Event

SLIDESHOW in Camden, NJ

"What if Don Drapers Carousel pitch was a theatrical experience? Thats kind of the vibe given off by Josh McIlvains Slideshow. This intimate performance uses real slides to unfold a gripping tale of a family as seen through the fleeting images on a screen." Philebrity.com

From the 1950s through the 1980s, the slideshow was a staple of the American household. SLIDESHOW drops audiences back into the time of Kodachrome colors, weaving a fictional family history around strangers real slides of long ago vacations. A funny, disturbing, and deeply felt work about the disconnection between the lives of children and those of their parents, SLIDESHOW recreates a lost ritual and delves into the aspirations of 20th-century American life. (Click here for articles and reviews of SLIDESHOW.)

SLIDESHOW is a solo performance that takes the form of an old fashioned slideshow. Audiences enter a living roomlike space, with a standing screen and a carousel slide projector. They sit in a semicircle facing the screen. The lights go out and the slideshow begins. The narratorsitting within the audience, on the floor, standing by the screen, or fidgeting to focus the projectortells the story of his familys life through pictures and memories.

"The punchy-colored slides and humorous yet heartfelt prose McIlvain recites is as uncanny and nostalgic as some of our own family scrapbooks. This piece invites the audience to be mesmerized and taken on a journey about transition, tragedy and connection." Philadelphia City Paper

"A thought-provoking, intimate, funny and poignant journey." Stage Magazine