Renee Philippi is the Artistic Director of Concrete Temple Theatre (with Carlo Adinolfi) and writer/co-director of the company's upcoming production of The Bellagio Fountain has been known to Make Me Cry, which begins performances at HERE on November 27.  We had to chance to ask her about her favorite playwrights, Concrete Temple's interest in myth and ritual, and where she sees theater going in the next 50 years.

Pitch The Bellagio Fountain... to our readers in 3 sentences:

Amplified elements of performance art create a vast immersive environment. The interweaving of water imagery with the dramatic human story is totally arresting, and will certainly not be repeated anytime soon!  You are not going to want to miss it! Limited Seating!

What have been the most exciting things about seeing your show jump from the page to the stage?

Watching the world of the Water, created and performed live using many different sizes of paper, from huge sheets to a sea of cash register rolls, that are then juxtaposed against the stories of the three characters: Dixie, Maria and Curtis. This has been so cool and exciting! It is really beautiful.

In addition to writing/co-directing The Bellagio Fountain..., you're also Artistic Director of Concrete Temple. One of the company's goals is to bring myth/ritual back to theater -- can you talk a bit about why this is important to you?

That is a good question! I feel that we live in time where people struggle for meaning, personal meaning: Why am I here? Why am I important? People struggle to find value in their lives and in what they do. They feel at times that they cannot impact the course of their lives or society. I believe that is why we have seen a tendency towards religious extremism in the past few decades. People want to have meaning and purpose and feel a part of something, some kind of greater good. Theatre at its best connects people, connects the people in the audience to each other and to the strangers they pass on the street in new ways. Theatre is a form of ritual. The rituals and myths of a people ground them and give their lives meaning. By being a conduit for people to experience their own personal myths and rituals as well as the collective’s, we give them something to hang on too, no matter how intangible or ethereal it may be. Something that is, we hope, nuanced and shaded in many colors as opposed to black and white.

What else would you change about the current state of theater, and where do you see theater going in the next 50 years?

We, as theatre artists, need to look at how we function as a community and not just in the community. We can be petty, competitive and exclusive. It’s hard; there are limited resources and a lot of us, but your wellness and success should be my wellness and success. We need to build bridges not fences, connecting organizations, artists, resources, knowledge and people. We must find ways for all to move forward together, hand-in-hand with the community, growing art and accessibility while fostering audiences’ creativity, investing in audiences beyond “butts in seats.” This will create opportunities for art and theatre to flourish and change, in relationship to our ever-changing society.

Who are your favorite playwrights, past and present?

Schiller, Lorca, Heiner Mueller, Tony Kushner, Suzan-Lori Parks…

What famous line do you wish you’d written?

"But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue." --Hamlet