In certain arts circles, people talk about the fledgling theater community in Charlotte in hushed tones and with despair. Discussion rages amongst a small cadre of enthusiasts about how to achieve vibrant and sustainable theater that engages audiences and stimulates discussion across the community. At times insular and narrowly focused, both producers and patrons of the performing arts in our city seem to gravitate to safe, carefully packaged products with broad audience appeal, following prescribed formulas for financial success.
Money, of course, is the lubricant and lifeblood of both traditional and experimental theater and tried, known, and commercial theater sells. Trouble is, at least in this town, there are only so many buyers of that product. One need only look around when the lights go up to see that it is a fairly homogenous (read; middle aged, middle class, white) crowd doing the buying.
Few conversations in Charlotte envision the theater as community. Charlotte is not a string of suburbs in search of a city like many American burghs of comparable size. We are a grouping of eclectic and diverse neighborhoods from NoDa, to Chantilly, First and Fourth Wards, Elizabeth, and beyond. Performance art that represents the diverse cultures and fabric of the growing region isn’t often found in touring Broadway productions or at Uptown’s larger venues.
Area residents will need to venture further afield than Trade and Tryon to find theater that explores Charlotte’s shining promise as well as our social challenges. One freshly launched theater company is doing just that. Machine Theater is taking the lead as a strong contender for those hungry for locally produced work that is truly reflective of the region. Machine currently operates out of the StorySlam space off Central Avenue in the Plaza-Midwood neighborhood.
Co-founded by former Farm Theater alumni and high school chums, Matt Cosper and Barney Baggett, Machine also boasts a core foundation of Queen City veterans whose names should be familiar to those in tune with Charlotte’s theater scene. Barbi Van Schaik (Innovative Theater, Charlotte Rep, Children’s Theater of Charlotte) and Robert Haulbrook (Children’s Theater of Charlotte) bring solid performing chops to the company, while Charlotte photographer Carlisle Kellam and musician Jon Lindsay lend design and a strong musical sensibility to Machine.
Barely six months old, Machine Theater is setting out to redefine the meaning of contemporary theater in Charlotte, a city that has seen many struggling theater companies come and mostly go. “We want to develop a company that doesn’t produce art in a void,” said Cosper. “It is important to us to be reflective of the whole community that we are part of.”
To that end, Machine Theater’s vision incorporates three distinctive elements. First, the company is committed to producing locally developed work. Next, they identify actor and ensemble training, specifically voice and body training for the stage, as an ongoing component of their raison d’être. Finally, the company wants to actively incorporate community outreach as part of their mission.
It is community outreach where Machine Theater is making unusually creative and exciting inroads in pushing theater’s traditional boundaries. The group has been working with the Urban Ministry Center of Charlotte, a service organization dedicating to providing support services to Charlotte’s poor and homeless. In 90 minute sessions held every other week since October, the company has been holding workshop training sessions with a group of Charlotte neighbors whose daytime address just happens to be the Urban Ministry Center.
“Our sessions are designed to break down physical barriers people have in communicating and involve a large element of play and movement,” said Baggett, who worked with disenfranchised youth in a similar program while studying theater in California. “We work with this group using the same techniques we use with theater professionals. It has been amazing watching people open up, become more trusting and confident in their own abilities.”
Penny Mann is the Director of Artworks945, the in-house project at Urban Ministry that invited Cosper and Baggett in to work with the neighbors. “Their ongoing commitment to working with us has been tremendous,” she said. “We now have people seeking these sessions out and attend on a routine basis. I’ve seen people blossom and find a voice that they weren’t aware they had.”
Cosper cited this work as one example of tapping into the tremendous level of talent and energy in the city. “Machine Theater is committed to Charlotte, we have talent and opportunity here on par with any of the major theater centers in the U.S. whether it be New York, Los Angeles, or Chicago,” he said. “There is no reason why in the future Charlotte can’t be seen as a destination for performing arts talent and patrons alike. One of the reasons training is part of our mission is to attract people to the work that we are doing and fill a void that exists in the region. Most all of the performance training held in this area is for film or TV. To our knowledge, we are the only actor training in and around Charlotte that focuses on performing for the stage.”
Cosper and Baggett both noted that they approach actor training focused on voice and body first, allowing the emotion and “cerebral” character development to flow naturally from the physical nature of the performance. “We want all our actors to be able to speak the same language and approach the work in the same way,” said Cosper. “Working in a physical style often allows for a deeper and more visceral portrayal to emerge.”
The company already has two separate performances under their belt in 2009 and ambitious plans for the 2010 season. While their inaugural performance of Ionesco’s absurdist classic The Bald Soprano was not home grown, it allowed the company to make a statement, generate buzz, and establish a following. The show ran four performances in July at Patchwerk Playhaus at Century Vintage and gained favorable notices.
Building on the momentum generated by their success, Cosper took his own work-in-progress play Thom Thom, and brought the first act to the Carolina Actors Studio for three performances in September. The production, a tragic-comic what if riff on Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mocking Bird, follows the two protagonists based upon Boo Radley and Scout Finch in their later lives. Billed as a metaphysical adventure, the Company has been invited to perform the play in its complete form at the Pristina International Theatre Festival in Kosovo in November of 2010. The festival is hosted by the National Theatre of Kosovo.
That represents pretty heady territory for a troupe without a full year under its belt or substantial reserve in its coffers. The company has filed for their non-profit 501c3 status which will allow them to pursue grant funding, tax free donations, and lend credibility to their status.
Machine Theater is planning two offerings in the first half of the New Year. Mum’s the Word, another Cosper written play, is a pitch black comedy. It features an affluent childless American couple who adopts an African child. When the baby they have been expecting turns out to be a Congolese child soldier, things fall apart. Cornelius and Bartholomew, written by Baggett, looks at two Victorian era scientists conducting an exhibition of their latest experiments. Hi-jinks and disaster ensue.
“We know that Charlotte as a community has a unique voice and perspective that embodies the diverse identity of the region,” said Baggett. “As a theater company we want to be able to provide a platform for work beyond the cultural homogenization that all too often exists and let unique perspectives be seen and heard.”
This company is taking the notion of community based theater and standing it on its head. Radical? When it is all about the community, maybe it’s not so radical after all.