Our Philosophy

We are play-wrights—builders of game; creators of theater.  We analyze the world around us to see what fun we can bring to life.  Functioning as a team and looking out for each other with massive hearts, we celebrate our differences and take big old risks that often leave us flat on our faces. But we get right back up again, because we’re on a journey together, and we have learning to do.  Theater is our way into this learning, even if we’ve never done it before. 

Viola Spolin, the godmother of improv in America, says, “Everyone can act.  Everyone can improvise.  Anyone who wishes to can play in the theater and learn to become stageworthy.” We take this as a calling.  So, we learn to act—really act, and do a lot of improv.  We learn advanced techniques that college kids can barely handle and we do scene work that we know they would run from.  We put on great plays and musicals that we have no business doing.  It doesn’t matter who gets what role or if it’s someone’s first show—our ensemble must be the one to succeed.  We blow our audiences away with our performances.  They’ve never seen anything like them.  Others of us design sets and lights and props and costumes and sound.  Some of us produce.  Wanna invest?  We can handle it.  We make it clear that great theater can happen anywhere, especially right on your doorstep. 

We read scripts, ask questions, and learn about theater history—and just cause we’re still young doesn’t mean we don’t understand Shakespeare.  In fact, sometimes it’s the only thing that speaks to us. We write plays that we can see ourselves in, we learn to take up space with our bodies, and we find the power in our voices.  We create projections, make puppets, dance, and sing.  But most importantly we learn to listen, to make space for our friends, and to hear what they have to say.  By understanding each other’s goals, we begin to comprehend our own. 

We figure out what each of us needs and how we can get there.  We know that our department belongs to all of us and that each of us are leaders in charge of our own learning.  We get good at self-assessment to keep track of where we are.  We understand that some things take hard work, really hard work, but we’re not afraid of challenges.  And we’re not afraid to tear down barriers that keep some us running in place.  Day after day, we wade into challenging waters, and day after day we see the depths of those waters shift.