Spread the Love: The Art of Rejection by Christian Kiley

This week we spread the love for The Art of Rejection by Christian Kiley. Filmed live on location at the 2010 Texas Educational Theatre Association (TETA) conference in Dallas, Texas.

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Transcript

Welcome to this week’s Spread the Love. This week we are in Dallas, Texas at TETA – The Texas Educational Theatre Association conference. Phew! And we are talking about The Art of Rejection by Christian Kiley. Which is actually two plays: The Art of Rejection, where the main character R is alone in a sea of numbers, and Chaired where sometimes the hardest thing to do is stand up. Craig, what do you love about The Art of Rejection?

I think we can all identify with the central characters in both plays. The Art of Rejection shines a spotlight on that part of us that always feels like we’re being rejected, always feels like we’re being put down. And Chaired looks at that eternal struggle we face between having to go with the flow, or standing up and asserting our independence. Lindsay what do you love about The Art of Rejection?

Christian Kiley is a master at combing abstract and realism. The characters in the plays are very realistic and very relatable. Love that! But the situations that the characters are in are extremely abstract. That combination I think is awesome for students to experience. That’s why you should read these plays. That’s it for Spread the Love.