1-woman play examines human experience

Nearly 10 years after graduating from IU, former theatre and drama major Amy Fortoul returns to Bloomington with a unique show she created to discuss the rather difficult subjects of image, sexuality, eating disorders and the human experience. The play is titled "This IS my BODY," and much of Fortoul's body and soul have gone into its creation. For this performance, Fortoul is working as the writer, director and sole actor.\nFortoul's experience has been mostly in directing. She said directing herself in the play has been an incredible experience. \n"Creatively -- it's very exciting, and it's very empowering to be able to use my own body and my own voice as the instrument or vehicle of expression instead of going through the other actors' body to tell the story," Fortoul said. \nFortoul is a survivor of bulimia and went through an outpatient rehabilitation program for the disorder at Bloomington Hospital about 11 years ago. The play is drawn from her personal experiences. She's been working on it for several years and wrote the first draft in Bloomington while she was an IU student. \nThe event's project manager, Kristen Miller-Knight, said the show's previous debut in Bloomington was so successful the play has returned by popular demand.\nAlthough Fortoul has created this work by herself, she's had a great deal of help from friends and fellow actors in her current home of New York, who read drafts and told their own stories. Fortoul said this was of great help when it came time to actually perform the piece herself. \n"I could step back and watch (the other women) to see what works and doesn't work in telling this story," Fortoul said. "That's why I didn't need a director because I've seen it through other actors' bodies." \nWhile she was a student at IU, Fortoul directed the theater company Imagination Productions. At the time, Fortoul did most of her work as a director. Former adviser and current professor in the Department of Theatre and Drama Charles Railsback said she was always a self-sufficient and focused person.\n"She and her current work are a good example of how a liberal arts education stimulates and nourishes," Railsback said. "Her concern for health issues is wrapped in her artistic drive."\nFortoul's interest in social issues was a major driving force for her college work. While at IU, she collaborated with 27 different social service institutions in the Bloomington area, one of which was Middle Way House. However, Fortoul said she was reluctant to do a performance about eating disorders while she was in college because of her personal problems with them. \n"It was kind of the one issue I stayed away from until I had dealt with it myself and had my own retrospect," Fortoul said. \nIn addition to eating disorders, "This IS my BODY" deals with Fortoul's family and spirituality, as well as her experience being a woman. She said she feels the play is relevant for everyone, not only those who have suffered from eating disorders. \n"To me, it's been a process of taking whatever kind of self-hatred lives inside you and turning that over into something light and into something beautiful and into something empowering, kind of tapping into your own courage," Fortoul said. "What I hope to pass onto people is that experience, so it doesn't matter if you've lived with an eating disorder, if you've had a sexually violating experience, whatever your darkness is, to turn that into something light, into something empowering, into something beautiful." \n-- Contact staff writer Kacie Leblong at kleblong@indiana.edu.