SMU Theatre Grads Launch New Theatre Company

Welcome to The Island Theatre Company, a self-described “Sovereign Imagined Nation” in which the nine active company members proudly declare that their pursuit of the creative “shalt be joyfully naïve, brazenly bold, and never shy of risk-taking,” according to their website. This is clearly the case when a typical performance by the Chicago-based company is a full-contact experience that can include anything from puppetry to live music to dance. Their performance efforts, which are produced within the company’s delightfully named “Special Events and Activities Committee,” are meant to push theatrical boundaries and empower audiences to consider, along with the performers, “what it means to be alive here, now and next to each other.”

The Island will begin its first official season in the fall of 2011 by premiering a large-scale original work described as “a three-part theatrical symphony” that seeks to explore the “tiny vibrations that make us human on a subatomic level.” It will be a collaboration of original music, film, text, choreography and design and will incorporate local artists and musicians in addition to the company members themselves. 

The driving force behind The Island Theatre Company is its nine-person ensemble, seven members of which are recent alumni of SMU’s Theatre Division. Freddie Beckley and Mike Steele (B.F.A. Theatre, ’09) founded the company based on collaborations they had during their years at SMU, but they waited until they were in Chicago to put down roots. Through various performances and social outreach, Beckley and Steele grew The Island, and soon longtime friends became colleagues: fellow ’09 graduates Jennie Winston, J.R. Rasberry, Quinten Quintero and Sam Hicks and ’08 graduate Elizabeth Lovelady joined the team, along with two other equally motivated Chicago artists.

The Island, in keeping with its stated mission of creating more than just a watched performance, has established two other learning and outreach programs: “The Island Laboratory” and the “Growing Minds Program.” In conjunction with the Rumble Arts Center, a local community arts organization, “The Island Laboratory” is a free, weekly series of open classes that explore various non-Western theatrical forms ranging from the methods of Jerzy Grotowski to Tadashi Suzuki. Their “Growing Minds Program” produces work that provides an educational community service. Growing Minds’ latest project, produced with the support of Chicago’s Redmoon Theater, is a puppet piece, “Mr. Skeleton Goes to the Doctor 1.0” (2.0 is on the way). It lets the children in the audience be the medical students who seek to diagnose and cure Clarence (a.k.a. Mr. Skeleton), and even graduate from school as fully-fledged medical professionals based on what they learn during the performance. Both the “Growing Minds Program” and “The Island Laboratory” are growing facets of the company and are as integral to their mission as their large audience performance events. 

To support its inaugural season, the Island has recently begun a unique fundraiser through the international idea-funding platform, IndieGoGo. Island supporters can claim various “perks” based on their level of donation, ranging from receiving free tickets to having their likeness created in an original character that “shall exist in perpetuity on The Island to be featured in future productions.” 

For more campaign information, visit their IndieGoGo page here.

For more company information, visit the Island Theatre Company homepage here.