Look Through our Open window!
A Note from the Artistic Director
Soooo, one fun thing about being a theatre company with a goal to uplift and amplify emerging playwrights and directors is that we get to showcase their work, their thought processes and their creativity. This month we’re lucky to have journals from two of those artists: Aidyn Stevens who is a recent alum of the TSGP Incubator/Mentor program (director, Carmilla) and the current director of Through the Window (& Into the Cabin); and Darby Sherwood, a cohort member from the 2021 I/M program (playwright, A Gallery of Perspective & Light) and one of the playwrights for our October mainstage show A Lonely Realization.
A Word or So About the Friend-Raiser
For those of you who follow our social media feed, you will notice that we (meaning my favorite social media maven Carolynne Wilcox) are talking about our upcoming Friend-Raiser Through the Window (& Into the Cabin), and what a Friend-Raiser is. Click here to RSVP before you forget.
We have several not-super-specific goals for putting on these two original pieces staged in front of the windows of an old elementary school classroom:
Goal 1. Theatre thrives on community - we love you and we want you to be our friend in making more theatre, so YOU are Invited to help us Grow and Build our community.
Goal A. Our old elementary school classroom is not just kinda cool, it’s GREAT and we want to share it with you - we want you to know where we are located so you can find us again when we do other fun things (like our Plays in Progress Script Development Workshop Performances, coming your way in winter 2025)
Goal Bullet Point. Being together in space will not only revive the arts, it will revive our neighborhoods - we think fun events like seeing a play on a playground will help us make theatre experiences as attractive as going to movies or live music.
Goal $. Money is nice. But for these not-super-specific purposes, it’s kind of not really the point (although you are welcome to donate at any time, right here: https://www.shatteredglassproject.org/donate)
Last (but not least) Goal. It’s time to CELEBRATE! We made it through another year (a remarkable feat!) and we are now a grown up 501c3 nonprofit organization!
A Word About A Lonely Realization
I spent 12 years planning events and continuing education programming at Seattle University School of Law, during which time I was privileged to produce an annual symposium and training on domestic violence for the social workers, lawyers & judges, mental health care providers, community advocates and police officers who supported and worked to heal the survivors of intimate partner violence. While I mostly handled logistics, I absorbed an incredible amount of information about the bravery and resilience of these survivors - mostly women - and their children.
Now I am privileged to be directing A Lonely Realization which will open in October 2024 (Tickets on sale at the end of August). This story centers the impact of sexual assault not only on the survivor of that assault but on the community and institutions involved. This story and this play is for those survivors.
Q: How do you entertain a playwright? A: Give them a writing challenge and watch them take off!
Playwrights Carolynne Wilcox and Miriam Tobin pulled a prompt out of a jar, mashed up 2 sisters and their hapless relatives with themes of space, time, family history, and the end of the world, and ended up writing two uniquely apocalyptic plays!
Join Us for One Evening or All Three!
FRI & SAT, AUG 23-24,
6:00 PM performance
SUN, AUG 25
4:00 PM performance / 5:15 PM Friend-Raising Party
*Live Music by the Lucile St. Collective*MLK FAME Center
3201 E. Republican St., Seattle WA 98112
YOU sit outside and WE perform in the liminal spaces found between the inside, the outside and of course, the window sill.
Check out our studio space, meet our current cast of theatre makers, and celebrate our new 501c3 nonprofit status. A raffle at each performance features fabulous wine and champagne glasses painted by Made in Washington artist Nancy Fiala. Sunday night, August 25, we will wrap up the festivities with a party featuring music by Lucile St. Collective.
Tickets are free, with plenty of chances to support us emotionally and financially (playwrights need love…and to eat also…)
Photo 1: L to R: Aidyn Stevens, Ana Rusness-Peterson, Leah Shannon, Tim Takechi, Molly Hall & Rebecca O’Neil; Photo 2: Lucile St. Collective
ABOUT THE PLAYS
Further Unexpected Events by Carolynne Wilcox
When a mysterious catastrophe strikes in combination with the ongoing climate crisis, estranged sisters (with unsuspecting family in tow) end up having an unexpected reunion at their remote cabin in the woods, where dirty laundry is exposed and painful truths come to blinding light…as the world is possibly crumbling around them.
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Summer at the Window in the Cabin by the Lake in the Woods by Miriam BC Tobin
After their father dies, sisters Alex and Moose go up to their family cabin to remember him. But things are a little . . . off. The lights are out, the water’s off, the birds are gone, the neighbors are missing, and the lake seems a bit *alive* this time of year. As Moose tries to just get through the weekend, Alex feels a special bond with the lake through the window and starts to piece together the secrets of her family.
