Working Group Theatre

So thrilled to be doing this workshop again in a new format. For those who have not yet checked out the Iowa Writer's House, do yourself a favor and see what they're up to.

Mining the Story Within: The Bedrock of Narrative To develop a story, sometimes you need to write to discover the world around the plot, the history of characters, the provenance of an object, in other words, sometimes you have to write a lot that won’t go directly on the page but will flavor everything that does. In this workshop, writers will d...

Iowa Writers' House

Today is the last day to receive holiday gift pricing on all February-March workshops!

Learn more about one of our fabulous February instructors, Jennifer Fawcett, in this Iowa City Press-Citizen article on her 2014 Working Group Theatre play on bullying, OUT OF BOUNDS.

Jennifer is a community leader and an inspiring creative presence, with professional experience in many genres. Learn more about Jennifer's weekly Tuesday night February workshop here: http://bit.ly/2CJYcmD

"Fawcett said she interviewed children, parents, teachers, principals and school staff throughout the community last year for her source material. While she translated stories from youth into the first version, she still had a wealth of stories that spoke of a 'powerlessness among adults.'"

The University of Iowa College of Public Health Hancher

Big shout out of praise to Patrick DuLaney and Chris Okiishi and the entire cast for their fabulous production of Sense and Sensibility. Joyful, heart-warming, funny as hell and oh so moving. Thanks for the sneak peak!!!

When you really kill it the Executive Director writes a letter like this to the newspaper:

"“This is indeed a busy week at The Gaillard Center. 1,650 patrons enjoyed a classic rock performance by a trio of rockers together for 40-years ….ZZ-Top on Sunday, November 6th. Wednesday night brings the hit Broadway show Stomp, Thursday night a children’s favorite Octonauts Live, Friday night the Empress of Soul – Gladys Knight and Saturday night the young singing prodigy Jackie Evancho, BUT the most inspiring and impactful performances this week likely took place on Monday, November 7th when nearly 2,000 5th through 9th graders from the following schools – Burke, Buist, Charleston Charter School of Math and Science, Daniel Island, Frierson, Hursey, James Simmons, Mason Prep., Memminger, Moultrie and Orange Grove - attended one of two performances watching and taking part in an interactive exchange with the cast of the Working Group Theatre’s production of Out of Bounds – a show with a strong message of anti-bullying in the world our youth reside in today – a world where they can unfortunately be bullied in person or more and more commonly on-line. It was wonderful seeing how engaged the students were at both shows. However, it was a bit scary seeing how many of the youth raised their hands when asked if they had experienced being bullied (I would say just less than 2/3) and nearly 100 or so that were honest enough to say they had bullied others. The message highlighted the importance of being an “upstander” and not a bystander to bullying"

- Steven Bedard, Gaillard Center, Charleston SC

SEAN LEWIS | Prairie Lights | Iowa City Bookstore

Hey everyone! On a different note from the play going and creation- Sean Lewis will be at Prairie Lights tonight talking with Tim Budd about his graphic novel SAINTS created with Benjamin Mackey.

It's at 7pm!

http://www.prairielights.com/live/sean-lewis

prairielights.com SEAN LEWIS September 19, 2016 - 7:00pmPrairie LightsIowa City playwright and director Sean Lewis will talk about his new graphic novel with artist Benjamin Mackey, Saints: The Book of Blaise. Critically lauded, this is the story of a group of misfits who discover themselves to be the reincarnations…

This weekend Riverside Theatre premieres BLACK AND BLUE. The newest play from WGT Artistic Director Sean Christopher Lewis.

Incredible acting, deft sensitivity and intricate smart questions about where we are abound in this work. The opening night is almost sold out. Please join us for this one.

Working Group Theatre's cover photo

We are now one week into rehearsal for Artistic Director Sean Lewis' first foray at Riverside Theatre, Black and Blue.

The cast of Ryan West, Barrington Vaxter, Tierra Plowden and Alyssa Perry are doing truly great work. Shawn Ketchum Johnson (recently featured in American Theatre Magazine) has given us a wonderfully dynamic set, intimate and intense, like a great Chicago storefront space and our light designer S. Benjamin Farrar is on his way from lighting a show in Slovenia to make some magic happen.

You'll see more students at this Riverside show then you have in awhile, more community groups- we've been working incredibly hard to move the needle of the theater towards community meeting ground. It's exciting. We hope to see you there. Above all, this show is fire.

It's Announcement Day!!!! Many of you know Sean has become the Artistic Director of Riverside. He is continuing to run WG, as well! And today the WG season is announced.

First, a thank you to our supporters, the audience, the artists, the Iowa Arts Council and all who have made us go from a small dream in a backyard to a nationally touring endeavor.

To that end:

Oct- Nov 2016

DOGS OF RWANDA and KILLADELPHIA wlll be in Repertory at 16th Street Theatre in Chicago from Oct 20-Nov 19

In these solo shows Artistic Director Sean Lewis takes us from inner city Philadelphia and its outlying prisons to the hills of Rwanda in two heartbreaking and introspective shows.

