Tell Me What You Learned Tuesday
A show about family that is NOT a family show
Conceived, written and performed by Tom Truss
Co-created and directed by Amy Brentano
Where: The Foundry, 2 Harris Street, West Stockbridge MA
When: October 27, 28, 8 PM, October 29, 3:00 PM
Cost: Tickets $20 in advance and $25 at the door.
No one turned away for lack of funds
For more info and photos: info@thefoundryws.com
Tell Me What You Learned Tuesday is an irreverent and reverential journey, an evening length dark comedy that revisits a moment in a young queer boy’s life through his adult eyes. Embodying multiple characters, Tom Truss dives into family, wishes, sex, and growing up queer. Through physical theater, monologues and playing multiple parts, he becomes the Johnsons, a quirky and troubled family, as he unpacks their treasures and tragedies around their dining room table.
Truss says, “I got tired of creating dances and theater pieces about my life, so I let my psyche loose and my imagination run wild and what came out is Tell Me What You Learned Tuesday. It’s a dark comedy that sheds light on life, that’s mostly not about my life. This show is the result of a 4 year journey with director and co-creator Amy Brentano that has included 3 showings, multiple detours, a plague, old suitcases of mine, and stories that I’ve been holding onto for decades.”
As the matriarch of the twisted family says in the piece, “Some people say you carry all that stuff with you wherever you go, your hate, frustration, family, anger, it’s your baggage until you unpack it. But I am happy to say that I am not one of those people, I believe that you can leave it all behind and turn yourself into whatever you want!”
Truss is an award winning actor, dancer and choreographer who is a storyteller at heart. His thirty plus year career encompasses dancing, acting, choreographing, directing and teaching. Truss has worked with all ages and abilities from children, firefighters, and inmates, to teens, older adults, and professional actors and dancers. He toured with the Liz Lerman/Dance Exchange for four years, had his own dance company for ten years, was a community artist at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival for five years and taught at American Dance Festival for six years. Truss graduated Summa Cum Laude with a Master of Fine Arts degree in Acting from the University of Texas, obtained a Master of Fine Arts degree in Choreography from the University of Iowa and a Bachelor of Music degree in Piano Performance from the College of Wooster. He is an AmSAT certified teacher of the Alexander Technique. He has been published in Dance Magazine, and Contact Quarterly, and was a frequent contributor to OutRightRadio an award winning radio show on PRI. Some awards he has received are Best Choreography – Austin Critics Table Awards (HAIR), Best Actor- Austin Critics Table Awards (The Idiot), Best Actor Nominee – B. Iden Payne Awards (The Idiot). His work has been performed at the Kennedy Center, Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, New Zealand’s Wellington Fringe, American Dance Festival, On the Boards, Dance Place and The Foundry to name a few, as well as in parking lots, rivers, furniture stores and cars. Currently, Truss teaches creative movement for children, an online class for the Brain Injury Association of Massachusetts, and a movement and storytelling class for Berkshire immigrants.