About The Author of These Pages: Aaron PropesAbout The Author of These Pages: Aaron PropesAh, a place for some freeform writing. I'm originally from Flint, Michigan, and am what you might call a corporate brat: similar to an army brat except it's a corporation that caused my family to move. I've lived in Michigan, Minnesota, Tennessee, Connecticut, and New York - not necessarily in that order, and many times back-and-forth. I recently moved to Minnesota after the standard post graduation unemployment.
I've been involved in interactive theatre for seven years, Feminism for six. I started as a high school senior in Nashville, Tennessee with the PG-13 Players dealing with issues like pregnancy, decision making, drugs, etc. They now include sexual assault in their repertoire. During that time the PG-13 Players didn't cover sexual assault and I was prone to many of the myths that go unchallenged with teenage males.
I spent a year at Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti, Michigan where I saw a particularly bad film during orientation on rape. I don't think my string of consciousness on rape went father than "Rape is bad." I transferred from EMU after a year for a number of reasons (one of which was $15 million spent on a new football stadium, but none on expanding a library that couldn't buy books in the last seven years because of lack of room).
I wound up at Syracuse University in Upstate New York where, during my wanderings around campus signed up for an audition for the Black Box Theatre (a student group), but missed it, not realizing that the Drama Department is about a mile off-campus (no orientation for transfer students - see what happens?). However, since my name was on that list, I got a phone call when they were looking for actors for a new interactive theatre group sponsored by the Rape: Advocacy, Prevention and Education (R.A.P.E.) Center. I jumped at the chance...
Nevermind, I wrote most of this stuff in the introduction of my Senior Thesis. I put it up here if you want to read it (I rather like it, myself). Needless to say, playing a perpetrator for three years has expanded my consciousness quite a bit. I graduated Syracuse with a Minor in Women's Studies, moved to St. Paul, Minnesota and worked on starting another group.
"every 5 minutes" (version 2) had their first performance on April 29, 1996 at Hamline University. Unlike SU's "e5m" we travel anywhere invited (SU does, too, but they're a bit more limited, and Minneapolis-St. Paul is a bit bigger). The name just sort of stuck - I have to postscript it to remind me it's a different entity.