As Others Have Before
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania | Theatre
LGBTQ, Documentary
As an artist shares ephemera from Lankton’s archive, the ghosts of her own past begin to haunt her. With Greer's help, the artist and the audience work together to imagine what they might leave behind.
As Others Have Before
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania | Theatre
LGBTQ, Documentary
1 Campaigns |
15 supporters | followers
Enter the amount you would like to pledge
$1,595
Goal: $3,500 for production
As an artist shares ephemera from Lankton’s archive, the ghosts of her own past begin to haunt her. With Greer's help, the artist and the audience work together to imagine what they might leave behind.
About The Project
- The Story
- Wishlist
- Updates
- The Team
- Community
Mission Statement
The Story
In 1987, trans artist Greer Lankton was wed to Paul Monroe. Nan Goldin photographed the wedding. These photos now live in art collections, divorced from the context of Greer’s life. Years ago, B became obsessed with these photos. Seeing images of a trans woman in love, surrounded by her family, gave her hope early in her transition.
When Greer Lankton died, her family donated her ephemera to Pittsburgh’s Mattress Factory Museum. The Museum created an archive to keep her memory alive.
From the archive, you can tell many different stories of Greer’s life. It remains unclear who gets to claim Greer’s “truth”. This thread runs through many trans stories. Our lives are difficult to categorize. We are constantly inhabiting different personal histories for the cis doctors, friends, family, and lawyers through whom our lives are filtered. A singular idea of a true self seems impossible to untangle. But, like Greer in Nan’s photos, our joy can be seen everywhere if you know where to look.
In “As Others Have Before”, documents, photos, and ephemera from Greer’s archive are put into the hands of audience members. We open the archive up, returning trans stories to the trans community. By asking audience members to read directly from Greer’s diaries and letters, we breathe new life into Greer’s story. As the performance digs deeper into the boxes of Greer’s life, it becomes impossible to divorce Greer from the current reality of living as a trans person in America.
We are living in a time of great fear and uncertainty within the trans community. I believe that sharing stories of trans women who have passed can help us reckon with our current reality. “As Others Have Before” asks audiences to be honest with themselves and each other about how we make sense of our lives when those in power seek to villainize us.
Dani Lamorte writes about "As Others Have Before” for HowlRound Digital Theatre Publication, “While talking, Kleymeyer distributes photocopies of archival materials from the Lankton collection. Sometimes, Kleymeyer asks audience members to read the documents aloud, putting Lankton's feelings in new mouths. The documents amass at the end of a row of seats, with one person holding a whole, mixed legacy. Dates and places coalesce into something more like a weight, maybe an obligation. The audience, normally the recipient of something like a coherent collection in the form of a performance, is asked to make sense of Lankton's life, and Kleymeyer's as well.”
This fall, with support from the Opportunity Fund, the Mattress Factory, and community members like you, we are bringing As Others Have Before to the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust Pierce Studio for performances November 6th - 8th.
To successfully produce "As Others Have Before", we need $16,000. This money covers everything from the theatre space and materials to artist pay and posters. 78% of this budget is coming from Foundation support ($12,500) and we hope to cover the remaining 22% ($3,500) through crowdfunding. This will ensure that our tickets remain FREE.
Here's a breakdown of the total budget
Our crowdfunding goal is $3,500. This money will go directly to artists.
$2,00 will go to artist fees
$1,000 will go to travel and housing for two out-of-town artists
$500 will go to the materials our artists will use
We truly appreciate your time and support, and couldn't do this without you! If you cannot donate, please know there are many other ways to support this work, including coming to a performance & spreading the word!
Wishlist
Use the WishList to Pledge cash and Loan items - or - Make a pledge by selecting an Incentive directly.
Artist Fees
Costs $2,000
This allows us to pay designers a living wage for their work on the production
Travel and Housing
Costs $1,000
This allows out of town artists to work on the production!
Direct link:
Share this update!
About This Team
We first met in Pittsburgh when we were graduate students at Carnegie Mellon University. Quickly after meeting, we became collaborative partners. Over the past four years, we have carved out space to test ideas together. We come to each other with a suspicion that is immediately put through trials. We work quickly to discover the edges of an idea, usually through both rigorous discussion and exploration on our feet. After this first iteration of experiments, we assemble a team of collaborators - whether performers or designers- who help us crack the structure wide open. Our deep trust and friendship allow us to work efficiently, with care, sincerity, and vulnerability.
