In all the years of Ted, this is the first time I've gotten up to speak in my role as Faculty advisor. I usually try to avoid people even knowing that I have a role here other than as participant. But because of some reaction from the last Ted, I felt the need to speak, since there were an extraordinary number of new people who had no knowledge of the concept behind Ted.

As faculty advisor, my job is to be the one whose name is on the facilities request, to offer assistance if someone gets hurt, make sure the building isn't damaged, and to be the one who gets in trouble if someone brings alchohol.

But I have no other function as advisor. I come to Ted because I want to, because most of you don't seem to mind me being here, and because I believe in it and enjoy participating in it.

Tim's role is to put in the facilities request (which he gets around to eventually), put up a piece of paper saying what room Ted will be in, take down the list of people who want to perform and set the order.

The department's role in Ted is non-existent.

There is no curator, editor, or artistic director. No one knows what will be done at Ted any night except the individuals who are performing (and sometimes, frankly, they aren't even sure).

The performer's role is to show up sometime before midnight and sign up. Then to perform when it's their turn. For those who didn't know, there is no selection process. Anyone can sign up. If David Duke, Louis Farrakkan, and Andrew Dice Clay showed up, they'd all get a slot. Tim's entire choice would be how he could creatively schedule them right after each other.

Ted was formed by students as a venue to try things without being monitored by the faculty. In fact, the faculty has been subtly discouraged from attending (although just having it at midnight on Saturday night would work well enough). The idea behind Ted is to provide a place to perform whatever you want without being judged by your acting teacher or someone else who might affect your career here. As people who perform, it is often difficult in classroom situations to try something new, because if it fails, you may not make it. At Ted you can take risks. Sometimes risks will fail miserably. Others may work. But it will not determine your continuation as an acting major or whatever.

There are very few rules at Ted. Don't physically damage the facilties or the people. Don't bring drugs or alcohol, and don't smoke in the building. Try not to puke in here. Clean up after your piece. Make your piece relatively short, in case it's bad. Otherwise, just about anything else goes.

Because of this, there are times you will be offended. I can pretty much guarantee it. In fact, it's quite possible that I, too, may occassionally offend someone. Some offensive pieces will be well crafted with a point, some will be shit. Some will be funny, some will be shit. People may make fun of your race, your gender, your religion, your age, your sexual preference, your sexual prowess, your class in school, your major, your acting teacher, your home town, or you, personally. You have a few options. Ignore it, talk to the person who created the piece to find out their motivation and/or change their mind, or create your own piece in response. I recommend the latter -- you'll reach more people that way. Just ask those who have been around awhile. For example, we've been making fun of Chad Wise at Ted for, what, about 12 years now? Oh, that's right, Ted hasn't been around that long.

But I have made a decision. Tim doesn't know about this. If you are offended, Tim will personally return your entrance fee.

So, I can't tell you what you'll see at Ted tonight or future nights. I have no idea. All I can do is give you an idea based on what's been done in the past.

Some pieces will be good; some will be bad; worse, yet, some will be boring. Generally they'll be short, and something else will come next.


There will be pieces that have been put together with 15 minutes of preparation,
although unfortunately most of them will have had a lot less rehearsal than that.

Someone will give a stirring account of a personal tragic situation
and you'll want to go out and change the world

Someone will give a stirring account of a personal tragic situation
and you'll go, "Oh, no. It's Therapy of Ted, again."

A fan of Joanie Mitchell or Alanys Morissette will decide to share their singing ability with you by giving a rendition of a popular hit a cappella, and after 29 key changes and forgetting the words twice, you'll wonder if maybe the acoustics are better in the shower with the smaller room and the humidity.

Someone will be so good (like Gwen Druyor), that you'll seriously wonder if they're doing a piece or have actually decided to flip out and turn homicidal or suicidal right here at Ted.

You'll see naked people. Most of them will be male, and while sometimes it will be justified artistically, sometimes it will just be for the sake of nakedness, and you might actually come away desensitized to the societal pressure that nudity is only about appropriately beautiful people having sex or being about to be slashed in the shower. Or am I just rationalizing? After all, I too, have been naked at Ted.

Someone will do a take off on Jim Kasprzyk's beatnik poetry hour, or a take-off on Chad Wise's take-off on Jim Kaspryzk's beatnik poetry hour.

There will be pieces done on the Brady Bunch and Star Trek

Occassionally someone with brilliance as a performance artist will develop at Ted, like Ari Mulvaney, who never made it in mainstream theatre in the department and, at first, had most people at Ted going, "well, that was weird."

There will be a lot of pieces with in-jokes that you'll miss if you didn't go to the party on Friday night, or take acting from Patrick, or...

Someone will finally be chased out of the room when it's 2:00 in the morning and they're doing their 19th piece of the night.

About twice a year, I'll do a presentation of my photography.

Someone will decide that it's time to do something with quality and they'll present a work in progress that they've rehearsed at length, and it will go over like a lead balloon, 'cause the audience is drunk.

Someone will start a band at Ted.

The shy one in the corner will finally be encouraged to come up and will read you some of their original poetry that will blow your mind.

There will be pieces that make Saturday Night Live's early years look sophomoric, and there will be pieces that make Saturday Night Live's later years look brilliant.

There will be pieces that start off funny and then don't end.

Anthony Wills will phone in a scat piece from Europe.

There will be pieces that are supposed to be funny and you'll see the expression on the participants' faces halfway through as they realize, "Oh my god, this was suposed to be a parody, but it's not funny, and now it looks like I'm being serious about this. Oh my god, this really sucks and we still have five minutes left in the piece."

You'll also hear people in the audience say "I don't know about Ted. It's really gone downhill and there isn't much good stuff anymore." and you'll look at them and realize that you've never seen them do anything at Ted.

So, now that you know what to expect...

Theatre of Ted, enthusiastic applause!

© 1996 Peter Guither.