Written by Constance Congdon

Amherst Production 1998
Directed by James Vesce
Dramaturgy by Laura C. Kelley
Scenic Design: David Korins
Lighting Design: Chris Bailey
Costume Design: Felicia McNeill
Sound Design: Ben Stanton
Video Design: Jay Morong

Curtain Theatre, UMass Amherst, 1998

Charlotte Production 2009
Directed by James Vesce
Scenic Design: Daniel Fleming
Lighting Design: David Fillmore, Jr.
Costume Design: Heidi O’Hare
Sound Design: James Vesce
Video Design: Jay Morong

Lab Theater, UNC Charlotte, 2009

THE STORY
Tales of the Lost Formicans, by award-winning Massachusetts playwright Constance Congdon, is a dark comedy about contemporary american angst and yearning. Part dream play, part sci-fi farce, Congdon's imaginative, highly theatrical piece rests on the premise that space aliens are observing and interpreting suburban life through the lens of their own culture. The focus of their study is a middle-American family in crisis, coping with three generations' worth of stress simultaneously. As the aliens puzzle over the artifacts they discover, the human subjects struggle with problems ranging from Alzheimer's disease and divorce to sexual frustration and the lack of communication between parents and children.

PRODUCTION NOTES
Tony Kushner, Congdon's friend and fellow playwright, considers her "a genuine pioneer, a truly original writer, who first arrived at a new theatrical space, from whence a number of plays and playwrights" -himself included- "have emerged." In the late 1980s, he asserts, Congdon was the first to see theatre's potential as a "particularly resonant" place in which to explore the "kind of postmodern, collective nervous breakdown American society" was experiencing. What made her an intrepid voyager was not simply her willingness to depart from the tradition of narrative dramatic realism in which she had been working. It was her intuitive understanding of the theatricality of theatre, of tension that exists between "the script as literature" and the script in performance as a "kinetic event."
-Notes by Barbara W. Grossman (reprinted from the program for a 2001 Tufts University production)

For the UNC Charlotte production two unusual scenic devices, the “Scrimjector” and the “Digital Tunnel”, were designed and implemented by the Digital Design Center at the School of Architecture. These devices are part of the ongoing research of the Center in interactive environments and the methods by which computers can be embedded into physical environments at all scales from individual objects to cities.

The Scrimjector (from scrim and projector) is a device that is controlled by infrared sensing devices and is powered by servomotors. It can track an actor through the space of the stage and provide images that are linked to the position or performance of that actor. The Digital Tunnel consists of two positions within the theater that are linked by cameras and projected images. Using Quartz Composer, a central computer translates this information and projects an environment onto the vertical plane that combines the sending mouth with the receiving mouth, establishing a communicative Digital Tunnel.