Atlanta: Jason Holt wants your confessions

The multidisciplinary Israeli artist and writer creates a space where unexpected candor and connections can be formed.

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Jason Danino Holt doesn’t perform your grandmother’s traditional theater.

For the last four months, the Israeli multidisciplinary artist and writer has been a visiting artist-in-residence at The Breman, doing workshops and lectures around the metro area in preparation for his capstone event on May 20: “Confessions. Observations. Conversations.” Holt says this audience participatory happening-combo-lecture is exactly that — a series of confessions … from the audience.

“I’ve been doing it for 10 years — I think nothing surprises me anymore,” laughed Holt about his upcoming capstone, which is based on his confessional show Not Letting It In. “When coming to the U.S. for the first time a year-and-a-half ago, there were big questions: Will the audience participate? Will they talk? will their hearts open? I was surprised that every event worked. It was super participatory!”

This is not a group therapy session. Rather, Holt’s confessional theater creates a kind of safe space where unexpected candor and connections can be formed. The idea first came to Holt 10 years ago by accident. In his hometown of Tel Aviv, Holt was rehearsing a play by British playwright Sarah Kane about depression and suicide, but the cast members found the material too depressing. “They said it was affecting their personal lives,” recalls Holt. “That was a fascinating moment. Let’s do a show about actors refusing to work on certain materials.”

However, Holt and the other performers had no experience performing as themselves. “So we started playing with autobiographical performative elements,” he said. “And this format for a room where you can talk in confession came to life. And the moment that experiment happened, we understood that this is the show.”

Thus was born Not Letting It In — or, really, the idea of a confessional show. This Tuesday at The Breman, Atlanta audiences will get to experience this show for the first time at a public theater since Holt arrived here in January. “Confessions. Observations. Conversations.” will open with a half-hour lecture about the evolution of the project. Following this, a 90-minute participatory experience will unfold in which Holt will ask audience members to confess, but under strict rules: Confessions only and no judgment or commentary. Set up in a kind of theater of the round, with Holt and participants at a desk surrounded by audience members, the show’s goal is to create an atmosphere of vulnerability to foster honest conversations.

“Much of the structure, including its rules, the live dramaturgy, the rhythm of the storytelling, the thematic chapters and even the timing, has been learned directly from the audience,” said Holt. “I’ve learned how to listen differently, how to read emotional dynamics and how to create the most meaningful and layered artistic experience I can.”

Since first stumbling upon the idea a decade ago, Holt has performed the show hundreds of times across the globe in libraries, bookstores, galleries, museums, nightclubs, at parties and even in private homes — almost anywhere but a theater and rarely at the same venue twice. The exception to that rule is once a year (for the last three years) at Holt’s Habait Theatre in Tel Aviv. Here, he hosts a 24-hour confession session with actors working in shifts and hundreds of audience members coming and going and coming back, falling asleep and waking up in the middle. Holt’s confessional Not Letting It In has been widely praised in the press and has been invited to perform in major institutions and festivals across Europe, the U.S. and Israel. Israel’s longest-running newspaper, Haaretz, wrote: “No family dinner or hang with your closest friends can be compared to the exposure and honesty of this show.”

Atlantans need not fret about a daylong experience of bearing their hearts. Holt’s “Confessions. Observations. Conversations” at The Breman will last for two hours, with a reception following. As for whether Georgia’s capital — which has a bit of a reputation for flashy superficiality — is ready for this kind of soul bearing, Holt thinks so.

“It’s a beautiful place with beautiful people,” said Holt about living in Atlanta. In particular, he was drawn to the King Center and the Deep South’s Civil Rights history, even traveling to Alabama and Louisiana to visit museums and heritage sites there. “It was very interesting looking at this part of history through the eyes of the current affairs in Israel,” said Holt. “The two seemed connected. I felt a longing for leaders resisting in nonviolent ways to change the world for the better. We’re lacking that in Israel right now.”

And will the artist himself confess this Tuesday? Holt smiles and says, “I’m part of the cast in every version, in every country. I never sit outside the experience, except in the longer shows where we work in shifts or in specific themed versions like Mothers, which I intentionally step out of.”

As for what Holt will have to divulge at The Breman, well, you’ll have to attend — and maybe participate — to hear that confession.

Where & When

“Confessions. Observations. Conversations.” with BAMAH visiting artist Jason Danino Holt. 7 p.m. May 20. The event is free, but registration is required. The Breman, 1440 Spring St. NW. 470-706-0848, thebreman.org.

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Jeff Dingler is an Atlanta-based author and entertainer. A graduate of Skidmore College with an MFA in creative writing from Hollins University, he’s written for New York Magazine, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Tiny Love, Newsweek, WIRED, Salmagundi and Flash Fiction Magazine. More information at jeffdingler.org.