Making Up The Truth
Written and performed by Jack Hitt
Produced by New Feet Productions and Aaron Louis
International Festival of Arts and Ideas,
Spoleto Festival, Joe’s Pub and other venues
MAKING UP THE TRUTH is a tour-de-force solo piece written and performed by This American Life regular Jack Hitt. It weaves together some of Jack’s most hilarious and moving personal stories with the neuroscience of storytelling to uncover something fundamental about what it means to be human.
When I first met Jack, he had an interesting idea for a solo show, and a very rough draft he had performed once at a benefit for a writers’ space in Seattle. It was a great place to start. But Jack is a radio guy, and he needed help transitioning to the stage.
I loved working with Jack on this piece. It was an opportunity to regularly engage in the coolest conversations about the science of perception, reality, and storytelling. We would work through the text until we got to an idea that wasn’t clear. Then we would roll up our sleeves, diving into the science behind the moment until we unpacked the nuance or piece of the idea that hadn’t quite made it into the script.
The rest of the time, my job was to make stories that succeeded on the radio into something that needed to be seen on stage – using movement, Jack’s fantastically expressive face and Aaron Harrow’s gorgeous projections.
Jack and I developed MAKING UP THE TRUTH over the course of about 18 months, including workshops at the Huntington Theatre in Boston and 3LD in New York, as well as several readings at New York Theatre Workshop. We premiered at the International Festival of Arts and Ideas in New Haven in 2011.
Designers: Aaron Harrow, Laura Mroczkowski and Neal Wilkinson.
Press:
“Funny as hell, deeply curious about the world, and such a great raconteur…” – Ira Glass, This American Life.
“If all science classes were taught by someone like Jack Hitt, more people would be interested in science. Or at the very least brain science. Never have you seen someone describe the way different parts of the three-pound vital organ light up when we speak and when we listen so warmly.” – Charleston City Paper.
“Jack Hitt’s touring one-man show, Making Up the Truth, is that rara avis, science in the service of comedy, and so engagingly navigated by its writer-actor that one enjoys absorbing a bit of knowledge in the process.” – The Post and Courier.
