Won Best Experimental Theater

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Text taken from the saved copy (where a page was only an image, it was machine-read and may contain errors — check against the page image before quoting). Copyright remains with the original publisher; kept for the historical record.

Archived copy for research · saved for the Matt Sesow Career Chronicle, history.sesow.com, October 11, 2026
Title: Matt Sesow says he created "Collateral Damage (Living Hell)" to shine a light on the grief and pain of war
Publisher: Peace Corps Online (posted April 2, 2005; reprint of local coverage)
Date: March 31, 2005
Original URL: https://peacecorpsonline.org/messages/messages/2629/2030514.html
Why it matters: Describes the 8 x 9 foot painting used as the set for ten short anti-war plays in Phoenix, April 2005.
Copyright remains with the original publisher. Reproduced for reference and scholarship; contact sesow@sesow.com
with any request.

March 31, 2005: Headlines: COS - Solomon Islands: Art: Painting: Disabilities: Iraq: Get Out: Matt Sesow says
he created “Collateral Damage (Living Hell)” to shine a light on the grief and pain of war.
Peace Corps Online: Peace Corps News: Peace Corps Library: Painting: Archive of Stories: March 31, 2005:
Headlines: COS - Solomon Islands: Art: Painting: Disabilities: Iraq: Get Out: Matt Sesow says he created
“Collateral Damage (Living Hell)” to shine a light on the grief and pain of war.
By Admin1 (admin) (pool-151-196-181-108.balt.east.verizon.net - 151.196.181.108) on Saturday, April 02, 2005
- 10:04 pm: Edit Post
Matt Sesow says he created “Collateral Damage (Living Hell)” to shine a light on the grief and pain of war.

Matt Sesow says he created “Collateral Damage (Living Hell)” to shine a light on the grief and pain of war.
Playwrights explore politics through painting, acting
By CHRIS PAGE
Get Out
We interrupt the regularly scheduled coverage of the Michael Jackson trial to bring you the following reminder:
There’s still a war going on.
Nearly two years after President Bush declared major combat operations over in Iraq, Valley playwright and director
Raymond Shurtz is contributing a wartime wake-up call with “Collateral Damage,” a theater production staging 10
plays, each 10 minutes long, written in response to a painting by Washington, D.C., artist Matt Sesow, exploring the
ancillary effects of war.
[Excerpt]
This time, he scoured historical war paintings before stumbling onto a Web site of Sesow’s war-themed paintings. “As
soon as I saw them,” Shurtz says, “I immediately responded.”
Sesow, 38, is a former software engineer for IBM who has established himself as a self-taught painter. He’s known
both for a childhood accident with a landing airplane that resulted in the amputation of an arm and for colorful,
powerful abstract paintings that channel the artist’s inner demons and anger.
Sesow says he created “Collateral Damage (Living Hell)” to shine a light on the grief and pain of war.
“The idea,” he says, “was a family caught in some bombing campaign.”
Coffins are lined up in a corner, and severed arms holding scimitars — a nod to Baghdad’s “Hands of Victory” arches
— float above. The artist’s emotions, he says, are on full display in his exploration of death and suffering.

“I was traveling back from a solo show in Atlanta, and some guy stopped me and asked if I was in the military, if I had
just gotten back from Iraq, because I’m missing an arm and my hair is cut short,” he says. “As a society, we have a lot
of feeling for those who are suffering. I want to give a tribute to the troops.”
The painter says he spent a week working on the large-format “Collateral Damage,” and that the 8-by-9-foot painting
filled the floor of his cramped studio apartment. Sesow says he accepted the almost pro bono commission (Shurtz paid
the cost of materials and for Sesow’s flight to come to opening night of the show; the piece will go on sale for $2,000
after the show closes) because he’s impressed by the artistic boldness of Shurtz and the participating playwrights.
“The historical significance of taking a chance on something like this during a war is pretty ballsy,” Sesow says.
“Sometimes we like to wait to see how things shake out before we form our opinions on them.”
Shurtz expects audiences anticipating an evening of screaming, “Embedded”-style agitprop will be surprised by the
varied tone of the plays presented in “Collateral Damage.”
One poignant piece comes from Metro Arts humanities teacher Renee Simms, 38, who juxtaposes a news conference
asking Americans to stop donating food to military bomb-sniffing dogs with a scene in which an Iraqi family dog,
loose in the city after her home was destroyed, contemplates eating a human corpse.
Other plays explore wartime journalists, soldiers assigned to identify bodies and, in Chuck Hinckley’s “Chili Cheese
Fries,” a soldier dealing with his first kill — his interpreter and guide. Shurtz says bringing the show together has
sparked lively debate among cast members, and he hopes discussion continues with audiences. A self-described
pacifist, Shurtz says the show has helped him further formulate his own opinions.
“Usually, when I don’t know,” he says, “I’ll do theater to find out.”
‘Collateral Damage’
When: Opens Fri.April 1, runs 8 p.m. Thu.-Sat. through April 16
Where: Metro Arts Institute, 1700 N. Seventh Ave., Phoenix
How much: $10, $8 for students
Info: (602) 258-4798

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Crisis Corps arrives in Thailand
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March 26, 2005: RPCV Groups in the News
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Story Source: Get Out
This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; COS - Solomon Islands; Art; Painting; Disabilities;
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