WHAT WE DO
Past Productions
On The
Exhale
February 2023
In this site-specific production, a single mom and women's studies professor finds herself living in an America where “concealed carry is the law of the land.” After experiencing a senseless act of violence, she develops a sudden attraction to the very weapon used to perpetrate the crime—and to the irresistible feeling of power that comes from holding life and death in her hands. After each performance, the creative team hosted an interactive community conversation co-sponsored by the Ohio State University’s College of Public Health. Jennifer Beard, the Assistant Dean of Strategic Initiatives facilitated a discussion that invited audiences to acknowledge their collective grief in response to gun violence, imagine other possible futures, and create sustainable solutions.
Gruesome
Playground
Injuries
May 2022
In this site-specific production, a single mom and women's studies professor finds herself living in an America where “concealed carry is the law of the land.” After experiencing a senseless act of violence, she develops a sudden attraction to the very weapon used to perpetrate the crime—and to the irresistible feeling of power that comes from holding life and death in her hands. After each performance, the creative team hosted an interactive community conversation co-sponsored by the Ohio State University’s College of Public Health. Jennifer Beard, the Assistant Dean of Strategic Initiatives facilitated a discussion that invited audiences to acknowledge their collective grief in response to gun violence, imagine other possible futures, and create sustainable solutions.
Sound and Fury
Signifying...
December 2021
Created in residency at the Hybrid Arts Lab, we used the text of Shakespeare’s Macbeth to closely examine the seeds of ambition and power that exist within each of us. Experimenting with amplified sound, found objects, and live projected video, we invited the audience to help them answer the question: how do we as individuals and members of a collective body respond to the tyranny and evil that can emerge from those seeds? Through immersion and participation, the audience was challenged to confront their own capacity for tyranny and consider how they are puppets of tyrannical forces.
Beware,
She bites!
May 2021
A Woman like Eve confronts a Man like Adam at dinner after they have been kicked out of a place like the Garden of Eden. She stands atop a dining room table, justifying her reasons for eating the forbidden fruit, navigating a space that has been constructed by others, and projecting new images on her body. The play takes on epic and everyday proportions in examining how the stories we tell can shape our identity and inspire acts of violence and empathy.
Mr. Shirley at the
End of the World
May 2021
The world is ending and Mr. Shirley has a big question on his mind: How will he be remembered if everyone in the world is wiped from existence? With help from his friends The Massive Face In The Sky and Shirley the Dinosaur, Mr. Shirley describes the catastrophic fate of the world to his viewers with upbeat, Fred Rodgers-esque composure. Questions surrounding how we as a species got to this point, why we didn’t collectively come together to prevent our extinction, and what is worth holding on to weigh heavily on Mr. Shirley’s mind as he slips out of his cardigan for one final time and the earth is consumed by a cosmic object beyond our solar system.
