At approximately 7:20 pm on Wednesday 16 August 2000, and for the second week in a row, the Surveillance Camera Players (SCP) performed Headline News in concert with the Living Theater (LT), the 50-year-old experimental theater group that, among other things, stages Not in My Name (an excellent anti-death penalty play) to coincide with capital executions. As before, the performance took place on the pedestrian island that lies between 7th Avenue and Broadway, and between 45th and 46th Streets, in the heart of Times Square, New York City. At least for the SCP, the performance was once again directed towards a large and very sophisticated-looking surveillance camera operated by the New York Police Department and mounted atop a street-lamp on 46th Street. But this second time, in answer to a request made by the LT, the SCP performed after, and not before the Living Theater's performance of Not in My Name. Though it seemed anticlimatic to put a one-minute play at the end of a fifteen-minute one -- and though it meant that the members of the LT, once they'd finished performing, didn't walk in a large circle around the SCP while it performed, as it had done before, but joined the crowd of spectators at the northern end of the pedestrian island -- the arrangement actually worked out quite well. Because Not in My Name involves singing and shouting, a fairly sizable audience had assembled by the time the SCP began its performance. When it was over, the SCP received a very rare round of sustained applause.
For this performance, the SCP consisted of Gus, Bill, Kristin and Kimberly, and was supplemented by Scott, who filmed it on a Super 8 camera, and Michele (present at the group's very first performance), who gave out flyers the SCP specially designed for the performance. Also in attendance were a duo (freelancer and photographer) who hope to publish a piece on the group in New York magazine. Chase, a friend of Gus's, managed to download two good images from one of the webcams maintained by Earthcam.com: one of the Living Theater (see upper left) and one of the SCP (see lower right). If possible, the SCP will try to have people watching each one of the four webcams operated by Earthcam that occasionally scan the pedestrian island on which the performances have been taking place.
Though the Living Theater has not yet made an official decision on the SCP's proposed collaboration, several of its members once again invited the SCP to perform with it the following week, when yet another capital execution is scheduled. Though the SCP is somewhat mystified by the necessity of having an "official decision" on a question that has already been answered on the street, where it matters, the group plans to continue its efforts to foster collaboration between itself and the Living Theater.
Contact the Surveillance Camera Players
By e-mail e-mail:notbored@NOSPAMoptonline.net
By snail mail: SCP c/o NOT BORED! POB 1115, Stuyvesant Station, New York City 10009-9998
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