BWW Interviews: Anthony Johnston Talks AnimalPart's A QUIET SIP OF COFFEE

Canadian transplants and New York based theater artists AnimalParts, co-founded by Anthony Johnston and Nathan Schwartz, are bringing their latest play to life in New York. A QUIET SIP OF COFFEE: OR, THIS IS NOT THE PLAY WE'VE WRITTEN opens this weekend at New York City's Dixon Place. Tackling themes of sexuality, human experience, and more, the duo's piece explores what happens when the two best friends write prank letter to a fundamentalist organization and are invited to attend to weeks of "gay conversion" workshops in order to be granted the funds to have their play produced. In anticipation of opening night, Anthony Johnston and I chatted about A QUIET SIP OF COFFEE.

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Tell me about AnimalParts theater co. Where did it come from? What was the inspiration for it?

Anthony Johnston: Nathan [Schwartz] and I have been close friends and collaborators for a long time now. We began working together professionally in 2009, and we've been going strong ever since. We each have our own vision as artists. It's the collision of these two points of view that make what we're doing unique to us and exciting for us for us to explore. We push each other to go deeper into our work-in ways we couldn't do on our own.

Because of these differences in us the name AnimalParts seemed to make sense: like sewing the head of a bear on to the body of horse. Our work is awkward and ugly, but hopefully you can find some beauty there as well.

I recently saw REVENGE OF THE POPINJAY at The Brick in Brooklyn. That piece boldly and successfully blended theatre traditions with performance art. Is this style of storytelling utilized in your piece A QUIET SIP OF COFFEE?

Anthony Johnston: While A QUIET SIP OF COFFEE is very different from POPINJAY, we still employ many varied theatrical styles in our storytelling and place great value on keeping the audience an active member/participant in the event.

A QUIET SIP OF COFFEE is an exploration of "truth telling," and with each performance, the audience is made complicit in our story.

Sexuality is a major theme that your works address. Also, you and your best friend, co-founder of AnimpalParts Nathan Schwartz, proudly identify as a "gay/straight best friends duo." What motivates you to create artwork that address these themes?

Anthony Johnston: For starters, I think a lot of people like to think that homophobia is dead. I wish it were, but it's simply not the case. In our work, we like to talk about things we might have been otherwise afraid or unable to share. As a gay man and an artist, I think it's important to continue to reveal all parts of myself-including all aspects of my sexuality-if nothing more than to remember that this is real, this exists, I am here, and we are here.

A lot of the work we've created as AnimalParts comes from a need to express/reveal our true selves in the context of live art, and what we do is tell the truth through a certain theatricality or dramatized lens.

For me, POPINJAY is a perfect example of how I attempt to share my truth through 'story.' I'm not a homicidal maniac, I'm not dating another version of myself, and there isn't an evil octopus growing inside of me. But, somehow what we reveal on stage becomes an even truer representation of what we are, than had I just said "I'm really sad because my sister died." You know what I mean?

Tell me about A QUIET SIP OF COFFEE itself. Without giving too much away, what is the premise of the play?

Anthony Johnston: In the summer of 2004, Nathan [Schwartz] and I wrote a prank letter to a fundamentalist organization asking for funds to produce our play, NEVER CRY WOLFMAN: A PLAY WITH MASK AND SONG IN WHICH THE MONSTER WITHIN IS SUMMARILY DEFEATED. To our surprise, the letter was answered, and we were invited to workshop the piece at the group's retreat in rural British Columbia on the condition that we also spend two weeks participating in gay conversion therapy. Years later, still struggling to come to terms with what truly transpired, we perform our conflicting accounts as a piece of theatre. The result is A QUIET SIP OF COFFEE: part docu-theatre, atonement ritual, melodrama, exorcism, and half-mask musical.

In writing the prank letter to the "ex-gay" organization, you were invited to spend two weeks attending gay conversion therapy. What was that experience like?

Anthony Johnston: You'll have to see the show to find out more about this.

When did you know that you'd be using that experience to create a play?

Anthony Johnston: In 2010, Nathan [Schwartz] and I started working on making this story into a theatre piece under the guidance and direction of Anita Rochon, who is a mutual friend of ours from theatre school in Vancouver and who has known us intimately for a long time.

What do you hope audiences, regardless of how they identify their sexual orientations, take away from A QUIET SIP OF COFFEE?

Anthony Johnston: I hope people leave the show with more questions than they came in with. I think it's important for us to always keep questioning-to always keep asking ourselves "What is truth? What is true for me?" It's easy for us liberal, open-minded people to cling to our moral high ground and make judgments about how others view themselves or the world, but it's still important for us to examine why. Why is that wrong? What would I do in that situation? How is that hurting people? What is really going on here?

Following this brief run of A QUIET SIP OF COFFEE, what is next for AnimalParts?

Anthony Johnston: REVENGE OF THE POPINJAY is getting a four week run of performances here in NYC at Dixon Place in April 2015. And, both POPINJAY and A QUIET SIP will be touring to Western Canada in the summer of 2015.

A QUIET SIP OF COFFEE: OR, THIS IS NOT THE PLAY WE'VE WRITTEN runs at Dixon Place, 161-A Chrystie Street (Between Rivington & Delancy in Manhattan's Lower East Side), New York City, New York 10002 on Friday, January 16, 2015 at 10:00 p.m. and Saturday, January 17, 2015 at 7:30 p.m. For tickets and more information, please visit http://animalparts.org, http://dixonplace.org, or call (212) 219-0736.

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