In its upcoming festival, the Brain-Based Collective at Irvine Theater Company asks a central compelling question: “Is Ignorance Bliss?”
David Ihrig, artistic director and founder of Irvine Theater Company, was inspired to form the Brain-Based collective, a group of dramatic artists who meet every Tuesday to write and create short plays together, based on his work at the University of California, Irvine, where he taught a class called the “The Science of Acting.” Taking what he learned from working directly with neuroscientists, he developed seven steps to creating and embodying character, which guide the group’s work.
“We believe dramatic artists use our brains the same way to write and to act, or in a very similar way. So we all wear whatever hat is necessary at the time,” Ihrig told Culture OC. “We don’t have writers and actors and directors. We can all fulfill all those roles using this brain-based model.”
While brainstorming a theme for the group’s second festival, happening Nov. 6-14 at Canvas Church in Irvine, Ihrig landed on the idea of exploring what we pretend not to notice, which he says lends perfectly to the group’s behavior-driven approach.
“We believe that we all behave according to our belief systems. Our beliefs determine our behavior. This idea of what we pretend not to notice is the thing that sustains our belief systems,” Ihrig said. “We had six different people, and six different stories were immediately born as we started exploring this content.”
Ihrig founded Irvine Theater Company in 2022, and its first production was “The Real Story of the Migrant Mother,” created and rehearsed using Ihrig’s brain-based methodology. The Brain-Based Collective, which currently has six members, produced its first show, “Disconnected: The Stories We Stand to Lose,” in 2025. All featured writers were first-time playwrights.
Annie Young, who participates in the Brain-Based Collective with her daughter, Collette Kwan, first heard about the group on social media and knew she had to join.
“Have you heard of when people go back to the theater and they just feel that bug and they want to do more?” Young said. “Oh, that was me, and I wanted to share it with my daughter, but there were either classes for just kids or adults, and she was 16.”
The mother-daughter duo was featured in the first festival and is looking forward to performing in “Is Ignorance Bliss?” as well. In her play “How May I Help You?” Young personifies different AI chatbots staffing ‘80s- and ‘90s-style crisis hotlines. Young was compelled to write this play after she experienced a heart attack three years ago and found herself frequently consulting AI, though she soon realized the pitfalls.
“I’m not talking to a person. I’m talking to a machine, and it’s copying my patterns,” Young said. “Everyone is so addicted to AI and solving their problems.”
Young got creative exploring the linguistic differences between each of the chatbots as she wrote her play. While she used the AI agents to get inspiration, she didn’t directly copy and paste their language. Instead, she replicated their language herself.
“I hope if people don’t even know the AIs, they’ll at least understand the human behaviors and the message of my play, which is ultimately are we putting all our answers into outside sources?” Young said. “Are we outsourcing all our problems when sometimes it can be solved with simple communication with each other, talking to each other, having human discussions, human interactions.”
Kwan, who just started her freshman year studying theater at Hartwick College in New York, explored her personal experiences with homophobia while writing her play, “Metathesiophobia,” which means “fear of change.” She wrote a male and female version of the play based on differing experiences. While the female version will be staged as part of the festival, she hopes to produce the other version one day as well.
“One of the arguments (the mother character) will say in the male version is that he’s not actually gay because he won’t wear a dress and makeup,” Kwan said. “It sounds ridiculous, but it’s something people have actually said, and stuff I’ve actually heard said to my friends. They believe that to be gay, you have to fit this stereotype.”
Director Juliette Gordy leads cast members rehearse in a vocal warm-up for Irvine Theater Company’s “Is Ignorance Bliss?: What We Pretend Not to Notice.” Photo courtesy of Irvine Theater Company/Dan Meyers 
Actors rehearse “Bite the Hand” for Irvine Theater Company’s “Is Ignorance Bliss?: What We Pretend Not to Notice.” Pictured from left: Herald Garcia, Kayla Bulrice, Mackenzie Wong. Photo courtesy of Irvine Theater Company/Annie Young
Meanwhile, playwright Dan Meyers called upon his former experience as a public school teacher to pen his short play, “Parental Guidance Suggested.” In it, he portrays a young boy with behavioral issues whose mother enables his behavior, even as it gets out of control.
“Some of that is from my personal experience as a parent of a problem child, and then some of it is from my teaching experience with parent conferences and seeing this from parents who are a little overly permissive. And frankly, there’s a flip side to that: the parents who are overly strict,” Meyers said. “And what (the mother in the play) chooses to ignore (her child’s) behavior and dismiss his behavior.”
If you Go
‘Is Ignorance Bliss?: What We Pretend Not to Notice’
When: 7:30 p.m. Nov. 6 and 13; 3 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Nov. 7 and 14
Where: Canvas Church, 17332 Von Karman Ave., #115, Irvine
Tickets: $28.03
More Info: https://irvinetheatercompany.com/is-ignorance-bliss
Ihrig also aims to take a “cinematic storytelling” approach to Irvine Theater Company’s productions. The company has experimented with using dynamic LED walls to display videos and other digital media during performances to enhance audience experience. Ihrig has also submitted a proposal to the city of Irvine to create a Las Vegas Sphere-like theater at Great Park to utilize this technology on a greater scale in Orange County.
For the artists involved in the Brain-Based Collective, the group’s work has pushed them to explore the dramatic arts in a different way. Meyers plans to write a longer play sometime in the near future, while Kwan says the methodology has already helped her with her playwriting class at school. Meanwhile, Young is happy to have a place where she can bond with her daughter over their shared love of theater.
“I really appreciated being part of this collective. We’re a small group, and we do everything ourselves,” Young said. “We are trying to navigate arts funding not being given freely anymore. We’re trying to bring arts back into this community, into something people want to do — like going to see live theater.”
EDITOR’S NOTE
Annie Young, quoted in this story, is a contributor to Culture OC.
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