Savannah Stage Company unveils 2023 line-up: Here's what's coming this year
After a season of fearlessness, the Savannah Stage Company (SSC) is ready to experiment.
“I think our audience in these past 10 years (of Savannah Stage Company) has been challenged more and I think that they are craving that (experimentation),” said co-founder and artistic director Jayme Tinti.
“More people are moving here and there’s just room for more stuff. We’re able to take more risks because there’s more of an audience here to gobble that up.”
Last month, SSC announced their full line-up for the 2023 season including a year-long collaboration with Savannah Sip & Cycle and three adaptations of widely different pieces of work.
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“We’re always trying stuff and in this being our season of experimentation, the idea of us being scientists of our art, that theater doesn’t just happen, this is not magic,” Tinti said. “This is not just talented people who showed up one day and made this awesome thing happen. This is a lot of work done by actual humans, that anyone is capable of doing.”
The Drunken Bachelorette
Through a partnership with Savannah Sip & Cycle, SSC will unveil “The Drunken Bachelorette,” a party bike murder mystery tour. The 90-minute immersive theater will run throughout 2023 as both SSC and Sip & Cycle see how riders respond to performance, Tinti said.
“In terms of experimentation, it's a form that we've not done,” she said.
“The way our city is growing, it is a disservice for us to exclude audience members that might not live here. Our work has always been very much for the people.”
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In “The Drunken Bachelorette,” riders join Detective Paul A. Dean as he investigates the disappearance of Becky, who is getting married the next day but hasn’t been seen since her bachelorette party the night before. Tinti said the script was developed by a SCAD alumni who is living in Los Angeles now with riders expecting different characters, music and a lot of drinking while the performances take shape.
“We're drinking, we're making the bar stops, we're listening to the music. And on top of all that, you will solve a murder mystery to figure out what happened to Becky Vaughn Bronco.”
Spring Awakening
Based on the 1891 German play of the same name, “Spring Awakening” is a coming-of-age rock musical adapted in 2006 with music by Duncan Sheik and lyrics by Steven Sater. The musical has become a youth favorite and recently had a Broadway run with Lea Michele that played on HBO.
Tinti said the SSC team went to their company members and “Spring Awakening” was a popular suggestion.
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“They all want to do ‘Spring Awakening,’ because they're 15 and feeling feels, so it kept coming up,” she said. “This one's for them. In terms of an audience, it will be an adult cast but it kept coming up. And it kept feeling like what our company wanted to see and what our company was excited about.”
One of the founding members of SSC, Wesley Pridgen, will direct the production, marking one of the first times Tinti has stepped away from the SSC director’s chair. “I got through a generation. I raised a middle schooler. We always think of (SSC) as our baby, 10-year-old getting ready to go to middle school,” she said.
“It is my job now as the parent to ensure that this thing that we created will last long before I am gone for all of the reasons. And so yeah, experimenting with handing things over and ensuring that my middle schoolers going to be okay.”
Every Brilliant Thing
A one-person show written by Duncan Macmillan with Jonny Donahoe, the play introduces you to its main character.
“You’re six years old. Mum’s in hospital. Dad says she’s ‘done something stupid.’ She finds it hard to be happy. So you start to make a list of everything that’s brilliant about the world. Everything that’s worth living for. 1. Ice cream. 2. Kung Fu movies. 3. Burning things. 4. Laughing so hard you shoot milk out your nose. 5. Construction cranes. 6. Me. You leave it on her pillow. You know she’s read it because she’s corrected your spelling. Soon, the list will take on a life of its own. A play about depression and the lengths we will go to for those we love.”
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Tinti said longtime SSC member Lexi Balaoing Ambrose will take on the lead role and will be pushing the actress to new frontiers.
“She's been here since nearly day one and has worn every single hat: actor, director, choreographer, costume designer, every single thing. What she wants to work on (as an actor) is those in the moment improv skills, experimenting with engaging with an audience from two inches away.”
Tinti added that while the play is well-known, it is also set up so SSC can make it their own. “A lot of experimentation in that way and a lot of opportunity for (Lexi) to work those skills,” she said.
“So we've even had talks about casting a second actor to also rehearse it and also be able to share their performances and see what it looks like when you put two different artists into essentially the same recipe.”
Antigone
Going from more recent text to one of the most original texts you can find, SSC will conclude 2023 with a production of “Antigone” by Sophocles. The play, which was written in 441 BC, tells the tragedy of Antigone, who, moved by love for her brother and convinced of the injustice of the command, buried Polyneices secretly. For that she was ordered by Creon to be executed and was immured in a cave.
While the play recently was performed in Savannah courtesy of Oscar-nominated actor Jesse Eisenberg and Theater of War Productions, Tinti said digging into the Greek play was something SSC has wanted to do for a while now.
“It was important for us to give them material that we knew would challenge them,” she said. “And how do you experiment with nearly the most basic of things, experiment on something that is so tried and true, a piece of literature that is just about old as dirt. Let's give the basics. Let's start with water.”
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The production will incorporate many of the SSC members who have come up through their school programs over the 10 year history, so Tinti is excited to also give a lot of these members a chance to do something big on a stage. “What happens when we give them an opportunity to be in tech with me all day, and to actually tech a show, to sit down performances, to utilize the dressing room, to have backstage action and not just our touring is really transparent,” she said.
“Everyone's on stage the whole time.”
Learn more about Savannah Stage Company and their 2023 season at savannahstagecompany.com.
This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Savannah Stage Company unveils 2023 lineup: Antigone, Spring Awakening
