James Brock
playwright. poet. sometime actor
A founding member of Ghostbird Theatre Company, James Brock has had produced six full-length plays, and for his plays he has won three individual artist grants from the Florida Division of Cultural Affairs. His play, Because Beauty Must Be Broken Daily, was named best new play of 2013-14 by the Naples Daily News. He is also a National Endowment for the Arts Fellow in Poetry, and he has had four books of poetry published. He teaches creative writing and contemporary literature at Florida Gulf Coast University in Fort Myers.
His most recently completed project was an international collaboration with Los Angeles theatre artist Brittney Brady and Irish/U.S. poet Kimberly Campanello, One Island. This project was supported by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Florida Division of Arts & Culture. His next project, No Single Body for Me to Follow, extends the conceptual work begun with One Island. This new project also has received grant support from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Florida Division of Arts & Cullture.
After Striking the Set, a Letter to a Director on Her Twenty-third Birthday
for Brittney Brady
After the actors have shed their lines, after
the tech crew has struck the set, walking to their cars
in the after-matinee sun, a single overwhelming light
that flattens their dimension, they become
something like shoddy, lesser ghosts, whose sins in walking
the earth are, well, pedestrian: a dropped line, a scene of acting,
a forgotten sound cue, a misplaced prop. The chains
they carry are light, which is why they act and set
and sew, after all, and they wait for the next call, an audition
to take on a new skin, a new animal
to incarnate, a new church to build. These are your lovelies,
your darlings you must kill again and again, the ones
you fall in love with, in love against, and they buzz
with the current of their last performance, your final
notes. And it is always a botched job, a wreck of machinery
with applause and roses, with bows and pale reviews, box
totals, costume receipts, and dead audiences. What you
wanted? One ritual, one sanctuary, one prayer, one
silence, and one sparkle and shiver of life and light, or
one human face, masked and amazed.
And a note:
After 35 years as a successfully minor poet, I had decided to retire from the poetry thing and take up playwriting. I like the impermanence of the art, that it is profoundly temporal and ephemeral. Live theatre is the product of so much hard work by a whole set of creative artists, and then the set is struck, and whatever the performances were, they become reverberations, ghostly echos, and then they all disappear. The work then is a fool's paradise, of building, painting, sewing, composing, rehearsing, and then it all goes away. I love the humility and generosity of it all.
The theatrical arts have become a balm for me, where the whole point of the art is its very temporality. I still write poetry--it's just going into the mouths of living and breathing actors, and ultimately, all those words disappear, contributing no more and no less than the lighting, the set design, the choreography, the music, and the direction. I love that life, that moment, that release, and that disappearance. That immateriality. It makes me weep.
So, I've done a little tap dancing, a little singing, and even some knitting on stage, mostly through Ghostbird Theatre Company, of which I am a founding member. I am indebted to Katelyn Gravel, Brittney Brady, Phil Heubeck, and Barry Cavin for opening up so much for me, that I can remain so joyful into my 60s as a creative artist. And best of all, I have played with amazingly brave and imaginative actors, writers, musicians, dancers, and vagabonds over these last dozen years.
Selected Distinctions
Grants for Arts Project, National Endowment for the Arts, 2023-24
Special Project, Individual Artist Grant, Florida Division of Cultural Affairs, 2023
Grants for Arts Project, National Endowment for the Arts, 2021-22
Special Project, Individual Artist Grant, Florida Division of Cultural Affairs, 2021
Special Project, Individual Artist Grant, Florida Division of Cultural Affairs, 2019
Individual Artist Fellowship in Playwriting, Florida Division of Cultural Affairs, 2013
Florida Poetry Award, Anhinga Press, 2000
Individual Artist Fellowship, Idaho Commission for the Arts, 1995
Individual Artist Fellowship, Tennessee Arts Commission, 1990
Fellowship, Alex Haley Foundation, 1990
Poetry Fellowship, National Endowment for the Arts , 1990
Performances
Himself. One Island. Ghostbird Theatre Company, Wasmer Art Gallery, Fort Myers, Florida, June 2022.
The Wet Nurse, in Jet of Blood. Directed by Barry Cavin. Ghostbird Theatre Company, Langford-Kinsgton House, Fort Myers, Florida, November 2019.
The Porter, in Everyone on this Train. Directed by Barry Cavin. Ghostbird Theatre Company, The Collaboratory, Fort Myers, Florida, January 2019.
