Jon Haynes
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

DSP: Who are you in this world? What is your Normal?
JH: A confused bundle of memories and hopes who long ago suffered severe mental illness that I don’t like to think about. I am also a kind of artist.
DSP: Who were you at the beginning of this project?
JH: I’m not sure, but whatever I was it was subtly different and less enlightened than the person I was at the end of it.
DSP: Who have you become through this project or by the end of the last show? What is your new normal?
JH: I don’t think I have become anything, or been changed into a new and definitive me. Rather I am a work in progress that is undergoing change in a multiplicity of areas. I don’t see the project as finished. I think it has begun, and will continue to reinvent itself in revealing iterations.
DSP: Through this process how do you foresee arriving at the next stage, if that was to become a reality? What do you want to normalise?
JH: I think by continuing to do what we are doing – talking about these things and demonstrating in action that anyone can be anything, that there should be no barriers.
DSP: What is paradise and what does it look like to you?
JH: I don’t believe in it.
DSP: Is theatre / performance art needed in paradise? Why?
JH: Ah, well it can’t be needed in something I don’t believe in, so perhaps it would be truer to say that theatre expresses possibilities and allows audiences to experience and celebrate them in a unique way in a room together, so warmly embracing them that they can turn into reality in the world.
DSP: What would you like to ask David?
JH: Why didn’t you act more in the piece?
DSP: What is the one thing people say about you the most?
JH: That they don’t recognise me.
DSP: Name 3 to 10 survival things you have / need / would like to have in your tool belt? (for everyday, as an artist and in the bush)
JH: Insect repellent Face mask (unlimited supply), Bravery.
DSP: Can you identify and share one pivotal moment, that was the turning point for you as an artist and a person in this project?
JH: Learning how to attach Jess’s tray to her chair.
DSP: What was the hardest and the most fun or funniest thing in this process?
JH: Being shouted at by Betty (hardest) There were so many funny moments I can’t isolate a single one.
DSP: Is there a fun fact about you, you would like to share here?
JH: Not really.
DSP: Industry history, awards and other works that you would like to share, if at all!
JH: An Oscar!