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Posts by Matt Slaybaugh

MATT SLAYBAUGH is the Artistic Director of Available Light Theatre. His writing and directing of new plays and original works for Available

Caught In Columbus

Caught in Columbus is a short documentary film, directed by Matt Hermes, that we produced as part of the Columbus Voices Workshop. It examines the issue of human trafficking in Columbus, and the rise of CATCH Court, a pioneering, specialized legal docket aimed at restoring the lives of the women who have become trafficking victims.

The video has more than 5000 views from all over the world.

Skyscrapers of the Midwest

More than a year in the making, this genre-bending adaptation of Joshua Cotter’s critically-acclaimed graphic novel followed two young siblings through the joys and pain of their innocent, 1980s childhood in the heartland, complete with dinosaurs and giant robots. We combined layered animated videos with live-streamed action to stimulate the imagination of the young protagonist.

El-P, “Cancer4Cure”

elp-cancer4cure-pink_grandew

Jaime Meline, a.k.a. El-P, took five years to make Cancer4Cure. He spent much of that time mourning the death of his close friend Camu Tao, dissolving his record label, Definitive Jux, and coming to terms with his demons as he looked into an unpredictable future. Lucky for us, he somehow managed to put all that pain down on wax and emerge rough and ready to take on all comers. Continue reading →

Down & Out in the Magic Kingdom

Julius is more than a century old. He lives and dies and lives again in a happy dystopia, when everyone is online all the time, the only wealth is respect, and modern technology has eliminated work, boredom, and death.

Only Cory Doctorow, renowned digital rights activist and coeditor of Boing Boing dot net, could see so clearly into the near-future. Luckily, he’s handed his visions down to us in the form of this outrageous and unpredictable playground of ideas.

This was a really challenging novel to adapt for a live performance. We created a language of gestures to convey a lot of the digital-mental events, and shot a few short films to use as flashbacks. All the backdrops were digital, too. We tried to make the whole show feel like an attraction at The Magic Kingdom.

And, wow! Look at those costumes. That was Michelle Dranschak’s work.