We here at Running Dog Productions like to tell stories. We bring you into the dark auditorium, set you down, and–when all goes right–bring you into the middle of a maelstrom of emotion and action–sometimes joyous, sometimes horrific, sometimes diverting or prankish. We like it when you leave somehow changed . . . or at least entertained–then we feel we’ve done our job.
Acting out a tale, with a beginning, middle and end, with heroes and villains, goals and setbacks, overcoming or failure: this is a ritual, and rituals find resonance in the thrum of our nervous systems, the tattoo of our heartbeats, the dips and spikes in our blood sugar, our adrenal floods, and drains. Ritual is the cup that holds the wine of existence; it locates us isolated pinpricks in the mammoth contours of all being, briefly lighting up the mountainscape. It finds us.
Each student in Running Dog has a say, an artistic voice, whether they build platforms, hang lights, mix sounds, or create characters. Running Dog is committed to listening to that voice, stretching its range, clarifying its timbre, amplifying it, and transmitting it to the world. The answer is Yes.
Some leave Running Dog for the world of professional entertainment. Some become entrepreneurs, accountants, scientists. But no one leaves without a strong experience: the coming together for months of fun, intense, cooperative activity, all geared toward bringing new tears to a couple thousand people a year. A million laughs, a million sobs. That’s our ritual.