The Town Theatre Programs
One of our main partnerships is with Homeless in Seattle, where we produce an art event called “Facing the Art”, in which the community comes to share their art, stories, and friendship. Our hope is to create a space for the interchange of thoughts, feelings, and ideas, even among total strangers. Homeless in Seattle seeks to bring awareness to those living without shelter and basic needs. Many of those living without shelter are beautiful artists. This will be a place for them to thrive. We successfully held our first “Facing the Art” event last year, and plan to do another this summer.
Theatre of the Oppressed
This year we will be creating an ensemble that focuses on “Theatre of the Oppressed”. In February 2013, members of our company flew to New York City, to attend a workshop, in which they became certified “Jokers”, which are facilitators to this specific form of theatre. “Theatre of the Oppressed” is a means of promoting social and political change, and something that we feel Seattle could benefit from. We hope to work with Homeless in Seattle to create an ensemble, which will continuously work and explore this form of theatre.
The Town Theatre
This year we will also be taking The Town Theatre to the streets of Seattle, to find unique ways to make theatre accessible. One of our main missions as a company is to provide theatre where theater isn’t. By creating theatrical experiences that we can perform in places such as for example, on a street corner; we hope to make theatre inclusive. And in turn, listen to what our neighbors in Seattle have to say. Our ultimate goal is to take these events, and conversations that we have with different audiences in different neighborhoods and turn them into a performance piece that reflects the voice of Seattle, and its inhabitants.
Recent Successes and Current Challenges
This past fall, we produced a full production “Domesticity”, which is a new work play, that explores sex politics at the turn of the 20th century. By merging scenes from four shows that were written over a hundred years ago, a new yet timeless story is told of the ongoing women’s revolution. We took Domesticity to 8 different homes around the Seattle area, over the course of 3-weekends. At each home, we had to stage, and re-stage the show to fit into the specific houses, which added a level of excitement, and uniqueness for our performance each night. This production was a huge success. Not only did we receive great reviews from our audiences, but we sparked conversations between strangers that ultimately became friends over the course of the evening thanks to the Q and A/talk back we held after each performance. Domesticity created an environment where our audience members could critically examine and compare the issues presented in the play, to our society and city of Seattle. As a theatre company who values our community, and believes that everyone deserves to be heard, we accomplished more than we could have hoped for. Domesticity allowed us to realize that performing in untraditional spaces, such as in homes, is something that we are passionate about, and fulfills many aspects of our mission.
Also, due to the traveling aspect of our show, Domesticity allowed us to briefly meet and listen to different communities within Seattle. Our greatest need as a company is more opportunity for collaboration within Seattle neighborhoods. We'd love to expand our circle and get more ideas/gifts flowing in our ensemble to benefit the city. In order for us to be able to meet more artists we need to be volunteering and attending as many community and art events as possible.