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"There
is a custom in the theatre...
...this place that is the crossroads of
custom and innovation,
of the ghost light.
The custom says no stage is
ever left in total darkness. A light burns, always, to honor the memories,
the ghosts of the moments that were made there.
As this light shines alone in the darkness of an empty theater, so
theatre itself stands alone, a ritual in a time when rituals are dying.
We invoke that light, that ritual, now.
We come together in this oldest of ways, we make the living moment, the
sacred circle, and within it we bring you tales, not of time nor place,
but of humanity.
We light this stage in honor of those who have gone before us. We honor
them, and your presence honors us."
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During all SSC productions, this invocation is recited before each
performance begins. Sometimes it is re-written to reflect the language
or style of a particular play, but the basic content never changes,
because our belief in why we do what we do never changes.
Art is considered by some to be an elitist endeavor, a realm in which
artists are self-indulgent, and audiences must have years of education
in order to manage a sophisticated understanding of the work being
presented.
We disagree.
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We see Art as a realm of vocation, for in the beginning all art was
sacred. We choose to remember the days when the theater was teacher,
historian, and priest - not just entertainment. The classic plays we do
provide us with insight into the minds of people who lived hundreds
and sometimes thousands of years ago. We are simultaneously amazed and
reassured to find that they were not very different from us at all.
In the invocation we recall the Storyteller, the Priest, the Troubador,
and all those who have kept the Ghost Light burning for centuries.
The Theatre is a place for everyone, where any person can make an
intimate connection through art to those strange places that constitute
the best, and worst, of humanity.
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Mission Statement
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The Shoestring Shakespeare Company was formed in 1995 to celebrate the
time-honored ethic of "a company of players", and to help take the
language and vocabulary of the theatre into the new millennium.
Our aesthetic is language-oriented and highly theatrical. We offer
intimate, low-tech productions utilizing only simple, unit sets and
evocative costume elements - allowing the performance - the spoken word
- to shine. We focus on the classics from all eras of theatre, presented
classically. We are not deconstructionists, we are not "high-concept".
We believe the Director's job is to showcase the playwright's language,
and the ability of the actors to interpret that language.
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We believe the future of the theatre depends on a return to the aesthetics
of the past - the appreciation of the unique, evanescent and irreplaceable
moments created on stage by a group of people who have, if only for that
moment, become One.
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