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Art and Culture: Brighton filmmaker Matt Sauter draws on upbrining in the trauma-colored ‘Dylan & Zoey’
ON STAGE:
ZOTTO — A Supernatural Immersive Folktale. Various times, Nov. 19-Dec. 11, Sakura Square, 905 Lawrence St., Denver. Tickets: zottofolk.com Denver’s Sakura Square is haunted. But it’s not the usual apparitions stalking the city’s historic Japanese American neighborhood in ZOTTO, the new immersive production opening this weekend. Instead, it’s the ghosts of racial strife, past and present: historical horrors like Japanese internment during
World War II, alongside the discriminatory inheritances of redlining, resettlement and gentrifcation. The show follows Dr. Kitsu, a kitsune (a fox spirit from
Japanese folklore) who invites the audience to journey through the ZOTTO Holistic Health Offce. They are tasked with helping a ffth-generation Japanese American patient named Miya locate her grandmother. This leads visitors into an interactive world where they come face to face with our troubled past. And it all takes place inside a Sakura Square building full of vacant offces in Denver’s LoDo District, where the city’s once-thriving Chinatown was destroyed by a white mob in 1880. The Front Range may not be top of mind when it comes to such cutting-edge theatrical experiences. But with outside-the-box productions like DCPA’s Theater of the Mind — whose run was recently extended through January due to public demand — and interactive art mainstays like Meow Wolf Denver’s Convergence Station, the region is making a case for itself as a hub for experiential art. “Denver is becoming known as a place to create new immersive work,” says Courtney Ozaki, founder of the
Japanese Arts Network, and creative producer of ZOTTO.
The group recently took part in the Denver Immersive
Gathering, an international networking event and exhibition for immersive creators. ZOTTO was presented there as a work-in-progress, attended and critiqued by immersive and experiential entertainment professionals from all over the world. “It was super exciting to have a Disney Imagineer in the audience during the convention,” Ozaki says. “We were honored to get their perspective and receive positive validation from other creators at the top of their feld about our work.” But Ozaki hopes ZOTTO will do more than validate the artistic efforts of her team. She hopes it will raise awareness of Colorado's lesser-known histories by exploring the trauma and joys of three generations of Japanese
American women in Denver.
Immersion and reflection
ZOTTO is a group effort in the truest sense of the word. The work was produced by the Japanese Arts
The ghosts of Sakura Square Network — a national organization that brings together communities, stakeThe historic heart of Denver’s Japanese American community becomes an immersive theatrical site in holders and artists to support Japanese arts in America — in collaboration with Control Group Productions, Luster the supernatural ‘ZOTTO’ Productions and Theatre Artibus. After the success of a previous by Toni Tresca drive-through iteration of the project during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, Ozaki put together a team to produce a more developed version of the show. She asked Akemi Tsutsui-Kunitake to be the project’s cultural consultant, and Meghan Frank and Buba Basishvili to co-produce. Leah Podzimek came on board to co-produce and serve as director of fow and fundraising, while Patrick Mueller and Caroline Sharkey were brought in to support the technical elements. The result of this all-hands-on-deck approach is a celebration of how the Japanese community survived in America after World War II. The experience's script was written by Ozaki but revised by actors through improvisation, producer collaboration and community interviews. The narrative was inspired, in part, by Ozaki relatives’ stories about being detained during the war. “People have a hard time relating to stories of incarcerated individuals when told from textbooks or other traditional forms of media,” Tsutsui-Kunitake says. “That’s what’s so great about immersive experiences. We get to put people in these true stories … that allow people to refect on their actions; that’s more powerful than if we just told the story to them.” To that end, attendees should prepare themselves for a multi-sensory experience. “We want folks to engage all fve of their senses,” Podzimek says. "People will taste things; we're using next-level sensescapes so you can smell elements of the journey; you'll hear all sorts of things through sound design and dialogue; you'll see the actors and set, and we're working on creating components for people to touch along the way." This style of immersive theater is a relatively new art form, and the group realizes this will be a new experience for many. “It can be exciting, but it can also be uncomfortable at times,” Tsutsui-Kunitake says. Part of that intentional discomfort comes from direct interaction between the actors and audience members, who are a crucial part of the experience. “This is a show with only 12 audience members at a time, which will be very intimate," Ozaki says. “You are not a voyeur. You are in the show and will be acknowledged.” Ultimately, the team behind ZOTTO says such an intimate, immersive experience was made possible by community members and partners with an appetite for social justice and experimental storytelling. “The reason that we were able to tell this story now is that there was such an immense amount of support for the story,” Frank says. “I am very excited for the audience to be able to experience this particular story in Sakura Square, one of the last visual spaces that represents the deep and rich culture of Japanese American history.”
