Thank you so much to all our patrons and donors in 2016. We’re proud to look back on all our accomplishments this year, which we couldn’t have done without your support.
Here are a few of the great things Brave Spirits achieved in 2016:
- Recipient of a Morgan Fund grant, worth $3,000, which allowed us to re-do our website with Chisel & Brand.
- Recipient of an equipment grant, worth $10,000, from Electronic Theatre Controls, which will give us a basic lighting system for future productions.
- Our most successful season kick-off fundraiser so far, with Spring2Action, raised almost $2,000, and won us an additional $250 prize for having so many individual donors.
- Our most successful end-of-year Fete so far, raised over $1,000 in its Silent Auction.
- Launched our Company Training program, providing four workshops free-of-charge to the actors hired for our season. These workshops provided professional actors additional training in Verse and Rhetoric, Viewpoints, Michael Chekhov, and Audience Contact.
- Launched our Artistic Associate program with the following amazing artists: Jessica Aimone, Cassie Ash, Jason Aufdem-Brinke, Jenna Berk, Danny Cackley, Rachel Hynes, Casey Kaleba, Claire Kimball, Jessica Lefkow, James T. Majewski, Briana Manente, Victoria Reinsel, Zach Roberts, Ian Blackwell Rogers, and Hannah Sweet.
- Attended the Shakespeare Theatre Association conference for the first time.
- Became one of the Folger Shakespeare Library‘s theatre partners.
- Artistic Director Charlene V. Smith joined WSC Avant Bard for a talk-back about women in classical theatre after a performance of their production of TAME.
- Two productions:
- The Maid’s Tragedy, directed by Angela Kay Pirko, our fourth early modern play which we are the first company in the DC region to professionally produce.
- Antony and Cleopatra, directed by Charlene V. Smith.
- One staged reading, The Tragedy of Messalina, Empress of Rome, directed by Angela Kay Pirko, co-produced with Nu Sass, and hosted by the American Shakespeare Center at the Blackfriars Playhouse.
- Celebrating FIVE YEARS of making plays of Verse and Violence in the DC region!
Finally, we were honored in Shakespeareances.com Top 20 Shakespeare Productions of the Year List, at number 15: “Director Charlene V. Smith presented this play as epic intimacy in her textually respectful but imaginative production. Joe Carlson and Jessica Lefkow in the title roles were each in their physical and mental portrayals completely besotted with each other, anchoring this production as a mighty love story and anchoring a generally accomplished cast. But the highlight ultimately was Smith’s imagination. Cleopatra’s throne at the end comprising her fellow actors with Carlson as the seatback and the asp was the most powerful single image I saw on stage this year.”
We’re looking forward to 2017!