Language is a problem, especially if you're trying to communicate emotional information to someone else. Words aren't enough, and yet they mean too much. And some words even mean the opposite of what they mean—I'm looking at you, "weathered," "cleave," "literally," and all other contronyms. Wouldn't it be nice to just dispense with all this word nonsense all together? Michelle Ellsworth seems to think so. In this installation/performance piece, she's constructed "21 prototypes (aka possible solutions to language)" and placed them throughout On the Boards, including in the bathrooms and stairwells. "The work is particularly site responsive to the plumbing at OTB," press materials read, somewhat cryptically. (Urinal art?) She's also doing a live demonstration of another prototype in the studio space. She's setting all this up to create "non-language-based, non-mediated, human-to-human encounters" in the theater. by Rich Smith