BWW Blog: Siobhan O'Loughlin - Broken Bone Bathtub: Beginnings

Broken Bone Bathtub: Beginnings.

Bike accident. Broken bones. Busted. Bath time? Bummer.

My name is Siobhan O'Loughlin, and I am currently touring a show that is performed inside bathtubs in peoples' homes. By October, this bathtub theatre experience will have spanned four different countries. And I'm just getting started.

I originally started writing this piece of theatre with one hand, because my other hand was wrapped in a giant cast after I had a head-on collision with another female cyclist in the pouring rain at a very busy traffic circle on a shivering night in Brooklyn. My orthopedic cast technician told me to put a plastic bag over my cast when I needed to shower. Instead, I decided I'd just take baths, but I didn't have one in my Bushwick apartment.

So I set out through all of the boroughs, on different nights of the week, borrowing the bathtubs of my many friends in different New York City apartments. They were kind to me, and loving, each in different ways.

"You're going on a bathtub tour!" My friend Michael Dale joked to me.

But...what if I did? I thought. What if that's what I did?

I scheduled a photo shoot. I like to get that out of the way first. I called my favorite NYC photographer, Zack DeZon, who makes me look good even after an epic injury. He didn't blink when I told him about the project, scheduled a shoot, and we were done within two hours of meeting. He created the flawless poster you see here.

And then I started writing. I wrote a piece of theatre by hand, because I only had one, and typing wasn't an option. I didn't plan on using this script like a real script, as the project I imagined wasn't exactly a play per se. What it WAS really, I hadn't quite figured out, but I did decide on two thing for sure: 1. I would call my show Broken Bone Bathtub and 2.I would perform it for the very first time in Japan.

In a bathtub, wearing my cast and nothing else, with subtitles projected onto a wall with an audience of four people. That's how I'd begin the journey.

And next week, that's where we'll kick off.

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