and I felt super honored to have them create an amazing piece with my text for the first Vivian Oblivion showcase, which I produced at Brick Aux in 2023.
Vivian Oblivion runs Oct 9-12 at The Brick Theater | MORE INFO + TICKETS
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