Stories Begin
If you missed our Membership Meeting on Tuesday, you also missed Brandon’s speech.
Or maybe you weren’t able to hear every word due to the infamous Brandon bug attack. (Yes, a bug flew down Brandon’s throat. Yes, it did cause a lot of vocal discomfort as Brandon was trying to announce the season. No, we did not catch this on video…though we wish we had! Yes, Brandon is doing much better now. No, we cannot say the same about the bug.)
Anyway, “Stories Begin” is much more than a slogan for the season. See what Brandon had to say about next year his speech:
The slogan for 2016 is STORIES BEGIN, and I’d like to share with you how that slogan came to be.
Stories begin.
QCT has an obligation to produce work that is new and exciting for both our actors and our audiences. This may include a show that has garnered national attention because of its premiere on Broadway. And because of our resources, we are in a position to nurture original work and become an incubator for a new piece that could easily have a life beyond Quincy, IL, and we can say, “it all began with us.”
I am pleased to announce that in 2016 we will present ten productions. Of those ten productions…
- 10 out of 10 shows are new to our space at the OLC
- 9 out of 10 shows have never been produced by QCT
- 7 out of 10 shows were written and produced in New York within the last 10 years
- 2 out of 10 shows are new for any community theatre and we were issued “first dibs” at them because of our reputation
- 1 of the shows has had only one other production elsewhere and now is being reworked, workshopped and will premiere right here at QCT as a staged reading with the goal of a fully mounted production in the near future
Stories begin.
After the season was selected, I realized that they all had two common traits: 1.) more so than most stories, they deal with the idea of society and especially a sense of community; and 2.) some sort of drastic change forces the end of a character’s world as he or she knows it, therefore, to quote a character from last summer’s musical, “Another story must begin.”
Stories begin.
The theater of course is a place for storytelling. As we tell one story on stage, a different story is happening backstage, and that’s the forming of a new family or a new community…or perhaps another way of thinking about it would be the growth or expansion of a family or community. Each cast and crew brings a different energy into the building, and it’s up to the individual’s attitude and work ethic to decide how he or she wants this story to develop.
Stories begin.
Perhaps you’ll hear a title that will excite you because you’ve heard of it before and maybe have already seen it; or perhaps you’ll be excited to work on something because you haven’t heard of it and you can say you were a part of something new and different. But more than any other reason, I hope that you will join us in 2016 because of the opportunity to put aside the individual and be a part of a something greater than yourself, join a group of people who shares a common goal: the desire to tell a really good story.
It’s now time to announce the slate of shows for 2016, thus another story must begin.
- A company project in January — Lady Windermere’s Fan – a staged reading in the Lab Theatre of a brand new musical based on the comedy by Oscar Wilde
- Shrek TYA
- Lovingly referred to as the sequel to Spamalot, the season will officially open with the most romantic musical ever written, Lerner and Loewe’s Camelot.
- QCT ON THE ROAD: Totally Red!
- The winner of the 2013 Tony Award for Best Play, a comedy by Christopher Durang, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike.
- The Halloween Trilogy
- Summer 2016. You’ll want to shout WHOOPEE. A show with a heart of GOLD that will having you BURGing for more. Get back in the habit of raising your voice in song as we present the regional premiere of the stage adaptation of the hit 90s film, SISTER ACT.
- One of the most performed plays in the country, a cross between Our Town and The Twilight Zone, ALMOST, MAINE
- A WRINKLE IN TIME
- The winner of the Tony Award for Best Play in 2012 one of the most imaginative and ensemble-based pieces of theatre, subtitled a grownup’s prequel to Peter Pan, PETER AND THE STARCATCHER