Cool Parents Club: Mister & Mischief

Mister & Mischief attempt to take a photo (Photo credit: Vanessa Maldonado)

Parenting has a way of feeling like theater, doesn’t it?

Maybe you’re flying solo with an all-day monologue performance, pulling off an impressive single parent juggling act between wake-up and bedtime. Maybe you’re sharing a double act with a partner who picks up (or fails to) your call and response — “Yes, the grocery store has temporarily put a ban on purchasing candy, AND you can pick out any fruit you like!” Or perhaps you’re part of the company of players modern parenting can comprise — step-parents and half-siblings, grandmothers and fathers, neighbors and friends — all doing their best to help pull off what feels like a recurring opening night.

Whatever your situation, collaboration is an essential part of parenting in LA and beyond, and no couple understands that better than Jeff and Andy Crocker. The husband-and-wife team behind Mister & Mischief, the Crockers have worked with studios, institutions, and teams big and small to build participatory site-responsive theater in the places people already live their lives: libraries, museums, zoos, and theme parks. They’re also parents, Atwater Village residents, and — as you’re about to read — bring that can-do spirit to everything in their lives, from putting on a show to making sure the laundry gets done.

As a novelist, I was really fascinated by the line in your piece Again! Again! draws between caregiving and art-making. Is there a particular moment from making that show where the parallel really clicked for you?

ANDY: A core conceit of Again! Again! is repetition and how our daily lives have recurring cycles of inspiration and frustration, whether it’s through caregiving or art-making. Each moment of the show mimics what we do on a daily basis.

JEFF: One day after a performance, we came home and were inadvertently recreating the show beat for beat: trying to finish sorting laundry, juggling responsibilities with bedtime duties, and discussing how we could improve our next performance… which would include a scene about us sorting laundry, juggling responsibilities and bedtime duties and discussing how we could improve our next performance.

ANDY: So we performed art about caretaking and art, and then came home and were caretaking our kid and our art. It was an Ouroboros!

JEFF: A cute and often joyful Ouroboros.

How do you build a piece so a room full of strangers actually becomes a room full of collaborators? What are the best ways to welcome our families into this space of connection and co-creation?

JEFF: Well, first we try to make sure that the audience’s presence doesn’t just enhance everything we build, but in some way, requires it. Having it matter that they are there is the first step to interaction.

ANDY: For sure. It needs to feel like if they weren’t present, it would be incomplete. But every part of being there is opt-in. We’re not going to force participation or embarrass anyone. Everything is an invitation.

JEFF: We do tend to think of our work as a gathering and ourselves as hosts. So the same things that help when you have folks over, helps when you invite people into your work.

ANDY: Yes, setting expectations, giving them enough information — acknowledgement that each audience member may not arrive with the same knowledge base or enthusiasm level. And age doesn’t really help predict that.

JEFF: When we welcome families into this space, we put a lot of thought into the words we’re using as people are entering and then again as we start to ask people to participate. As often as possible, we try to show everyone that they will be considered, even if participation carries a thrill.

ANDY: We definitely design to set everyone up for success very early on. Early interactions are always super simple and gentle and come with tons of positive reinforcement. If you make it fun to play and fun to watch, then you can scale up the complexity of what you are asking folks to do.

If you were designing a “starter” immersive experience for a family with young kids skeptical of participatory theater, what would the on-ramp look like?

ANDY: The ironic thing is that the folks that are skeptical are typically not the kiddos. It is usually the grownups. They are the ones who tend to need more encouragement and what we like to call “imagination assistance.” You can give a kid a cardboard box, and they’ll design you an immersive experience. But once you are looking at an intergenerational or all-ages experience, that dynamic changes.

JEFF: You would need an on-ramp that’s a long, gentle, steady grade, taking you onto the highway of playful and participatory storytelling. There would be ample signage!

Experiences for all ages, including very young kids or senior community members, typically contain a few key hallmarks. Language-agnostic elements like movement, emotion, and physicality can communicate a lot. It’s important for all ages to be able to participate and succeed.

Oftentimes, “family friendly” is assumed to code indicating “for kids,” but as parents ourselves, we know that those kids don’t show up by themselves! The parents need to be engaged as well at their level, even if they’d like another cup of wine.

ANDY: You’ve got to get the bigger kids and grown-ups invested at the top! Otherwise they’ll let the kids do all the fun stuff, and that’s not a family experience; it’s a kid one.

Everyone needs to have ways to be a part of it. That can look like just learning a participant’s name, or asking for their help with something as simple as holding a prop.

Working, parenting, creating, and living together means the lines never fully close. What’s one boundary you’ve had to invent to protect the relationship from the work (or vice versa)?

JEFF: Oh. This is a great question! …

ANDY: Yeah… I’d say all the parts of our lives are pretty darn integrated. We do often say that the idea of work-life balance is sort of an impossible, lose-lose goal to work for. To us, the idea of balance feels so binary. You’re either balanced or unstable. So trying for that leaves us feeling crummy.

However, working to create an ecosystem where all the different parts of our lives nourish each other feels like a slightly more attainable goal.

But also — boundaries. This is a great suggestion. We should maybe think of some boundaries.

JEFF: We have some boundaries! Here’s something we do. We both will protect each others’ time for physical fitness. Making sure that’s a priority is important for good sleep, and movement is a key ingredient to long-term sanity.