We both come from the tradition of ensemble. Committing to training, making, and experimenting together. Allowing ourselves to grow together, to fail together, to get back up and try again together. We bring this ensemble practice into all of our work. Our process is grounded in the marriage of deep dramaturgical work and embodied exploration. Bodystorming is equally as crucial as brainstorming. When developing new work together, the text is an evolving blueprint that we examine through rigorous exploration- stretching, pushing, pulling it apart until we understand its component parts and put it back together into something clearer and stronger. We use a physical practice influenced by the techniques of Viewpoints, Le Coq, Grotowski, and Suzuki to build performance work.
As a collaborative team, we have reimagined our creative practice as a process of transformation. Together, we take collective grief, community stories, and our own past and turn them into a participatory ritual, a theatrical farce, or an installation of light and sound. In building a community around a central idea or story, we let the content and our collaborators dictate the shape our work takes.
B Kleymeyer (Creator/Performer) makes community-driven theatre that encourages our imagination to envision a better world, forges intimacy, and promotes civic engagement. Through developing new plays, adapting classical texts, and staging community archives, B builds hyper-local performances that resonate beyond their neighborhood. B’s work has been produced by Kelly Strayhorn Theatre, Pittsburgh Public Theatre, Baltimore Center Stage, Project Y Theatre, and Single Carrot Theatre. Residencies include Tofte Lake Center’s Emerging Artist Residency, Kelly Strayhorn’s Freshworks Residency, and Carnegie Mellon University’s John Wells Directing Fellowship. Her work is supported by Pittsburgh Foundation, Studio for Creative Inquiry, and the Pittsburgh Arts and Media.
Jasmine Roth (Director) is a director, choreographer, and generative theatre maker using performance to investigate power and agency through witnessing healing and transformation. Whether working with professional or student ensembles, new work or classics, Jasmine creates physicality-forward work centering women and queerness. Current new works in development include As Others Have Before in collaboration with B Kleymeyer, Ascension of Maxi by Jamie Olah, and To Build Your Kingdom of Heaven, an interview-based documentary-theatre piece. Jasmine is a Visiting Assistant Professor at Union College, where she teaches performance and directing, and was formerly the Director of Education at Arizona Theatre Company. Her work has been produced by Powerhouse Theater, The New Hazlett Theatre, New York Theatre Barn, and City Theatre. Jasmine has her MFA in Directing from Carnegie Mellon University/John Wells Fellowship.
Current Team
Incentives
- The Story
- Wishlist
- Updates
- The Team
- Community
Mission Statement
The Story
In 1987, trans artist Greer Lankton was wed to Paul Monroe. Nan Goldin photographed the wedding. These photos now live in art collections, divorced from the context of Greer’s life. Years ago, B became obsessed with these photos. Seeing images of a trans woman in love, surrounded by her family, gave her hope early in her transition.
When Greer Lankton died, her family donated her ephemera to Pittsburgh’s Mattress Factory Museum. The Museum created an archive to keep her memory alive.
From the archive, you can tell many different stories of Greer’s life. It remains unclear who gets to claim Greer’s “truth”. This thread runs through many trans stories. Our lives are difficult to categorize. We are constantly inhabiting different personal histories for the cis doctors, friends, family, and lawyers through whom our lives are filtered. A singular idea of a true self seems impossible to untangle. But, like Greer in Nan’s photos, our joy can be seen everywhere if you know where to look.
In “As Others Have Before”, documents, photos, and ephemera from Greer’s archive are put into the hands of audience members. We open the archive up, returning trans stories to the trans community. By asking audience members to read directly from Greer’s diaries and letters, we breathe new life into Greer’s story. As the performance digs deeper into the boxes of Greer’s life, it becomes impossible to divorce Greer from the current reality of living as a trans person in America.
We are living in a time of great fear and uncertainty within the trans community. I believe that sharing stories of trans women who have passed can help us reckon with our current reality. “As Others Have Before” asks audiences to be honest with themselves and each other about how we make sense of our lives when those in power seek to villainize us.
Dani Lamorte writes about "As Others Have Before” for HowlRound Digital Theatre Publication, “While talking, Kleymeyer distributes photocopies of archival materials from the Lankton collection. Sometimes, Kleymeyer asks audience members to read the documents aloud, putting Lankton's feelings in new mouths. The documents amass at the end of a row of seats, with one person holding a whole, mixed legacy. Dates and places coalesce into something more like a weight, maybe an obligation. The audience, normally the recipient of something like a coherent collection in the form of a performance, is asked to make sense of Lankton's life, and Kleymeyer's as well.”
