In September, Uncover The Color partnered with Play the Moment and Canvas Creative to bring The Pink Ribbon Project to Orlando’s REP Theater.As we first began brainstorming, I thought to myself, “This will be a good first project for us to work on together.” But as the show took shape, I thought, “We’re going to need a bigger theater.” And sure enough, three sell out nights proved that to be true.

The theatrical production combined live dramatic pieces, dance and an interactive art experience. That’s where Uncover The Color came in.

One of the most prevalent emotions associated with cancer is fear. So, we wanted to create an experience that juxtaposed fear and hope.

When audience members arrived, they were given a program that had a prompt on the back that explained how to participate in the experience. As the audience entered the theater, they were taken through a small room that had a canvas in it. The only light in the room was on the back side of the canvas. Individuals were invited around to the back side of the canvas to write out fears they were dealing with – related to cancer or in life in general. As people wrote on the canvas, other could see their silhouettes through the fabric.

Later in the show, the canvas was rolled into the theater where a dancer painted over the fears with white paint – leaving some of the hopeful words exposed – as the cast members we had already met throughout the show interacted with one another as if passing one another on the sidewalk.

The show ended with a monologue about hope. As audience members left the theater, the canvas was back in the original space – this time, lit from the front to reveal the word “HOPE” painted over where the fears once were.

In then end, we discovered this was a simple yet powerful way to connect the personal experiences of individual audience members with the greater theme of the night as a whole.

Local sketch artist, Thor, even sketched it!