Projects
*VIEW OUR PHOTOS HERE*
Epic adventure! Spills and thrills! Complicated love! Heart strings! Song and Dance! THE CONVOLUTION OF PIP AND TWIG is a story of twin sisters whose safe and routine world is blown open when one twin follows her heart into the unknown. An original work from Kara McLane Burke and Sian Richards. Pip & Twig website.
Meet the Peabody Sisters from the 19th Century. You probably haven’t heard of them. That’s the problem. This new original performance used this remarkable family of female intellectuals and artists as a springboard for a vaudevillian fantasia on being a woman, an artist, an intellectual, and an American. The world premiere took place in Charlottesville VA, in Live Arts‘ UpStage December 2009, followed by nearby performances at The Hamner Theater in Nelson County, Piedmont Virginia Community College in Charlottesville, and NACL Theatre in Highland Lake, NY.
Assembly
Sponsored and initiated by PEP members Sian Richards and Jennifer Hoyt Tidwell, Assembly was a regular gathering of local artists of all stripes to socialize, find collaborators, get feedback and help with work, and share work in progress. It is our belief that more unity and collaboration among individual artists in our town will lead to a more vibrant and mutually supportive arts scene in Charlottesville, and might yield a voice to speak to local government and funding organizations.
Dido Vs the Squid Monster and Working Process Demonstration (Spring/Summer 2008)
In the Spring and Summer of 2008, PEP members took Dido Vs. the Squid Monster on the road. In order to spread our wings a bit and offer audiences a bit of background to our means for constructing performance (Building Performance: A Look At Actor-Created Physical Actions), we visited Mary Baldwin College in Staunton, Virginia, The District of Columbia Arts Center in Washington, DC, and Live Arts back home in Charlottesville. Each tour stop allowed us to reach a wider audience with our performance work and share our working methods with all curious comers.
Building on the experience of the previous summer, PEP and other individuals organized Shentai in the summer of 2007. We created an original show, Dido Vs. the Squid Monster, as one of the anchor performances of the night. Shentai received rave reviews and sold out houses for the entire run.
A Charlottesville Wunderkammer
In the summer of 2006, PEP along with The Zen Monkey Project and The Lunatic Carnival produced A Charlottesville Wunderkammer, an arts carnival extravaganza. We also created the original play Zelda and Lucia’s Loony Bin Tragedy as one of the carnival’s anchor performances.The carnival ran for three weeks in the Frank IX building, a building that has gone on to host every form of art and party the community can muster. This project received raves reviews and sell out crowds.
Exchange with Dah Teatar / Jadranka Andjelic Project
In September 2005, PEP and Live Arts were proud hosts of the Dah Theatre Research Centre of Belgrade Serbia in Charlottesville and Staunton VA, exchanging theatre work and ideas through performances, workshops, discussions, lectures, and many wonderful meals. Their performance of Seekers played to 3 sold-out audiences at Live Arts in Charlottesville.