ANDY: It is a third category of care that is so easy to lose sight of unless you protect it! Good one, Jeff.

JEFF: Thanks!

You’ve said you’re figuring out whether your values as parents and as theater-makers overlap. Where have you found they do? Where do they fail to connect?

JEFF: Creating an environment that is play-forward, harnessing that raw imagination, and sharing it with others is a big part of that overlap.

ANDY: Play and presence are two sides of a very important coin, so we try to cultivate them both whenever we can, in our work and in our parenting. And in friendships too. Honestly, even with strangers in line at the supermarket when it feels right.

JEFF: Sometimes it doesn’t work quite as well when it’s time to be focused and do taxes or finish a spreadsheet or read through a script and mark it up. Being in control of your own time is not something we have as parents, and sometimes throwing ourselves into a creative process can make a big difference, but as parents… that control over time is definitely less frequent.

You’re Atwater Village residents — what’s a spot in the neighborhood you’d take a family that most roundups never mention?

ANDY: We are proud Atwater Villagers! But of course, things have been changing over here — lots of new fanciness popping up. Our number one family spot has it all- nostalgia, treats, seeing your neighbors, never need a reservation, crowd pleaser… that spot is the one and only Foster’s Freeze on Fletcher.

JEFF: On a summer night, it cannot be beat!

ANDY: Plus, it’s a Pulp Fiction location, if you’re having your dipped cone with a Gen Xer and want to give ‘em a fun fact.

LA has always had a real appetite for experiential entertainment. What’s an under-the-radar local experience aside from your own that you think more families should know about?

ANDY: It does not present itself as a “family” experience… but if you want to explore a place that reminds everyone of how weird and wild and mysterious our city can be, we recommend the Velaslavasy Panorama. There are separate, ticketed events within the panorama that are not all ages, but the space itself, the garden, the miniatures, and the panorama — they’re really magical.

JEFF: It is beautiful and inexplicable and every time we go it feels different but always intriguing in the best possible way. A cousin to the Museum of Jurassic Technology.

ANDY: It is a very quiet experience. So not great for toddlers, but for older kids (and teens and grown-ups) who like From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E Frankweiler or wish they lived in a Laika movie — it could be their jam.

JEFF: It is an incredible place to activate your imagination together.

Your work tends to live in places that weren’t built for theater, like a library, or a theme park’s Old West town. What does a space give you that a stage can’t?

ANDY: First of all, we really believe in discoverability as a part of accessibility. We love that so much of our work is experienced by folks who would typically not buy a ticket to a play — much less a “site-responsive immersive performance piece” yipes! People often run into our work, or discover it through non-theatre communities. That’s really special.

JEFF: Additionally, unconventional spaces offer an environment that is scenic, lived-in, and textured with time. The audience is inside of it, instead of observing it.

ANDY: Which is just cool in general.

JEFF: Then when we add in performance, the venue is showing up as it is, and then we’re inviting our audiences to show up just as they are as well. Traditional theatre has so many more barriers to that feeling.

ANDY: The place, the performance, and the participants are all working together to imagine. To create an experience which could only be told in that space with those artists and that audience. Which… as I say, it sounds a bit artsy fartsy.

JEFF: You’re not wrong. But at the core of it, our goal is just to have a really unique, really fun, often silly time. Not for our audiences, but with them.

What’s Happening This Weekend?

Thursday, 7/30

It’s back-to-school season already, if you can believe it, and the folks at the LA County Library are here to help you gear up with their Back to School Resource Fair. There’ll be art making, free school supplies, and a high-flying bike rodeo.

Friday, 7/31

How is the zoo always hotter than anywhere else in LA? This Friday night, little animal lovers will have a chance to beat the heat and stay up past bedtime with a special zoo after dark experience.

For something a little more low-key, our friends at Living Earth are hosting an evening screening of Jurassic… (something, apparently they can’t say for legal reasons?) with music from Randy Randall of legendary noise rock duo No Age.

Saturday, 8/1

An eagle-eyed reader told me about this free deep sea opera at the Long Beach aquarium, happening today, tomorrow, and next weekend. Thanks, Abby! Hopefully I’ll see you there — taking in child-appropriate experimental opera (!), grabbing some excellent Cambodian food, and finding some relief from the unremitting heat with a little sea breeze.

Inspire your lil comic book lover at SheroCon, a free one-day celebration of women in comics, films, and games at the Valley Relics museum. There are panels, merch, and a cosplay parade where she can admire all her favorite sheroes.

Or get your hands dirty at Reseda Backyard Farm, where their Get Out & Garden: Rooting for Native Plants! event will feature nature journal and leaf print clay art crafting, a scratch n’ sniff garden tour, and native plant food demos.

Sunday, 8/2

Nothing says summer like a ripe, juicy peach, so you can imagine my delight when I heard about the Los Angeles Stone Fruit Festival. Kicking off today at the Atwater Farmer’s Market, you can celebrate and sample California’s best stone fruit all week long.

Mahjong is having a moment, and what better way to get into the game than with the one-year anniversary party of SoCal Mah Jong? All levels and ages are welcome, plus they’ll fill your water bottle — an underrated perk in this heat.

Or end the weekend with a free concert for lil Taylor Swift lovers hosted by the Valley Cultural Foundation in Werner Park.