Name: Calla Videt
Hometown: New York
Education: B.A. Physics and Theater, Harvard University
Favorite Credits: The Space Between (Loeb Mainstage, American Repertory Theater), One Arm and a Leg (HERE)
Why theater?: Theater lives in space. But theater also contains the potential to lift us away from the everyday space in which we live.
Tell us about My Machine is Powered By Clocks: My Machines is Powered By Clocks explores a world in which it is possible to traverse time, to edit or affect our past and our future. This is something we have all meditated upon, in some large or small way, and this project explores the meaning and repercussions of such a power.
What inspired you to directed My Machine is Powered By Clocks: I think being able to explore the immense poetry of time in a real-time theatrical space is a recurring obsession of mine. Finding the right narrative through which to explore the subject of time itself is a major and invigorating challenge.
What kind of theater speaks to you? What or who inspires you as an artist?: My two biggest inspirations are Simon McBurney and Pina Bausch. The work they create can be very different at times, and yet they speak to me in equally visceral ways. They tap into a sort of inexplicable emotional sincerity about relationships between people and the world they live in.
If you could work with anyone you’ve yet to work with, who would it be?: Sidi Larbi Cherkohoui; I am completely fascinated by his exploration of movement.
What shows have you recommended to your friends?: Anything by the British-based theatre company Complicite.
Who would play you in a movie about yourself and what would it be called?: I kind of hope there is never a movie about myself. (Perhaps that could be the title…)
What’s your biggest guilty pleasure?: Guilt is hardly pleasure-full, though I often shy away from revealing to people what’s playing on my ipod.
If you weren’t working in theater, you would be _____?: I wish I were smart enough to be a physicist.
What’s up next?: I’ll be getting my MBA/MFA at NYU this fall as a part of a dual degree in film and business.