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Both plays feature the talents of Molly Hall as Alex, Tim Takechi as Rain,
Rebecca O’Neil as Moose, and Leah Shannon as Jay.
Introducing our cast!
TTW Journal
by director Aidyn Stevens
It has been so exciting prepping for this project and gathering a team of people to work with. Some people that I have worked with before and others that I have not. There is so much anticipation that builds before getting to the first table read. As a director, you continue to read the scripts over and over and have conversations with the production team that begin the movement of design choices. But it is all done knowing that you can’t imagine how the script will come to life once you hear the actors get their hands on it. I am writing this after our first couple of rehearsals and it has been glorious supporting the actors as they have dug into these stories.
I love a story about a quirky family! And that is the first thing I thought when I got to read these scripts. It is so lucky that I get to play with this quirky family twice, with two different stories. When playwrights build truthful and thought-out character relationships all of us get to dig deep into the root of this story. And this family dealing with crises is full of deep emotional and truthful meaning. This production will be such a wonderful way to showcase Shattered Glass Theatre and the wonderful MLK FAME space. I am excited to play with the windows and do outdoor found space theatre. And transport our audience into this family’s chaotic cabin goings-on. I can’t wait for you to see these shows and witness this powerful work!
IT’S A FRIENDRAISER!
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Help us build audiences for the future!
R to L: A Lonely Realization playwrights/performers Darby Sherwood & Emily Stone…Emily Stone & Darby Sherwood
A Lonely Realization Journal
by Darby Sherwood
As we finish our friendraiser and head towards autumn, we’re also looking ahead to SGP’s 2024 MainStage production, A Lonely Realization, co-written/performed by Darby Sherwood (playwright member of the inaugural Incubator-Mentor Cohort in 2021) and Emily Stone (SGP board member and recent UW PATP graduate). We’ll follow along with their process over the next couple months as we ramp up to the production in October. ENJOY!
WHY NOW?
In the world of theatre, we’re always asked about why we’re doing a certain production exactly when we’re doing it. What makes it timely or relevant or interesting right now? As a playwright, it’s always hard to answer these questions because plays take time to percolate and develop - they’re often in the works for months or years on-and-off. The things that are important to us stick with us and grow as we do. The question of “why now?” is still relevant - although the specifics of the answer change all the time. A Lonely Realization is a play that seeks to discuss sexual assault in a contextualized, analytical, and compassionate way; the way that Emily and I have dealt with the reality of discussing this subject matter has grown around us as well. This production will be the third time we’ve visited the script and staging, so I wanted to speak a bit about the “why now” of each of our three iterations.
December 2022 - Straight from Reality to Stage
The first time Emily and I created this play, we didn’t know what we were making. We just knew that we needed to process what we were feeling. Why now? In the moment, we were attempting to understand what happened while attempting to influence positive changes in our artistic communities and running into massive hurdles. Everything was urgent and everything was immediate. Emily and I would meet in a rehearsal room and write what we needed to say. This first iteration was a collection of moments and images that were thematically related but otherwise independent. It was fragmented, scattered, and chaotic because that’s what it looked like to write something while actively experiencing it.
March 2023 - Weaving Strong Threads
The next time we visited A Lonely Realization was as part of SGP’s Developmental Reading Series. I felt both fresh and settled. Why now? We used this opportunity to see the bigger picture in a variety of ways. In our revising, we were able to braid our fragments into a few interwoven threads that followed more developed characters. As artists and humans, we were able to vividly remember what it all felt like while being able to step back far enough to make something that we would enjoy. The subject matter is difficult, yes, but it has always been important to us to lean into the joy and comedy that we experience even when we’re going through hard and heavy times.
COMING SOON - October 2024 - We’re Grateful for Our Village
We’re about to launch into A Lonely Realization for the third time and we couldn’t be more excited! Why now? We’ll be working on this iteration during the two-year anniversaries of the incidents that inspired it. We’re still passionate about creating positive change in our artistic spaces and we can still remember what it felt like to experience these things in the past two years. Yet time moving forward also means we’re more prepared to care for ourselves sustainably and find the right balance of heavy subject matter and absurdist excitement.
We’re so excited that this version of A Lonely Realization will showcase the work of some of our longtime collaborators and friends throughout this experience. We feel incredibly lucky to be working with a team of people who’ve been supporting this piece since its first iteration. A Lonely Realization tells a story of what happens when institutions abandon individuals. Getting this show to the stage has been a result of our community being there to support us sharing these difficult, worthwhile stories and we’re so grateful.
