All Milwaukee’s a stage.
A small theater company has a major opportunity: Bring free Shakespeare to thousands of people in their city. Optimist Theatre will perform As You Like It in a public park this summer, sharing the joys of Shakespeare in the middle of Milwaukee.
This play could be your life.
Adam Sultan is a new play slated to open in Austin, TX this March. Adam is also a real person. The play imagines his life some 40 years in the future, weaving together real people from Austin’s theater community with imaginary stories from the decades to come.
Encore.
The LabRats theater company is celebrating its fourth season by producing two new plays. Simply shot and edited, the troupe’s funny and personal project video is a great example of a compelling pitch.
Look what you did.
It’s been an inspiring year.
We’re celebrating the most creative projects and memorable moments on Kickstarter in 2012. Looking back, we couldn’t be prouder of this community or more excited for the future. Thanks to all the creators and backers who make it happen — here’s to 2013!
Caught on tape.
An experimental sound play rooted in Appalachia, Runnin’ Down the Mountain tells the story of two siblings living alone with their familial ghosts.
After a successful trial run last summer, the creative team is ready to give the play its due — and seeking support to make the production a success, produce the premiere, and eventually take the show on the road. Help raise the curtain on our Project of the Day.
That’s entertainment.
In just five years, the Cinefamily has become a staple of LA’s film landscape.
This nonprofit move house injected new life into the historic Silent Movie Theater, bringing exhaustive retrospectives, crazy found-footage festivals, awesome midnight movies, and a slew of indie premieres to a passionate audience.
Now the cinema is raising funds to finally update their hand-built theater for a new century. This silver screen dream is our Project of the Day.
Where (we) live.
Innovative ensemble Sō Percussion returns home to Brooklyn with their Kickstarter-funded live performance.
Rooted in the group’s rhythmically intense compositions, the show will include collaborations with artists ranging from singers to blacksmiths. Now through Dec. 22nd.
In 12 years of cultural criticism, I’ve never before used the term ‘tour de force.’ Last night at Town Hall, Ahamefule J. Oluo debuted his narrative-musical recital Now I’m Fine. It was a tour de force.
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Jonathan Zwickel, City Arts.
Congratulations to Oluo and his 108 backers — by all accounts, the premiere of his Kickstarter-funded theater piece was a resounding success!
75 years young.
It’s the 75th anniversary of John Steinbeck’s seminal novel of the Great Depression, Of Mice and Men, and the themes of economic collapse, social discord, and friendship continue to resonate today.
In a tribute to this endlessly timely masterpiece, Hudson Theatre Works is inaugurating their very first season with a production of the play — our Project of the Day.
Trick question.
What if Hamlet just offed Claudius in Act One? Couldn’t the ghost of Hamlet’s father have done more creepy haunting and really freaked out some Danes? What if Ophelia totally owned the crazy and stole that whiny prince’s existential thunder? Also, pirates!
To Be or Not to Be: That is the Adventure gives readers a chance to rewrite (fictional) history. This “choosable-path” story allows Shakespeareans and Bard noobs alike to play through the play and make critical choices for our heroes along the way — thereby making the greatest work in the English language totally even better and more awesome in every way.
Creator Ryan North is also responsible for other gloriously silly ideas, like his beloved Dinosaur Comics and B to the F (a page-by-page review of the Back to the Future novelization). But this is his very first attempt to mess with Shakespeare — Bloody, bawdy villain! Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain!
Puppets for the people.
The invention of actor-turned-puppeteer Heidi Pendergast, Twig is a traveling puppet theater designed to bring delight to the streets. Built into a cabinet on wagon wheels and illuminated by lanterns, this little theater just needs a few more backers to take the show on the road.
We’re utterly charmed, and just can’t resist — Twig is today’s enchanting Project of the Day.
Gather round, children.
It’s early evening when you catch sight of her pushing a curious wooden cabinet down the road on a pair of tall wagon wheels. A small crowd begins to form as lanterns are lit and hung from the cabinet and illuminated domes are placed on the ground. Suddenly, the doors fly open and the show begins…
The invention of actor-turned-puppeteer Heidi Pendergast, Twig is a traveling puppet theater designed to bring drama to the streets while producing whimsy and wonder. Pendergast is midway through the construction of the theater itself and hard at work on designing characters and props.
Her new Kickstarter project should see this vision through to completion — and backers can bring home a puppet of their own.
If you like eating and you like stories — and really, are there two more universally adored activities? — then Eat My Heart Out is probably something you’d love. A storytelling dinner theater, it collects some of the best performers that New York City has to offer, asks each to tell a personal tale, then serves audience members bespoke courses inspired by the thematic arc of those stories. Their upcoming event will feature names from NPR, the Moth, Jezebel and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, and will dish up goodies from chefs trained in the city’s best restaurants (Roberta’s and Grammercy Tavern, among them.) Can you say, yum? How about “Project of the Day”?
We love Rehearsal For Modern Times.
Putting a twist on the classic drive-in experience, the Bike-In-Theater invites folks to enjoy classic ’80s films from two wheels in a free, pop-up outdoor cinema event! Can you imagine a more perfect summer evening? The phenomenon to both coasts this year, but backers can pledge $25 to get a Bike-In-Theater home kit. Bike-In right to your driveway! Or, if you’re like us, Bike-In right to our Project of the Day.
