theater is a fragile and clumsy art - a death. it's the atomic collaboration of mythical acts - a reincarnation. a notion of life transposed, fetishized and aestheticized - a performance/full body (inner and outer) transplant. 2010 marks the beginning of the assistant theater (tAT) - the first phase of a mutating theater endeavor. _a_s_s_i_s_t_a_n_t because when every creative participant is compelled to improve the creative act and assist, and contribute to the creative act, that is when theater fulfills its promise, reaches its potential and is infinitely renewable. i don't care if someone doesn't like the scene or if they think it should be done differently, I care if they don't care. _a_s_s_i_s_t_a_n_t because theater is historically a home for misfits who need assistance - funding, like monks and beggars. _a_s_s_i_s_t_a_n_t because of the failed birth of the ensemble in America. the future plan for the assistant theater is to occupy a long term tAT home - a storefront theater with two windows that allows the street visual access to both the spectators and the backstage (not to the show, which remains for the audience and the players, but the shell of the show - the peripheral process of live performance). this is about spiritually narrowing a distance between inner life and the external world (a metaphysical notion always present in assistant theater shows), while on the material scale it's a gesture towards joining the porous culture of retail. theater has been weighted down heavily by the marketplace. a dominant message of the 1960's however was 'down with the marketplace.' the majority of the re-invention during that time is still present in the model for a vital american contemporary theater (which we suggest is a theater that has nothing intrinsically against what is generally regarded as 'traditional theater,' only that "traditional" should never lay any claim to contemporary, and contemporary theater is the only theater that can be the theater of today). half a century since the 60's and the marketplace endures as uncompassionate as ever among subtler human systems and extremely unsubtle human needs. our desire to make an impression on theater architecture and theater culture will be to take a cautious step towards the creation of a retail theater - a theater store. "cautious" because we know the marketplace doesn't care about theater (or anything) unless it is exploiting it, but the assistant theater will make it the responsibility of the lover of theater to enter on guard; authentically, in to the view - the anonymous gaze of the consumer. (this movement shouldn't be confused with theater performed inside of store windows. although both are related in concept and both potentially beautiful, but that window performance work is too intrusive, too novel and too 'free of charge' for true integration). the group name will be changed at this time to the front theater ( _f_r_o_n_t). like the assistant theater, the  _f_r_o_n_t will exist for a finite term, ultimately the company will become _TetoVutut  (hut clown theater). it will present again inside of private theater spaces (not necessarily exclusively private but no longer dependent on the specific open facade store window architecture; a post-retail theater troupe) with a promise that it will bring with it a legacy and a commitment to theater that intends to fantasize without compromise and aspire to thespian mastery while cultivating integration with the unscripted reality/anti-fantasy of the non theatrical. We will then convert the tAT storefront into a 'contemporary theater store.' An arts environment committed to the sale of original theater artifacts, theater archival exhibitions, and to theater artists interested in developing their work in the physical presence of the marketplace consumer.

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