Otmer, in Boxes Are for What We Keep. Directed by Barry Cavin. Ghostbird Theatre Company, Happehatchee Center, Estero, Florida, November 2018.
Accordian Man, in Windowstories. Designed by Barry Cavin. Ghostbird Theatre Company, Franklin Shops, Fort Myers, Florida, September 2018.
Teed, in ORBS! Directed by Barry Cavin. Ghostbird Theatre Company, Koreshan State Historic Site, Estero, Florida, February 2018.
Old Man/Father, in No. 27. Directed by Barry Cavin. Ghostbird Theatre Company, Shangri-La Springs, Bonita, Florida, April 2017.
Cyrus Teed, in The Perfect Island of Doctor Teed. Directed by Barry Cavin. Ghostbird Theatre Company, Koreshan State Historic Site, Estero, Florida, April 2016.
Tereisias, in Antigonick. Directed by Brittney Brady. Ghostbird Theatre Company, Unit A Studio, Fort Myers, Florida, November 2015.
Critic, in The Guardsman. Directed by Barry Cavin. Ghostbird Theatre Company, Sidney and Berne Davis Art Center, Fort Myers, Florida, April-May, 2015.
Mr. Scratch, in Wooden Mouth. Directed by Barry Cavin. Ghostbird Theatre Company, Sidney and Berne Davis Art Center, Fort Myers, Florida, October 2014.
Father, in Because Beauty Must Be Broken Daily. Directed by Brittney Brady. Ghostbird Theatre Company. Sidney and Berne Davis Art Center. Fort Myers, Florida, February-March 2014.
Doctor, in Woyzeck. Directed by Barry Cavin. Ghostbird Theatre Company. Sidney and Berne Davis Art Center. Fort Myers, Florida, October 2013.
Performer and Author. Hark. 24-hour Fesitval. FGCU Theatre Lab, September 2013.
Nagg, in Endgame. Directed by Brittney Brady. Ghostbird Theatre Company. Sidney and Berne Davis Art Center. Fort Myers, Florida, May 2013.
Old Man, in Fool for Love. Directed by Barry Cavin. FGCU Theater Lab, February 2013.
Performer and Author. A Lunar Yuletide. Thistletoe Cabaret Fundraiser. FGCU Theater Lab, December 2012.
Venus, in The Pumpkin Grower. Directed by Brittney Brady. Ghostbird Theatre Company. Sidney and Berne Davis Art Center. Fort Myers, Florida, September 2012.
Performer and Author. Turn It Little by Little. 24-hour Festival. FGCU Theater Lab, September 2012.
Henry, in Mud. Directed by Brittney Brady. Ghostbird Theatre Company. Sidney and Berne Davis Art Center. Fort Myers, Florida, April 2012.
Lucifer, in Faustus Burns Brightly. Directed by Barry Cavin. FGCU Theater Lab, February 2012.
Performer and Author. A Solstice Kiss. Thistletoe Cabaret Fundraiser. FGCU Theater Lab, December 2011.
Ferapont, in Three Sisters. Directed by Barry Cavin. FGCU Theater Lab, November 2011.
Performer and Author. Shake the Bees! 24-hour Festival. FGCU Theater Lab, September 2011.
Father, in Paler Than Grass. Directed by Barry Cavin. FGCU Theater Lab, June 2011.
Old Man of Argos, in Agamemnon. Directed by Barry Cavin. FGCU Theater Lab, February 2011.
Performer and Author. Comet over California. Thistletoe Caberet Fundraiser. FGCU Theater Lab, December 2010.
Performer. “Decomposition.” Collaboration in Endurance Performance with Brittney Brady, Katelyn Gravel, and Phil Heubeck. Alliance for the Arts. Fort Myers, Florida. November 2010.
Performer and Author. Questions for the Altar Machine. 24-hour Festival. FGCU Theater Lab, September 2010.
Performer and co-Author. “Salvage.” Lyrics and Poetry for Dance Performance Choreographed by Alyce Bochette. Sidney and Berne Davis Center of the Arts. Fort Myers, Florida. May 2010.
Mr. Scratch, in Wooden Mouth. Written and directed by Barry Cavin. FGCU Theater Lab, April 2010.
Performer and Author. my Birds, my Whale: an Intermedial Autoperformance. FGCU Theater Lab, December 2009.
Kerch, in The Living Blog: Apocalypse. Written and directed by Barry Cavin. FGCU Theater Lab, February 2008.