One of the many secrets revealed.
Everyone has secrets, and some people have shared theirs anonymously through an online forum as part of a project called PostSecret. Three actors based in British Columbia will be telling these secrets on stage: Kahlil Ashanti, Nicolle Nattrass and Ming Hudson.
PostSecret: The Show aims at engaging the audience through a crowd-sourced narrative of stories around the most sexual, sad, funny, controversial, hopeful and inspiring secrets. The theatrical performance takes the audience on a visual, auditory and emotional journey of people’s deepest fears, ambitions and confessions.
Vancouver-based artists TJ Dawe, Kahlil Ashanti and Justin Sudds teamed up with Frank Warren, creator of the popular website PostSecret.com in order to give unheard voices an audience. PostSecret.com has grown into a viral phenomenon, with over a half-billion visitors to date and a million anonymous secrets received.
Strength in vulnerability
Nicolle Nattrass, a performer, dramaturge and certified counsellor, says she absolutely loves TJ Dawe’s work, particularly his solo shows. She was intrigued by the project. After she read the script and the PostSecret books, she felt incredibly moved.
“I feel like right now, this world needs this message,” says Nattrass.
She wanted to be involved because she loves the message the show delivers.
“This show really promotes communication, the power of the written word and healing – combined all in one,” says Nattrass, who is keenly interested in each of these elements. She believes this type of show creates transformative possibilities in people’s lives.
Nattrass notes that even though much of people’s online lives are isolated, there can be a strong community in an online forum, which she finds very powerful and moving.
“I think of secrets as being truth telling,” she says.
She will be sharing some of these secrets in the show, but doesn’t want to give them away at the moment.
Secrets and healing
Ming Hudson, an emerging theatre artist and recent theatre graduate from the University of Victoria thinks there is a universal appeal for the show.
“PostSecret is a community of individuals that come together and share a part of themselves. Its strength comes from the bravery of the submitters to be vulnerable, and the support and recognition they receive from those reading their deepest, darkest secrets,” Hudson says.
Hudson believes that one of the reasons PostSecret has been such a success is because no matter who you are or what you are going through in your life, you can always find a secret that speaks to you.
As an actor in this piece, Hudson feels it’s her job to give a voice to these words.
Hudson, who knows TJ Dawe from the University of Victoria, helped in the workshop development phase of the show in 2012. The show premiered in North Carolina in 2014. Hudson has since performed in the show in Cincinnati, Ohio and Saginaw, Michigan.
According to feedback from the last performance, having a personal secret read out loud, or hearing a secret close to one’s own can give a person the power to make peace and finally release it.
“That is what live theatre gives to the PostSecret project, and that is why this production is so important to its community,” Hudson says.
Hudson says being part of PostSecret was an absolutely life-changing experience, “It’s not every day that theatre artists have the chance to work on a show that moves them in such a personal way.”
PostSecret: The Show will be playing at the FireHall Arts Centre from January 20 to February 7.
