Neil Brookshire and Colin Sesek's BENT COMPASS to be Presented at United Solo

Ten years in the making, Bent Compass, will have its New York premiere this October at United Solo. Neil Brookshire and Colin Sesek met while working for the Idaho Shakespeare Festival in 2004, the summer Sesek joined the Army. Brookshire remembers Sesek bringing samples of MREs (Meals Ready to Eat) to the dressing room. Sesek was deployed to Iraq in 2006. He and Brookshire stayed in touch periodically, but it wasn't 2013 that an idea to collaborate on a theater project entered their minds.

Brookshire says, "I was exploring the background of Claudio in Much Ado About Nothing. This is a character who has just returned from war, and I wondered if Colin could help me with context. He was very open about what he went through in Iraq. Talking to him helped me anchor my performance. The more we talked, the more I wanted to explore creating a project based solely on his experiences."

Sesek and Brookshire, who live in Idaho and Wisconsin, agreed to weekly phone conversations resulting in over six hours of recordings. Brookshire then transcribed the material, and the core of the project revealed itself: how does war shift a person's concept of normal? Sesek says, "We wanted it to be as honest as possible, to get at what it's really like."

Brookshire has been performing Bent Compass since 2022. Audiences have been receptive, both from non-military and military. Brookshire recalls, "From our first public reading, when a Vietnam veteran approached me, handed me a POW pin, and thanked me, we've been connecting with people."

"That's the best we could have hoped for," Sesek says. "To have it resonate with combat veterans. That's the goal."

Bent Compass will be at Theatre Row on October 26, 29 at 7pm as part of the United Solo Festival's fall 2024 season.

Tickets available: https://festival.unitedsolo.org/show/1722723466157x342666908627632100.

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