:::BIG PICTURE GROUP :::

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DATES:
Chicago:
Jan 13 - 28,2007

Cincy Fringe:
May 31 - Jun 3, 2007

LOCATION:
The Viaduct Theater
and the CAC in
Cincinnati for
Cincy Fringe 2007

Do you believe what you read in the papers? What politicians promise? What your boyfriend tells you? What you tell yourself? In a series of personal monologues, both true and false, True and False explores the increasingly blurry boundary between these once categorical terms. Set in a multimedia junkyard of discarded televisions and hidden cameras, of live and pre-recorded images, the performance tests the audience's ability to untangle the real and the virtual, to believe their eyes or trust their judgment. Big Picture Group is a performance collective whose members live and work in New York, Minneapolis, and Cincinnati as well as its home base of Chicago. Its inaugural production of .duck, an adaptation of The Wild Duck which premiered in the summer of 2005, was named one of the best fringe productions of the year by the Chicago Tribune. Since then it has produced the original performance piece dependent study, and Sisters3.0, an adaptation from Chekhov. True and False was originally developed as part of the University of Chicago's Summer Inc. residency program.

TRUE + FALSE: Cincy Fringe Confessions

Watchtower	Fish On Clark	Dis-ease	Black Stallion	Innocent	Walter Payton	Q-U-I-A-O-I-T
Act/or	No one is Coming	Smashed	MySpace	Skull & Bones	Report on T+F	On Directing T+F

Click To Play

CAST and CREW (Cincy Cast denoted with +)

Directed by:	Roger Bechtel +	Featuring:	Allan Aquino +
Video Design :	Andrew Schneider +		Roger Bechtel +
Lighting Design :	Margaret Hartmann		David Getzin +
Stage Manager:	Stephanie Ehemann +		Stacie Beth Green
			Erin Liston +
			Jeremy Schaefer +
			Andrew Schneider +
			John Taflan
			Shannon Welling +

NOTES
True + False began with a simple assignment: each company member was to write two autobiographical stories. Catch 1: one had to be true, the other false. When we read them to each other, would we be able to tell the difference? Catch 2: each of the stories itself had to treat the basic theme of truth v. falsehood, reality v. virtuality, appearance v. essence, or authenticity v. inauthenticity. Together, what would these stories say about the true and the false?

Can you discern the sweet smell of truth from the stench of deceit? Should you believe your eyes or trust your senses? What you’re about to see performed are sixteen stories. Eight are true, eight are false. After each story, we’re going to ask you to cast your ballot, to tell us if what you’ve just heard is true or false. But remember, when playing true and false, we’re all losers sometimes.

PRODUCTION PHOTOS

REVIEWS

- Jackie DeMaline, Cincinnati Enquirer, June 2007 -

"...As Cincinnati's smaller theaters experiment more and more with video and leave us wondering what the big deal is – True + False demonstrates how video can support and enrich a production... True + False is a must-see for the region’s ambitious young theater artists you need to be aware of and inspired by sophisticated work, as well as for audiences who are delighted by intelligent engagement." MORE>

- Tom McElfresh, Cincinnati Citybeat, June 2007 -

"...This entertaining, audience-involving, grin-provoking concept plays with perception and maintains a positive sense of the absurd and the outrageous. Here the comedy is refined, there it’s rowdy. Only rarely does it toy gently with its target. And the social criticism is scathing. The show is perfectly suited to the out-there atmosphere of a Fringe, but it’s also sturdy enough to have played an extended run as an independent, off-Loop attraction drawing audiences against Chicago competition...." MORE>

- Brian Griffin, The Conveyor, June 2007 -

"...I fully enjoyed this work. It's complicated staging was extremely well done. A wall of TV monitors, multiple live cameras, and interesting special effects...." MORE>

- Nina Metz, Chicago Tribune, January 2007 -

"...For the literal-minded playgoer, the premise behind Big Picture Group's "True + False" (at the Viaduct) might seem pointless. A cast of six performs two monologues apiece--one based on reality, the other fiction--and then asks, can you tell which is which? More importantly, does it matter? I would argue "no." And yet artistic director Roger Bechtel and his ensemble of actor-writers have come up with something entertaining enough to transcend its rickety proposition..." MORE>

- Kris Vire, Timeout Chicago, January 2007 -

"...The commentary on the media’s role in truthiness is well taken—if that teen murder story were true, we think, Wouldn’t it have been all over CNN?—but it’s the voting that really gives us pause..." MORE>

- Chicago Reader, January 2007 -

"Big Picture Group had a good idea: eight performers tell two stories each, one true and one false. After each tale, audience members vote on which they think it is. Forced to focus on why you believe something you're told, you realize it's because a story appeals to your prejudices or you want an aesthetically satisfying narrative to be real. The stories themselves - often tales about childhood, family, dating - are entertaining and well done, augmented by Big Picture's trademark video expertise."

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