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Choosing Love, Connection and the Stage

Writer's picture: Rebecca BurnhamRebecca Burnham

Updated: Aug 22, 2024


Zach Kautter plays opposite Rachel Kanter in debut production

For actor, producer and entrepreneur Zach Kautter, every moment is rife with potential. Whatever the circumstances that bring you to a moment of decision, whatever constraints are placed on you by the choices of the past, you are always free in this moment to choose love and connection.


That’s a concept that drove his decision to produce Constellations as the debut show of his fledgling company, PK Productions. It’s a two person play by Nick Payne that follows the relationship of physicist Marianne and beekeeper Roland across a multitude of choices. With her love of quantum mechanics and string theory, Marianne believes that every time we make a choice, an alternate reality opens up where the alternative choice was made. When she and Roland meet at a barbecue, they are drawn to each other in a way that reverberates across the multiverse. “Depending on circumstances, and depending on how conversations go, either the spark continues into a healthy, happy relationship, or it fizzles out into one of the many universes,” Kautter explains. The play shows the relationship both maturing into an enduring love, and simultaneously falling apart in another reality under the weight of one small, negative choice that leads to another and another.


The central question the show asks is “Are you able to choose what happens in your life? Or is everything kind of predestined and predetermined.” For Kautter, who plays Roland in addition to producing, “the circumstances and situations that you see ... impact the choices and flexibilities that you can make. But I think at the end of the day, you are in control of your own destiny. and no matter what circumstance these characters are in, they can always choose love and connection.”


He finds that immersing himself in the production has an effect on his own choices. It reminds him that he doesn’t know what somebody else might be going through, so instead of responding negatively, “if you're able to choose positive, no matter the circumstances, there's always some type of light. You don't know whose lives you could touch, or who could touch your life, just by smiling or saying hello to the stranger on the street, or having courage to go up to someone and tell them that you like their outfit.”


It’s a fitting message for PK Productions. Kautter studies acting at Boston University, where he is about to start his senior year. He launched his company in April with a goal to heal divides by helping people to understand each other and connect with their common humanity. Theatre, he says, has a special power to unite us and build harmony out of our differences.


“There's so many different divisions in today's society. and I think, at the heart of it, theatre is a story about humans and human emotions.” He notes that the stories we watch together help us relate to and have empathy for each other’s experiences. “It can also be a way in which we better understand each other through these different stories. I love seeing plays about groups or things that I don't fully understand, and I think it can be a form of education to learn and grow as a person or a society. Really, the heart of art or art making is connection. And that's why people love it so much.”


Kautter’s observations on the power of theatre are reminiscent of German dramatist Frederich Von Schiller’s 1784 essay, “Theater Considered As A Moral Institution.” Von Schiller credited the stage with “uniting…mind and heart with the noblest sort of entertainment” and with teaching playgoers to “be more just toward the victim of misfortune, and to judge him more leniently. For, only once we can plumb the depths of his tormented soul, are we entitled to pass judgment on him.” He rejoiced that “humaneness and toleration are becoming the predominant spirit of our times” and noted a “universal spread of toleration toward religious sects in recent years” all because of theatre. At the time, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing’s play Nathan the Wise about shared dignity and friendship between Jews, Muslims, and Christians, was hugely popular. Theatre, Von Schiller concluded, had the power to overcome division, so that “man becomes his brother's brother with a single all-embracing sympathy... Each takes joy in others' delights, which then, magnified in beauty and strength, are reflected back to him from a hundred eyes, and now his bosom has room for a single sentiment, and this is: to be truly human."


It’s bitter-sweet to read Von Schiller’s words, realizing that he spoke of a universal spread of religious tolerance in Germany almost 50 years before the Nazi’s banned art like Nathan the Wise and started using the stage to fan the flames of suspicion into a consuming bonfire of hatred. The stories we perform and applaud are mighty, for good and for evil. Perhaps we are most likely to run into trouble when we forget that and look to the theatre only for entertainment.


Kautter wants to be sure that every show he puts on combats isolation by strengthening human connection. If you just want to be entertained, he says, go to the circus. Theatre, by contrast, needs a purpose and Kautter’s is not just to have people’s voices heard, “but for everyone to have their voices understood. I think it's one thing to listen to someone, and it's another thing to go the extra mile and try to understand where someone's coming from, understand what their journey has been in life, because I don't think listening alone bridges separation. I think it's that extra step of understanding and empathy.”


These are ideals he learned from his grandmother, Patricia Kautter, who got him into theatre in the first place. She owned a dance company in Lancaster, PA and her genius was to make people feel loved and at home, regardless of their skill. “She was all about building lives and building communities” and her influence was so appreciated that every high school production she was involved in was called a PK production. She recently passed away and Kautter named his company to honor her.


Because his grandma was a dancer, Kautter’s theatrical experience began with musicals. He loved them. But, in recent years, he’s come to the conclusion that plays have more power to carry a message across because of their grounding in realism. Generally, the message in musical theatre “can get lost behind some of the pizzazz, or the jazz hands.”


I had to admit that, if we’re talking generally, Kautter has a point. Musical theatre had its roots in vaudeville and burlesque. Its history is more about chasing after audiences with sensation and spectacle than reaching after their hearts. But we’ve all seen productions that bucked that trend and left us wanting to be better. And when you combine music with a powerful story, your message has staying power. Scottish politician Andrew Fletcher (1655-1716) said, “if a man were permitted to make all the ballads he need not care who should make the laws of a nation.” So I told Kautter that I’ll concede his point but only on the grounds that we need to write more musicals with a purpose. He was all for that. “I did musical theatre for a long time, and I would do a musical in a heartbeat.”


In the meantime, Kautter’s production of Constellations plays at the Boston Center for the Arts Plaza Theatre September 5-8th. If you’re local, or you have friends in the area, please consider supporting the show or spreading the word to help PK Productions launch its mighty mission. And wherever you live, if you want to contribute toward Kautter’s dream, here’s the link to his Go Fund Me page. Click here to follow the production on Instagram.​


 

Reader Survey:

What do you think has more potential for reaching hearts and building community, a stage play or a musical? Weigh in here.

Here are the results of last week's survey:



Here are some thoughts from our readers:

  • I struggled between option 2 and 3. Here is a more accurate version of my perspective: Its too bad that people at the time saw differences as a threat to social cohesion. It’s too bad Bell’s loved ones must have experienced prejudice and exclusion because people of that time didn’t know how to include them. Bell likely had the best of intentions, and wanted others not to suffer the way his mother and wife had. Differences are not a threat to social cohesion unless we mistreat those who are different from ourselves. When we embrace and celebrate differences, they enrich our culture.

  • I certainly think increased access to ASL learning would be a huge social benefit. But the most important thing is that Deaf culture is respected as well as the autonomy of Deaf people


 

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And a deeply, heartfelt thanks to those who've contributed to my tip jar Your support is greatly appreciated!


See you next week!

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