Carl Holder in Out of Order (Photo: Rebecca J. Michelson)

Carl Holder’s show Out of Order leaves its structure to the fates.

Dubbed “an interactive parlor game,” Holder writes a series of prompts on index cards.  They fall from the ceiling scattering. He opens them up in whatever order he finds them and performs the tasks as he comes to them.

He says this was his approach to turning 40 and dealing with writer’s block. He couldn’t write a play, so he’s created this performance-by-lotto instead.

The instructions on the cards range from character prompts (Farmer, Chicken, Peacock) to a tutorial on dramatic structure.  He explains exposition is followed by an inciting incident, rising action, a climax and falling action. But in this melee of cards, the one marked “Climax” might arrive before one the labeled “Exposition” and Holder will tell his story chapters based on the cards. The “Talkback” and the “Curtain Call” could be anywhere in the line-up.

There is dance, dramatic readings, and searching questions. He has a referee, Simon Henriques, who dings a bell ending each segment which keeps things moving. Sometimes we shift from candlelight to searing fluorescents which kind of shocks us back into the present moment.

Ultimately, this is a monologue about Holder’s journey as an artist from his childhood to the precarious struggle of life in New York City. It is not a new subject, but changing up the sequence and making it this game allows for unpredictability and it adds to its scrappy intimacy.

Carl Holder in Out of Order (Photo: Rebecca J. Michelson)

In addition, Holder (and director Skylar Fox) weaves audience participation into the prompts. Some people are asked questions and their willingness to engage helps keep the show flowing. When he asks the audience for help for himself, he extends that and then asks the audience if they want to ask for help in their own lives.

While he has a section called “Self Indulgent Lighting Round” made of his negative thoughts about himself, these moments of audience interaction push the spotlight ever so slightly away from him.

It is an autobiographical piece of sorts. He says it’s all real–though I guess real is not the same as true.  But forging parallels and connections with the audience members expands the framing just enough (the mandatory moment of posting a photo of the show to Instagram and tagging the account was probably the pushiest self-promoting element but also the life of an artist is about the hustle).

The struggles he experiences are not unique to him. He is not sure where he is going. He is not sure how his life has gotten off track. He is not sure how he is to pay his rent when his bank statement is so low (we’ve seen it projected on the wall).

We can all ask the same big questions about the directions our lives have taken. They have not been plotted out by Aristotle. Careers, relationships rarely follow a neat and tidy dramatic arc and in our hero’s journey we may not reach our goals. In addition, he’s also asking about how he can even be creative when so much energy and money goes into surviving.

Frankly, I don’t know how artists can make it here anymore. My BFA is collecting dust in a closet. I had to give up working in the arts pretty early on. The debt was too scary. And it was hardly on the scale of what it is now.

When I attended Fordham Law School, the Fordham theater students would rehearse near my locker. And I came to realize they were paying the same amount of tuition I was paying. And they were paying it for four years. While there was no guarantee of a law job at the end of my road, it seemed decidedly more assured than an acting job. College has only gotten more expensive.

And this is the kind of show that reminds you that to even take these risks costs someone.

There was a section of the show called “Review the Possibilities” which involved reading cards where he had written things he thought could possibly happen for him before he turned 40.  He sat on the floor and invited an audience member to help him. Between them he placed a garbage can. As the audience member read out the card, Holder was to decide whether he still believed in that possibility or whether it went in the trash.

The audience member took it upon himself to hand Holder cards regardless of whether Holder believed in the possibility. A few times, Holder indicated it should be trashed but the audience member forced it into his hands. So even if Holder has started to lose faith in what he might achieve that audience member was holding out hope.

And maybe sometimes that is what you need as an artist—someone else believing in your possibilities.