This fall, with support from the Opportunity Fund, the Mattress Factory, and community members like you, we are bringing As Others Have Before to the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust Pierce Studio for performances November 6th - 8th.
To successfully produce "As Others Have Before", we need $16,000. This money covers everything from the theatre space and materials to artist pay and posters. 78% of this budget is coming from Foundation support ($12,500) and we hope to cover the remaining 22% ($3,500) through crowdfunding. This will ensure that our tickets remain FREE.
Here's a breakdown of the total budget
Our crowdfunding goal is $3,500. This money will go directly to artists.
$2,00 will go to artist fees
$1,000 will go to travel and housing for two out-of-town artists
$500 will go to the materials our artists will use
We truly appreciate your time and support, and couldn't do this without you! If you cannot donate, please know there are many other ways to support this work, including coming to a performance & spreading the word!
Wishlist
Use the WishList to Pledge cash and Loan items - or - Make a pledge by selecting an Incentive directly.
Artist Fees
Costs $2,000
This allows us to pay designers a living wage for their work on the production
Travel and Housing
Costs $1,000
This allows out of town artists to work on the production!
Direct link:
Share this update!
About This Team
We first met in Pittsburgh when we were graduate students at Carnegie Mellon University. Quickly after meeting, we became collaborative partners. Over the past four years, we have carved out space to test ideas together. We come to each other with a suspicion that is immediately put through trials. We work quickly to discover the edges of an idea, usually through both rigorous discussion and exploration on our feet. After this first iteration of experiments, we assemble a team of collaborators - whether performers or designers- who help us crack the structure wide open. Our deep trust and friendship allow us to work efficiently, with care, sincerity, and vulnerability.
We both come from the tradition of ensemble. Committing to training, making, and experimenting together. Allowing ourselves to grow together, to fail together, to get back up and try again together. We bring this ensemble practice into all of our work. Our process is grounded in the marriage of deep dramaturgical work and embodied exploration. Bodystorming is equally as crucial as brainstorming. When developing new work together, the text is an evolving blueprint that we examine through rigorous exploration- stretching, pushing, pulling it apart until we understand its component parts and put it back together into something clearer and stronger. We use a physical practice influenced by the techniques of Viewpoints, Le Coq, Grotowski, and Suzuki to build performance work.
As a collaborative team, we have reimagined our creative practice as a process of transformation. Together, we take collective grief, community stories, and our own past and turn them into a participatory ritual, a theatrical farce, or an installation of light and sound. In building a community around a central idea or story, we let the content and our collaborators dictate the shape our work takes.
B Kleymeyer (Creator/Performer) makes community-driven theatre that encourages our imagination to envision a better world, forges intimacy, and promotes civic engagement. Through developing new plays, adapting classical texts, and staging community archives, B builds hyper-local performances that resonate beyond their neighborhood. B’s work has been produced by Kelly Strayhorn Theatre, Pittsburgh Public Theatre, Baltimore Center Stage, Project Y Theatre, and Single Carrot Theatre. Residencies include Tofte Lake Center’s Emerging Artist Residency, Kelly Strayhorn’s Freshworks Residency, and Carnegie Mellon University’s John Wells Directing Fellowship. Her work is supported by Pittsburgh Foundation, Studio for Creative Inquiry, and the Pittsburgh Arts and Media.
Jasmine Roth (Director) is a director, choreographer, and generative theatre maker using performance to investigate power and agency through witnessing healing and transformation. Whether working with professional or student ensembles, new work or classics, Jasmine creates physicality-forward work centering women and queerness. Current new works in development include As Others Have Before in collaboration with B Kleymeyer, Ascension of Maxi by Jamie Olah, and To Build Your Kingdom of Heaven, an interview-based documentary-theatre piece. Jasmine is a Visiting Assistant Professor at Union College, where she teaches performance and directing, and was formerly the Director of Education at Arizona Theatre Company. Her work has been produced by Powerhouse Theater, The New Hazlett Theatre, New York Theatre Barn, and City Theatre. Jasmine has her MFA in Directing from Carnegie Mellon University/John Wells Fellowship.