BIRDING FOR BEGINNERS (a eulogy for Pilgrims)

During a particularly violent bout of Covid in 2024, Fourth of July weekend specifically, this project nested itself in my head or you could say, this odd, dead, Pilgrim character started writing.

It is a 12 hour live event, fashioned in the manner of a pelagic birding voyage (4 hours off the coast, 4 at sea, 4 back to where we started).

It is an architecture that draws an unlinear line from Plymouth to Plymouth to Hollywood. From the Mayflower to a movie set in the New Mexico desert. Between men overboard + women shot by blanks then sawed in half. To talking dogs, and the talking dead.

After six months of weekly rehearsals for no pay on a Sunday like a church, we previewed in the Moonlight series at the Tank (90 min) this past March.

Next on the horizon is a week up at NACL (July)

A week at the Mercury Store (fall / winter)

A four night run at Brick Aux (November)

A full length audio recording w category : other

And a monthly performance, 2026, location TBD, once a month,

on a Sunday.

So wont you git on this boat + pls join me

$16.20 feeds one artist for a day, 3 home cooked meals at NACL

$100 provides round trip travel for an artist upstate

$162.00 funds one artists time + contribution for the rehearsal day

$1,620.00 funds materials for 3 designers

All amounts referencing any year of history are welcome as we are amassing a fund for this project's various legs + all money will be used to directly support

the people listed below*

these two buildings and the people they love: NACL + the Brick

+ these types of resources:

Our intention is to do as much as possible, w the most minimal materials possible, while nourishing the artists as well as possible.

+ so, thank you, for making this possible,

B4B

* the company and design team of BIRDING FOR BEGINNERS may include but is not limited to the following human beings

Jessica Almasy

Kate Benson

Sheldon Donenberg

Mike Iveson

Jay Maury

Nathan Repasz

Scott Shepherd (voiceover)

Kristen Sieh

Evelyn Spahr

Ben Williams

Ema Zivkovic

+ TBA