23/01/2017
A Letter from our Artistic Director:
To our Friends and Audience,
After 3 seasons and 11 productions, Threepenny Theatre Company is closing our doors. I want to start with a look back at our time together, express my gratitude, and say good-bye.
The mission of 3PT was to engage the H.E.A.R.T. Through our explosive start, missteps and overreaches, growing pains, big successes, third and fourth contingency plans, and sometimes nothing but sheer force of will, I am happy to say we were successful in our mission.
We were a Home for artistic growth - a place where artists could experiment and grow free of judgement or shame. There are many actors over the years who I saw come out of their shells and give honest and fearless performances that I knew they had in them, but hadn't seen before. Actors given the support and chance to share something within them that no one had given them before. There were even some older ones who learned something new, or gave something more fully of themselves.
We Excited our audience - by telling stories that matter to us now in new and innovative ways. Whether it was the non-stop laughs in the lover's quarrel or Pyramus and Thisby from Midsummer, the air turning murky red during Lady M's handwashing scene, Tartuffe reimagined and set in Memphis for Memphians and not tourists, the final scene of Long Day's where you could hear a pin drop, the pounding drums and blood-red c*c in Dido, Michael and Meghan's gossamer-thin moments in Brilliant Traces, tearing down the curtain and revealing the projection screen in Freeman of Color with Hattiloo, the breathless ending to Talk to Me Like the Rain, the hellish shadows and sadistic glee in New World Order, or the sudden and accidental murder in Zoo Story, I hope we gave you old classics with new eyes and a chance to experience work you may not have otherwise.
We were Accessible to everyone. Aside from every single performance being Set-Your-Own-Admission (and running most shows in the black - not an easy feat when your ticket price is "What do you think it's worth?") we strove for a marriage of text and action, as Hamlet says "Suit the action to the word and the word to the action." - from the 8 year old who could follow Midsummer even if she didn't understand all the words, to the sold-out high school audiences of Macbeth. We never dumbed down the language - our actors knew what they were saying and felt it in the same moment. I'm most proud of the people who had never seen a play before, brought in by low ticket prices or beer, loving Shakespeare "I never knew it could be so funny!" or nearly four hours of O'Neill. Many of those people saw our shows 3 or 4 times.
We Reflected humanity truthfully - good and bad, and most importantly, played without judgement. Jeff played Egeus not as a patriarchal tyrant who saw his daughter as property, but as a father doing his damnedest to keep his little girl from ruining herself and making sure she would be cared for after he was gone. Dylan's building repetition of the word "all" in the England scene was utterly heartbreaking "He has no children. All my pretty ones? Did you say all? O hell-kite! All? What, all my pretty chickens and their dam at one fell swoop?" All five actors in Long Day's gave some of the most realistic performances I've ever seen live. Those of you who have ever seen a loved one out of their minds recognized that awful moment when Christina was so far gone in the past and drugs she didn't recognize her youngest son and started hitting on him. Meghan's monologue in Brilliant Traces drew you in so much, by the time the action moved and you finally looked away her silhouette was burned into your vision. So many audience members told me about multiple shows "It's like you're looking in a window at someone's real life".
Above all, we strove to Transform people through compassion. I have no way to measure this. I hope that by drawing you in and entertaining you, the big, open-heartedness that defined our work made you more compassionate towards your fellow humans. One play I wanted Threepenny to do but never got the chance was The Tempest. In the world we live in today of smartphones and political division, we don't listen to each other, we're not present with each other, and we don't put each other first before ourselves or the dogma we believe in. To me, the Tempest is about a man who gains incredible power, but gives it up for what truly matters, and what we truly need above all else. This is the theme of the Tempest, and if I could sit you down and make you hear one thing, it would be this:
"Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.
Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never fails."
I want to thank all of the people who made Threepenny possible. Please forgive me if I fail to mention you here: Jeremy and Kristen, Phil and Katharine, Terry and Jessica, Bill and John, Mike and Davis, Meredith, Jeff, Meghan, Standrew, Chris, Shaleen, Emily, Miranda, Dani, Steven, Dylan, Josh, Beverly, Gabe, Isaac, Leslie, Bernie, Ek, Jackie, Elizabeth, Julie, Margaret, Laura, Karin, Gene, Fred, Mike, Jon, Slade, Elliot, Michael, John, Emily, Aris, David, Ron, Zach, Kristen, Luis, Andrew, Tyler, Daniell, Sarah, Kacky, Carol, Marlene, Shila, Tarun, Brent, Janice, Jo, Joey, Holly, Lindsay, Bill, Jillian, Christina, Cookie, Betty, C**t, Jared, Kathleen, Robin, Mark, Rebecca, Eric, Justin, Mallory, Jerry, Kilby, Tony, Kerry, Corey, Bertram, Alice, Aliza, Doug, Andy, Riley, Bruce, Kinon, Greg, Jaclyn, Jerre, Lizzie, Ronnie, Ryan, everyone who came, everyone who gave, and everyone who helped spread the word.
THANK YOU!!
There's a funny thing that happened at the end of Midsummer. Even though it was 90 minutes of almost non-stop laughs (several audience members informed me that they literally peed themselves, maybe that had more to do with the lack of intermission than the play) a good deal of the audience was in tears at the end. My feeling is that we just spent 90 minutes in a world where everyone tries their best, everyone acts out of the bigness of their heart, and everyone gets to come home at the end. At the end of the play, we have to go back to the real world. Giving the epilogue is an actor (Puck) who's been our guide throughout the entire process. It's in the mid-line pause, the hesitation to say goodbye, the stalling so beautifully delivered every time by my favorite Puck (Standrew), my favorite because of the hugeness and generousness of his heart, stalling like I'm stalling now as I sit here typing this, that expresses that moment so beautifully and truthfully.
"If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended—
That you have but slumbered here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream,
Gentles, do not reprehend.
If you pardon, we will mend.
And, as I am an honest Puck,
If we have unearnèd luck
Now to ’scape the serpent’s tongue,
We will make amends ere long.
Else the Puck a liar call.
So... good night! ...unto you all.
Give me your hands if we be friends,
And Robin shall restore amends."
"So, good night, unto you all..."
