{"id":1188,"date":"2025-04-09T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-04-09T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.imaginarygardens.org\/?p=1188"},"modified":"2025-04-08T18:22:44","modified_gmt":"2025-04-08T22:22:44","slug":"the-fall-semesters-theatre-production-charles-millers-riotous-rendition-of-too-much-light-makes-the-baby-go-blind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.imaginarygardens.org\/index.php\/2025\/04\/09\/the-fall-semesters-theatre-production-charles-millers-riotous-rendition-of-too-much-light-makes-the-baby-go-blind\/","title":{"rendered":"The Fall Semester\u2019s Theatre Production: Charles Miller\u2019s Riotous Rendition of Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
By Scarlett Hall, Writer<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
The poster for the show, courtesy of Charles Miller.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Charles Miller\u2019s take on Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind<\/em> by Greg Allen is a current rage at Pellissippi State Community College, boasting an interactive experience to multiple sold-out crowds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While only an hour in length, the show is the culmination of 30 extremely short plays, each lasting anywhere from 10 seconds to 3 minutes. The actors and audience must work together to fight a 60-minute onstage timer by completing all 30 pieces in time, with each piece randomized by audience choice in real time. These unique aspects combine to build a show that creates a hilarious and honest performance; as director Charles Miller stated in a recent exclusive interview,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

– \u201cIt\u2019s just an hour\u2019s worth of just fun, and almost everybody\u2019s been walking out of the theater with a big smile on their face.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Neo-Futurist play that originally opened in 1988, Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind<\/em> is the longest running show in Chicago history, pleasing audiences for multiple decades. Having attended the show in Chicago and seeing firsthand how well it resonated with audiences and the actors alike, Miller made the choice to put on this particular show for the semester\u2019s theatre production. Miller says,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe put a lot of thought into what we choose\u2026 What serves our students as well as our department. That\u2019s why this show was chosen\u2026 A combination of these things.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When talking about preparing for this performance, Miller explains what goes into creating an interactive show, and what that looks like.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere are a couple of times within the play where we work with a volunteer, [and] the audiences shout things out at us. It\u2019s thirty plays in sixty minutes, and the audience gets to choose,\u201d Miller explains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since this show is interactive, the randomization of pieces made Miller take a unique approach when directing this piece compared to the average play, as he explains,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe on the stage management and directing team would say, \u201cWe gotta start mixing it up,\u2019 and yell \u2018Go! Number __, Go!\u2019\u2026 We had a lot of fun that way\u2026 A lot of this stuff was teaching students how to learn on the fly. You learn a lot as an actor by just doing it and having audience response.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When asked if there were any funny moments unique to this type of play, Miller laughed and responded, \u201cMore than you can count on any of your fingers and toes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The struggle for the theater department to get word out to the students of Pellissippi State has been prominent over the last few years due to both the COVID-19 pandemic and, especially, the 2021 cyber-attack of the college. \u201cIt destroyed our theater website, which was the number one means for advertising our program,\u201d says Miller.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the bright side, the theatre program was finally granted access to a workshop building this past January. Miller says that now that they have a building for the stage crew and construction teams, they should be able to settle from the chaos and be able to advertise more widely and efficiently soon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In terms of what students can do to support the theatre department, Miller says that showing up to shows is the best thing; Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind<\/em> is a particularly great show for audiences to partake in multiple viewings, as Miller states, \u201cI think if people came back and brought a friend they would enjoy it just as much as the first time. No two shows are the same.\u201dRunning this April, every showing of Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind<\/em> is a once-in-a-lifetime experience; with audience interaction, randomized play orders, and the honest acting that is required by the show\u2019s crunch time, come out this weekend (4\/11-4\/13) to support your peers with an hour of laughter. Director Charles Miller\u2019s message to the people is short and sweet: \u201cThis isn\u2019t like anything else you are going to see\u2026 it\u2019s kinda crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Scarlett Hall, Writer Charles Miller\u2019s take on Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind by Greg Allen is a current rage at Pellissippi State Community College, boasting an…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1269,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,7],"tags":[],"series":[],"class_list":["post-1188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts","category-lifestyle-social"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.imaginarygardens.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.imaginarygardens.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.imaginarygardens.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.imaginarygardens.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.imaginarygardens.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1188"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.imaginarygardens.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1188\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1272,"href":"https:\/\/www.imaginarygardens.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1188\/revisions\/1272"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.imaginarygardens.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.imaginarygardens.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.imaginarygardens.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.imaginarygardens.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1188"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.imaginarygardens.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=1188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}