jdx View from the East Village, September 11, 2001.Last week Susan Keyloun reviewed “nine/twelve tapes,” a play that reenacted man-on-the-street interviews conducted in the days following September 11, 2001. Now The Local has acquired clips from the tapes, which you can listen to for the first time below. Collin Daniels, 40, had been living in New York City for just three months when the World Trade Center attacks occurred – he had moved here along with eight other Ohio University theater-program graduates, and was working a temp job in publishing. “I was feeling out of place and alienated,” said Mr. Daniels over the telephone today, “and when 9/11 happened, it heightened my sense that I didn’t belong to this city yet and I wanted to do something to heal and process this.” Read more…
The cast, left to right: Andres Munar, Lynne McCollough, Guy Stroman, Lori Prince and Erin Treadway.Directed by Ryan Pointer, “nine/twelve tapes” is a fascinating reenactment of man-on-the-street interviews conducted by citizen journalist Collin Worster Daniels, mostly during the two days following September 11, 2001. Mr. Daniels had moved to New York shortly before the attacks, and was galvanized to capture the widespread disconnect among his fellow survivors. His tapes sat in a closet for nearly ten years before they were recently turned over to a friend of a friend, playwright Leegrid Stevens.
“I listened to these tapes and was amazed at the immediacy and rawness of the material,” said Mr. Stevens. “They are a time capsule – a bridge back to the thoughts and feelings of that time. They show a people desperately trying to make sense of a world turned upside down, trying to understand it and each other.” During the premiere of “nine/twelve tapes” earlier this month at the Dream Up Festival at the Theater for the New City, the interviews were acted out exactly as they first occurred, with a talented cast performing over the background noise of the original recordings. Read more…
