F*cking & Dying: Turned On

Let Me Ascertain You is back with a new series examining two of The Civilians’ favorite fixations: sex and death.



This first podcast in the series focuses on death as the ultimate turn-on. To start us off, we have Stephen Plunkett performing a monologue from an interview we did with famed porn director Craven Moorehead. Then we have Sam Breslin Wright performing an interview with Johannes, an Austrian who runs an arts/technology festival that buries people alive, aptly named, “The Six Feet Under Club.” Following that, cabaret superstar Lady Rizo performs her original song “Under” which she wrote with Yair Evnine. This song is based on our interview with Kitty, a “Six Feet Under Club” participant who got buried alive with her lover.

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Meet the R&D: Tommy Smith

Tommy Smith, an artist in this year's R&D group, blogs about his decision to delay development of his NFL project and shares his short play based on his investigation.

Sometimes plays don’t work out.

I had been developing a piece called NFL with Woodshed Collective's Teddy Bergman via The Civilians R&D Group. It was going to be a document-based play about football players who go haywire and murder their loved ones. After working on the draft for a couple months, I found out that Ridley Scott is planning a movie about the same subject. Then Berkeley Rep announced their season with a play about the same subject. Instead of pulling a Dante's Peak, Teddy and I decided to shelve developing the project until it seems relevant to dust it off.

NFL would have been presented during the R&D Reading Series, May 21-30. In lieu of this, please read this short play, The Death of Justin Strzelczyk, based on a section of NFL, about the demise of Steelers' player Justin Strzelczyk.

Thanks for sharing, Tommy. For other posts about our R&D Group artists, please click HERE!