Brighton filmmaker Matt Sauter draws on his Front Range upbringing in the trauma-colored ‘Dylan & Zoey’
by Gregory Wakeman
At frst blush, the synopsis of Dylan & Zoey sounds like a warm and uplifting tale of a rekindled connection. With only 24 hours left in Los Angeles, Zoey (Claudia Doumit) reaches out to her estranged best friend Dylan (Blake Scott Lewis). He is initially dubious, but the pair soon pick up where they left off, laughing and drinking, as they embark on a night that will truly change their lives.
But there’s also a dark side to Dylan & Zoey that writer-director Matt Sauter, who was born and raised in Brighton, Colorado, was intent on bringing to the fore of the flm.
“I was molested as a child,” Sauter says. “I’m very open about this. I would speak to my friends ad nauseam about it. They would often tell me to write about my take on it. But I didn’t feel comfortable telling my story at the time. So it was a bit of a waiting game, trying to fnd the right time to talk about it.”
Sauter fnally felt ready after watching Richard Linklater’s Before Sunrise trilogy. Written by the celebrated director alongside co-stars Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, the three flms revolve around a couple who fall in love, rekindle their relationship, and then deal with the realities of marriage.
“All of the flms opened up my eyes to a story between two people that’s very intimate and in real time. They were just so charming,” Sauter says. “I knew this was how I wanted to tell my story. Because, whenever I told it to people, it was in a one-on-one situation, and in a very intimate setting. That's what Dylan & Zoey is: intimate conversations, going back and forth between two old friends.”
When it came time to write the flm, Sauter ventured back to Colorado from his home in Los Angeles, where he’s lived for years while working as an actor and writer. “You can leave Colorado, but it doesn't leave you,” Sauter says. “I keep fnding myself back here to recharge my batteries. This is where I get my writing done. This is where Dylan & Zoey was written. It's my sanctuary.”
Colorado renaissance
The Centennial State is also where Sauter’s passion for storytelling and acting was born at a very young age. After performing in his frst play in the third grade, Sauter became a theater major at college in Wyoming, then went to the renowned Stella Adler Academy in Los Angeles. This is where he met both Doumit and Scott Lewis. It was around this time that Sauter started to write more.
“Acting was the foundation that everything else was built upon,” he says. “But I just had this passion to tell stories in my own vernacular.”
Sauter got encouragement from others in his acting class, which is where he met the crew that would eventually work on Dylan & Zoey. “The tentacles from the people in the class reached out to other people that we brought on board. That’s how I built my community,” he says. “I always tell people who are trying to break into the industry, if you’re moving to a new town, get into a writing, acting or directing program. It’s a great springboard to meet like-minded people who all want to work in the industry.”
At the same time, Sauter says creative people in smaller states should all band together and form their own artistic communities, too. Especially in Colorado, where he says the flm scene is lagging behind artforms like music and comedy. For the time being, anyway.
“I feel like we're ripe for Colorado to have its own little renaissance in flm. That'll come with tax structures in the state and tax incentives,” he says. “But there are great directors from Boulder and a lot of creatives of all ages in the state. And, of course, Colorado has a beautiful backdrop for flm.”
Sauter says his Colorado roots have enhanced his writing, especially when it comes to fnding empathy in all of his characters, whether he likes or agrees with them. “Being from Brighton, you don’t judge people on their thoughts on issues. You judge them for their heart and who they are,” he says. “That’s something as a storyteller I'm very interested in. I want to have empathy for a wide breadth of people and not just be, ‘Oh, well, you think this way. That doesn't jive with where I'm at.’ Colorado has always had a very communal and accepting community.”
Sauter is hopeful there are lessons to be taken away from Dylan & Zoey, too, especially when it comes to giving a voice to people who have gone through sexual abuse.
“I believe that if I talk about it this way, there's got to be other people out there who have the same feeling about it,” he says. “Most flms deal with it in a very serious way. I appreciate those stories. But I wanted to show people just talking about it, making jokes about it, and dealing with it on a day-to-day basis. Hopefully it’ll make people not feel alone in that regard. Even if it’s just one person.” ON SCREEN: Dylan & Zoey is playing in select theaters and available on demand through Prime Video.
