Performance is our primary activity at Firehouse and so we're rededicating ourselves to the process of making as we focus on new scripts, devised work, and reconsiderations of world classics.
The way that most non-profit theatres put together their seasons is that the artistic director picks some plays a year in advance to fill standardized season slots. These play choices are most often based on pragmatic requirements including budget, cast size, artist availability, personal preference, potential box office, content, mission, and community standards. Then artists are hired to make the productions of the plays that the artistic director chose in a fairly standardized process of rehearsing for about a month, adding technical elements during the last week, then opening the show for a limited run.
While this process of performance making is time and cost effective, it's not necessarily the best or only way.
Since our mission is to be an artistic home and since we've decided to explore new ways of making work, we invited some artists who we love to propose projects and tell us how they wanted to work on these projects. What follows is a list of artists and projects that we're going to be working on this year. Some may be produced in regular performance runs this year, others may be presented as work-in-progress showings or member-only previews, and there will be projects that aren't listed here that we'll announce when they're ready.
We're working on NEW SCRIPTS by
Doug Jones (SONGS FROM BEDLAM / Oct 2018), J.C. Gonzalez (WARM), Tom Kazas (a Wild West play), Dixon Cashwell / Nu Puppis (WRONG CHOPPED), and other surprise RVA writers.
We're working on DEVISED WORKS with directors Emma Givens + Boomie Pedersen (WITCHES), Joel Bassin (DEATH, STORY, FOOD), and others TBA.
We're working on RECONSIDERATIONS OF WORLD CLASSICS with Josh Chenard (Moliere's THE IMAGINARY INVALID / Sept 2018), Vinnie Gonzalez (A gospel version of Sophocles' OEDIPUS REX / Feb+March 2019), Mark Lerman, and other artists and titles TBA.
Our FRINGE favorites like Happy Hour Poetry, K Dance's YES! Dance Festival, Burlesque Right Meow, Matt Venuti, Firehouse Radio Players, River City Vaudeville, HamiltunesRVA, and Firehouse Playreading Roundtable will return, and we're launching new FRINGE and FIREHOUSE FORUM programs like Death Club Radio LIVE, First Drafts and Bagels, Ruckus Watusi, First Mondays Music with The Whiskey Rebellion, Discount Tuna sketch comedy, E.A.T. Foundation's pop-up dining performances, K Dance's SHORTS, Anthony Dowd's JAZZ seminars and concerts, Science Play Festival,
David London's HUMBUG: THE GREAT P.T. BARNUM SÉANCE in partnership with the Branch Museum, and many, many more performance experiences of all kinds.
To order memberships for A SEASON OF MAKING please call 804.355.2001.
