A New Year

Tags

dog sees god, gablestage, outre

Well, the first half of our pre-season is completed, and we’re gearing up for our next two shows!  Ros and Guil at New Theatre and Buried Child at the Byron Carlyle were both successes, and coming up next is Burt Royal’s Dog Sees God, hosted by the South Florida theatre powerhouse GableStage!

Dog Sees God will also see our first auditions, which will be announced sometime in early to mid-February.  For those of you unfamiliar with the show, Royal has reimagined the Peanuts characters as teenagers, and this dark comedy takes on such varied topics as homophobia, OCD, sex, death, and illicit substances.  Join us on March 19 at GableStage in the historic Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables, as we bring Royal’s disturbingly funny look at CB, Van, Tricia, and the rest.

By this time next month, we will also have decided on three shows for Outré’s first full season!  We’re tremendously excited about putting on these technically innovative, thought-provoking shows – and you’ll be the first to hear what they are!

Finally, Outré is going to be kicking off its capital campaign, with the goal being to raise the funds for us to create a black box theatre where we and other artists can perform and workshop the kind of challenging and innovative shows and classes that you’ve come to expect from Outré!  We’re excited to get this next stage of Outré’s mission started, and we hope you’ll be able to help us!

Lots of things coming up!  Thanks to all of you for your support and love as Outré has begun to spread its wings!  And don’t forget to watch On Stage with Iris Acker in February to see Nori and Skye!

One Week Until “Ros and Guil”!

Well, folks, only one week left until Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead at New Theatre!  Wow, our first reading!  We hope all of you can make it, and we want to thank all of you who contributed to our IndieGoGo fundraiser – this wouldn’t have happened without you!

When you come to see the show next Monday, you may notice a slight change in the cast.  Mark Della Ventura and David Sirois, who were playing Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, got an amazing opportunity to perform four of their original plays in New York!  With our blessings and wishes of broken legs, they had to bow out of this reading, although you may see them in one of the upcoming shows.

In our hour of need, Jameson Hammond and Noah Levine graciously stepped up and offered to take on these challenging roles.  You’ll absolutely love them!  Jameson is currently in GableStage’s touring production of Julius Caesar, and you may have caught Noah in Promethean’s production of Songs of the Living Dead this past summer (he’s also in SlowBurn’s upcoming production of Rocky Horror!).  So welcome to these two fantastic actors!

For those of you unfamiliar with New Theatre’s space, it only holds 99 seats.  We’re hoping for quite a crowd, so you might want to reserve seats for the reading.  You can do so by calling 954.300.2149, or by emailing info@outretheatrecompany.com.  Remember, tickets are only a suggested donation of $8, and you’ll see an amazing performance by some wonderful actors.

See you there!

Upcoming Events!

Tags

florida press club, ros and guil, upcoming events, w4cy

Hey, folks!  Things are pretty busy over here, as we gear up for the upcoming staged reading of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead over at New Theatre on October 24!  First, this Tuesday, October 4, we’ll be headed up to Palm Beach to be interviewed by Jason Fisher on “Five Minutes to Curtain,” on W4CY Radio.  The show will be broadcast at 12 noon on Tuesday, and then rebroadcast again at noon on Friday, so listen in to hear us discuss the future of Outré, what it’s like to run a theatre company, and our upcoming shows!

 

Then, the very next day, we’ve been invited to participate in a Florida Press Club Luncheon, along with our friends over at Infinite Abyss, as well as Alliance Theatre Lab and a few other area theatres, where we’ll discuss small theatres in South Florida with members of the media.  It’s a great opportunity to get some exposure before Ros and Guil goes up, and we’re looking forward to sharing the podium with some very talented people.

 

Finally, of course, is Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead itself!  We’re less than four weeks out, and we can’t tell you guys how excited we are!  We have an amazing cast, and we owe our undying love and gratitude to New Theatre for hosting us.  We’re only asking for an $8 contribution at the door, which will go towards helping us put on our very next staged reading, which will be Buried Child by Sam Shepard on December 12 at Broward Stage Door.

 

So a lot of things are going on!  As always, we thank all of you who are accompanying us on this wild ride – we couldn’t do it without you!  See you on the 24th!

The Outré Website is Live!

For the past month, Josh Riggs has been hard at work, building and designing Outré Theatre Company’s website.  We are thrilled to announce that the website is now completed and live.  There, you will be able to see upcoming shows, photos and video from previous shows, learn a bit about Outré’s managing and artistic directors and its board, keep up with announcements, and contribute to the creation of raw, visceral theatre.  Eventually you will also be able to purchase tickets and season passes online as well, as we prepare to find Outré’s permanent home by the summer of 2012.

 

Take a few minutes and check out the fruits of Josh’s hard work.  We’d love to get feedback from you, so send us an email and tell us what you think!

Behind the Curtain, Part 1: The Staged Reading

Tags

guildenstern, outre, reading, rosencrantz, theatre

As we approach Outré’s first foray into the public eye, the staged reading of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead to be performed at New Theatre on October 24, we thought we’d give you a little bit of insight into the process behind the production.   This will be the first in a series of intermittent blog posts in which we show you, our friends and colleagues, a little of the magic and madness that goes on before the lights go up.

