Stimulus is a key factor in a child’s development.
Aspects from a child’s environment are crucial to the growth of their cognitive proficiency and emotional stability. Numerous inputs like color, sound and smell help shape parts of the human experience such as language and social consciousness. 
For the past nine months, Emily Mistrzak has been working to get her production “A Pigment of Your Imagination,” off the ground and ready to premiere at the HopKins Black Box Theatre. Based on the children’s book “The Day the Crayons Quit” by Drew Daywalt, “Pigment” follows crayons that go on strike against their child owner Duncan. After picketing and airing their grievances, the crayons discover there are repercussions to leaving the comfort of home.
“The show kind of explores what happens when a box of crayons quit,” Mistrzak said. “What happens when they leave the box and where they go? It follows them on their emotional journeys of what to do when they’re no
longer safe inside the box.” 
Mistrzak, University communication studies alumna, sees the role of sensory input as extremely important in the world of theater, and her contribution to the plot is a variety of provocative sensory sequences. 
“It explores the idea of synesthesia, which is a neurological thing where more than one sense react at the same time when triggered,” Mistrzak said. “So you can see music. You can smell color. You can taste sound. The show takes that and explores how we deal with this world of color.” 
Coupling with the psychological factor of synesthesia, Mistrzak said she hoped to implement the social aspect of color perception. People experience a type of social synesthesia, wherein colors have the power to produce different responses from different people. 
“There’s a small undertone of trying to figure out what color really means to us as human beings,” Mistrzak said. “Do we all react differently to color? In different cultures, different colors mean different things. What does color really have to do and what does it mean?” 
“Pigment” carries its own values and themes suitable for a more mature audience, despite being built from a children’s story. One overarching theme is the concept of groupthink and its resulting consequences.
“I think one of the major things we kind of explore is how different people react when the crisis situation is ‘everybody quits,’” Mistrzak said. “We explore what happens in a group dynamic when not everybody wants to quit, but they feel like they’re forced to for solidarity. There’s an element where we kind of get down to race and how race and skin color go together. How are they opposing? How do we use color to define how we look at the world?” 
The production’s plot sticks closely to Daywalt’s original book, but Mistrzak inserted several musical numbers to break the play into manageable acts. The songs are not originals by Mistrzak, but their popularity adds to the humor of “Pigment” when executed in her specific manner. 
“When I was conceiving the idea of the show, I wanted it to be true to the story, but I wanted it to be a lot of fun,” Mistrzak said. “I grew up doing theater. In the Black Box, we do a lot of things that are very experimental, a lot of avant-garde things, and I wanted to go back to my more traditional theater roots and say, ‘What happens when we paint backdrops and everybody has really colorful costumes and there are dance numbers and singing?’” 
Mistrzak wanted to weave her own thread of individuality into “Pigment.” In the play, she focuses on audience response, which is fitting with her intent to provoke the senses and the conscience. 
“As a director, I always like to have everyone who’s watching to just stop for a second and, at the end of the performance, they say, ‘Hmm, that’s something that I didn’t expect, and that’s something that I want to think about more.’ Then I feel like it’s been successful,” Mistrzak said.
You can reach Gerald Ducote on Twitter @geraldducoteTDR.

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Raegan Labat

Peyton Cacioppo and Connie Lawson perform as Tangerine and Lemon in a new original adaptation- A Pigment of Your Imagination. The show will run Thursday, October 9 through Saturday at 7:30 pm and Sunday, November 2 at 2:30 pm in HopKins Black Box Theatre.