By Oriana Timsit, news correspondent
The Northeastern Theatre department will host actor, activist and performance artist Tim Miller this week to direct “Body Maps,” a student-devised theatre piece created over one week of workshops, and his own one-man show “Rooted.” The shows are set to play Thursday and Saturday.
Miller has always been a pioneer in activist theatre, especially in regard to LGBTQA+ rights, which he has fought hard to showcase since the early 1980s. His activism has been closely linked to the battle he and his Australian husband, Alistair, endured to keep Alistair in the country before marriage equality was attained in 2013.
“‘Rooted’ begins at the Department of Homeland Security right before our interview for a green card marriage,” Miller said. “The new show connects my marriage to my husband, Alistair, with my great-great parents’ marriage license in the Finger Lakes region of New York State in 1865 right after the Civil War.”
He constantly intertwines his own family history to current societal struggles and urges his students to do the same in “Body Maps.” The title of the show refers to the fact that, to Miller, the body is important to how people experience the world they inhabit, and that an exploration of this can lead to intense self-discovery.
“‘Body Maps’ is an intense week of sharing stories, developing text, creating movement pieces and collaborating with your fellow students to create a performance art piece rooted in your connection to the body, the space you occupy in this world,” said Eva Friedman, a fourth-year theatre major who worked with Miller in 2015.
The show everyone gets to see is just a portion of the creative process that goes into making the final product. Friedman said this experience provided her and countless other students with a space to share parts of their lives they usually keep hidden.
This is Miller’s second residency in the theatre department. He was previously here in October 2015 when he performed his show “Sex/Body/Self” and led a production of “Body Maps.” However, this time around the show will be nothing like the last, as each edition is tailored around the stories expressed by the cast of individuals.
Jesse Hinson, an assistant teaching professor for Northeastern’s Department of Theatre, worked with Miller in 2002 at Oglethorpe University in Atlanta, Georgia. He said “Body Maps” radically changed the way he thought about acting during his first semester of college.
“My experience up until that point had been just being in plays or musicals. I had no notion that making my own work, beyond writing a play, was an option,” Hinson said. “Whereas [Miller’s] work is about exploring your own mythologies and your own stories, then devising them into a theatrical piece. The experience just blew my world open.”
Miller’s personal experience boils down to very explosive, honest shows that he said shine a light on systems of prejudice.
“Performance has been a really useful way for diversity issues and community voices to come bursting forward,” Miller said. “I believe my mission, should I decide to accept it, as an artist and a gay man is to give witness to this challenging time, to live out loud and give that voice to my community.”
His shows are all inclusive, and each actor’s story is welcome as a part of the larger narrative.
“Come make art, and if you can’t commit to performing, come and witness it,” Friedman said. “It’s going to be a powerful night of theatre for everyone”.