 

Nori and Skye chose Rosencrantz and Guildenstern because of Stoppard’s humorous and incisive look at how we deal with the nature of reality.  The show fits our stated goals of bringing to life theatre that is thought-provoking and action-inducing.  Once we chose the script, it then had to be adapted to fit the nuances of a staged reading, as opposed to a full production.  Because we don’t have set or costumes for a staged reading, and because our props and blocking are minimal, we use a narrator to deliver the stage directions to the audience.  So we have to decide: what actions will the actors perform?  Which will be described by the narrator?  How do we convey the intent of the playwright, who wrote this to be fully performed?  What props are absolutely necessary?  What blocking should be kept, and what should be cut?

 

We’re lucky enough to know many, many talented South Florida actors, so when it came time to cast the show, we were able to call our friends and invite them to accompany us on this grand adventure of ours.  Unlike a full performance, there were no auditions for this production; instead, we asked people we knew, whose work we had seen and loved, to lend their talents to this project.  Once all nine actors had confirmed, Skye went to work on retyping the script, editing for the nuances of the staged reading and adding the narrator.  The script is now in the hands of the actors, who are looking it over, and discussing with Skye the meanings and intentions behind Stoppard’s beautifully hilarious scenes.

 

Our next steps now include getting the word out about the reading, which will also serve as a fundraiser for Outré, and preparing for our rehearsal time.  Look for upcoming mentions in the media about Outré and its productions, and if you’ve liked our page on Facebook or are following us on Twitter, look for the event invitation coming up very soon!  If you’d like to help us out, drop us an email, either through the blog or at info@outretheatrecompany.com.

 

We hope you’ve found this little tidbit of the background to the reading intriguing – as we get closer to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, look for more behind-the-curtain posts!

Rollout Begins This Week!

Tags

fundraising, IRS, outre, rollout

Outré’s rollout begins this week!  We’ll be sending out press releases, taking promo shots, and taking the website live!  The Twitter and Facebook accounts have been live for a few weeks now, and the blog’s been up for a couple weeks as well, but this is where it starts to get serious.  Here we begin to truly present ourselves to the South Florida arts community, and the world at large.  For those of you who have been with us from the start, your love and support has meant so much to us.  For those of you just joining our journey, welcome!  We’re glad to have you along!

 

Some more fantastic news as well!  We’ve received confirmation from the IRS that they are processing our 501(c)3 application, so we expect to be tax-exempt by late November or early December.  While we feel that theatre, like any business, should be run with the goal of operating as much within its means as possible, we recognize the reality that grant and sponsorship monies are almost necessary in the financial well-being of an artistic endeavor.  So this latest step towards our tax-exempt status is another movement towards making sure this dream of ours is long-lasting.

 

Speaking of financial stability, our crowdfunding campaign over at IndieGoGo is going well!  So far we’ve raised over $2000 of the $7000 we expect to need for our 2011/2012 pre-season, which is a sizable chunk, but it still leaves us $5000 to raise in the next 40 days.  We recently changed the pitch video, so check it out and tell us what you think.  And, of course, if you can pitch a couple bucks our way, we’d appreciate it, but we’ll still love you even if you can’t.

 

So keep an eye out over the next week or so, as Outré Theatre Company begins to make itself known!  And while you’re waiting for October 24 to see Ros and Guil, make sure you check out some of the other fantastic theatre going on here in South Florida – Promethean, New Theatre, Mad Cat, GableStage, and Caldwell all have brilliant shows going on right now!

 

 

Ros and Guil are at New Theatre!

Tags

new theatre, outre, reading, ros and guil, theatre

Our friends at New Theatre in Coral Gables have graciously offered to host Outré on its first foray into the public eye, with our staged reading of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard!  And now, we’d like to announce the wonderfully talented group of actors who will be gracing the New Theatre stage in Outré’s debut:

Rosencrantz:     Mark Della Ventura

Guildenstern:     David Sirois

The Player:     Scott Douglas Wilson

Hamlet:     Mickey Jaiven

Ophelia:     Audra Yokley

Claudius:     Thomas Falborn

Gertrude:     Kitt Marsh

Polonius:     Alyn Darnay

Be sure to set aside October 24 at 7 pm, and join us in Coral Gables for Stoppard’s absurdly funny examination of identity, existence, and boats!

Outré: South Florida’s Newest Theatre Company!

Tags

2011/2012, fundraising, outre, readings

Welcome to the Outré Theatre Company’s blog!  Here you’ll be able to find news on what Outré is up to, upcoming shows and events, and random musings about the state of theatre, both in South Florida and worldwide.

The past couple weeks have been busy and intense, as Outré gears up for its 2011/2012 pre-season.  Our Facebook page has gone live, our Twitter feed is up and running, we’ve been working hard with our web designer to get our website ready to go, and we’ve started an IndieGoGo fundraising campaign to help raise the funds for our pre-season.

For 2011/2012, Outré will be presenting a series of staged readings and concert series across South Florida.  Our first will be Tom Stoppard’s hilariously thought-provoking Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, hosted by our friends at New Theatre on October 24, 2011.  We’ll be following that with Buried Child by Sam Shepard, at a to-be-announced location in Broward, and then GableStage hosts a reading of Dog Sees God by Burt Royal on March 19, 2012.  Finally, we’ll be ending the year with a concert production of Man of La Mancha.  All this will lead us into our first full season in 2012/2013, hopefully in our own space in downtown Hollywood!

Stay tuned as we prepare to unleash theatre as it should be: raw, visceral, thought-provoking, action-inducing.