LEO K THEATRE
by Kevin Kling
Directed by David Esbjornson
March 13 – April 19, 2008
Running time: 90 minutes, no intermission

What’s with the title?

In the summer of 2001 Kevin Kling was in a debilitating motorcycle accident that made typing difficult. He started to use voice activated software. One day he was reading in his study and his dog and cat got into a fight. The dog was barking, the cat was meowing violently and the voice recognition software starting to whirl, what came up on the page was How? How? Why? Why? Why? which Kling thought appropriate on many levels and decided to name his next work How? How? Why? Why? Why?

Who’s in the show?

“Six years ago I was coming to Seattle to perform a show called Baseball, Dogs and Motorcycles. It was to be a new play based on the three pasttimes I felt I could endlessly postulate. A month before the show I got in a motorcycle accident resulting in years of rehab and the cobbling of a new life. Now, with How? How? Why? Why? Why? I’m finally making good on my commitment. I am joined by the wonderful Simone Perrin. We have worked for the past years on several two-person plays. She sings like an angel and, on accordion, outplays the devil. This play will focus on living a life with a foot in two worlds. It’ll hopefully be funny. That said, it will deal with trauma in ways which aim to surprise and heal. We live in a time of trauma; using this motorcycle accident, I hope to wrestle with some of the ways we deal and heal this state of mind and being. Humor is crucial to any healing, so plan on that.” –Kevin Kling

Playwright Kevin Kling on mid-life

"I'm interested in looking at how we use myth and story in our culture to persevere through life's greatest challenges and answer questions that are larger than ourselves. I want to explore what's funny, what's sacred, our moral structures, values and taboos through the lens of personal and cultural trauma. When you are born into trauma, you don't recognize it, you just accept it as part of you. When you acquire a disability it opens up a whole other set of difficulties. I was born with one disability and acquired one through my motorcycle accident in the summer of 2001. Many of the old myths refer to a major event midway through life that defines you. For me, the event was my motorcycle accident, and I believe that 9/11 is the event of the middle life of the U.S. that defines us as a culture. Those of us who were born before 9/11 are still reeling from the repercussions of this event. But for those born after 9/11, this idea of terror it, is part of the fabric of who they are."

"Storytelling, it's created through telling and retelling, and can only happen the night the audience is there...you need to feel safe with a storyteller, and so when I talk about going to challenging places, people will see, it's going to really be fun. I can't help but put humor in." – Kevin Kling

"Kevin is the consummate solo performer and playwright. When performing his own work, he uses an outline of stories and makes adjustments based on the audience. This approach allows a certain portion of the show to be extemporaneous, giving each performance a unique, very personal quality...staging the fluidity of Kevin's experience between reality and a more mythical realm during his convalescence is an engaging theatrical challenge — we aim to show how his stories are a way of putting that experience into context." –David Esbjornson

You should know...

• Kevin Kling is hilarious, and his humor allows for any of us to understand what it's like to find your place in the world when you consistently stick out.
• This is a world premier. Kevin tested out some of the material for this show in a private workshop at the Rep last season.
• Kevin Kling performed his holiday show Tales from the Charred Underbelly of the Yule Log here in a special presentation last December. We produced his show Home and Away during the 1990-91 season.