"Killadelphia is necessary theater... a tour de force"- NY THEATRE

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The 2ND NATIONAL TOUR of OUT OF BOUNDS.
(A show you helped us build right here in iowa travels nationwide and coast to coast for the second consecutive year. So far it has play to over 35,000 students)

Oct- Nov 2016

Numerica Performing Arts Center, Wenatchee WA
The Wyoming Theatre, Sheridan WY
Schauer Arts Center, Hartford WI
Governors State College, Chicago IL
Palace Arts Center, Marion OH
Rialto Square Theatre, Joliet IL
River Park Center, Owensboro KY
Glema Maher Center, Madisonville KY
River Center, Columbia GA
Brooks Center at Clemson University, Clemson SC
Gaillard Center, Charleston SC
Ridgefield Playhouse, Ridgefield CT
Spruce Peak Arts Center, Stowe VT
Lebanon Opera House, Lebanon NH
Colonial Theatre, Keene NH
Tilles Center for the Performing Arts at LIU, Long Island NY

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Jan 2017

DOGS OF RWANDA at the Phoenix Theatre, Indianapolis IN

Lewis continues the tour of the newest solo piece in his repertoire.
Phoenix Theatre is a member of the National New Play Network.

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February 2017

OUT OF BOUNDS is in Residence in DES MOINES

For one week we bring the show back to Iowa, to the State Capitol.

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And more to come!!! There is alot of exciting things happening with BRUNO LITTLEMORE and GHOST STORY that can't be announced yet. As well as the return of BROKEN CHORD???? And perhaps a new commission with some surprising local partners.

We hope to see you.

Great Love tonight to Barrington Vaxter, Aaron Weiner, Cara Clonch Viner, Chuy Renteria, Nina Morrison and Katy Karas for tonights workshop of WG's new TYA Initiative!

Riverside Theatre to transition interim artistic director - Little Village

We are happy to announce that Sean will be working with Riverside the next two years to help transition the theatre to its next leader. For those wondering Working Group will continue to operate as well, because well, WE LOVE THEATRE.

http://littlevillagemag.com/riverside-theatre-to-transition-interim-artistic-director/

littlevillagemag.com Riverside Theatre has announced that its recently appointed artistic director, Sam Osheroff, is stepping down after a single season. Sean Lewis will take his place, serving as interim artistic director. Sam Osheroff took over as Artistic Director last summer when founders Ron Clark and Jody Hovland…

To the audiences and the artists. This is the beginning of what we believe will be a long trip for this show, but we're pretty committed that BRUNO will see the world. He's too curious not too.

It's also the beginning of a long new trip for Working Group as our mission evolves- not to simply examine the social issues of our day but to look at the existential moments of our lives. Our periods of not knowing... and the truth of our uncertainty.

Thanking for the weekend. For diving in. For being brave. For wanting beauty. For accepting questions. For showing up.

Showing up is an amazingly big one.

Maggie

Working Group Theatre has done it again. I just saw Bruce Littlemore. Congratulations to everyone involved! I loved the show.
So thought provoking.

Two shows. Two standing ovations. One show to go.

Have you seen THE EVOLUTION OF BRUNO LITTLEMORE? If not today is your last opportunity.

Little Village Mag

It's the show man. If you're in town see it. If you aren't in town consider it. We're going to a few cities next year. Yours should be one of them.

"Through Lewis’s stage adaptation and the actors’ careful focus, we see that act of speaking, that act of love, again and again."

Don't miss Working Group Theatre's The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore, a commission of The Englert Theatre — two performances remain, and our reviewer "implore[s] you to go."

All I got to say is BRUNO is something special.

Friday.

We think Working Group Theatre is one of the most engaging theater companies anywhere. That’s why we’ve commissioned 5 Working Group plays.

The Englert Theatre has commissioned Working Group’s newest play, “The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore,” based on the novel of the same name by Iowa Writers’ Workshop grad and visiting faculty member Benjamin Hale.

To encourage folks to see this exciting new work, The Englert is offering free tickets for this weekend's performances. We believe in this project and we’re pleased to spread the word.

Get tickets here: bit.ly/BRUNOtix

I'm not even sure I want to pitch it anymore. There's just times where you're like "this could be something special." I thought it during Broken Chord. I think it now. That's the sale pitch.

From the book of Bruno:

"We are each our own isolated world, you understand,
Alone inside of (points to brain) here.
Until we speak.

It’s a miracle you so easily take for granted.
It’s the most beautiful thing you have
The improvisation,
The experimentation,
The JOY,
Vocabulary,
Syntax,
Logic…
All starting here,
Starting with this seed,
This desire TO COMMUNICATE."

We are a week and a half away from the opening of BRUNO LITTLEMORE at the Englert. We have made a deal with our friends to do as much as possible to get audience out and they are offering many ticket deals. Just ask about them when you call!

First Round

Sean will be at FIRST ROUND to talk tonight before rehearsal.

Looking forward to hearing from Sheila Samuelson sustainability specialist with National Co+op Grocers & Sean Lewis from Working Group Theatre who will give us the backstory of the The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore, which he'll direct at The Englert Theatre at the end of the month.

Simeon Talley of Iowa Fashion Project will emcee tonight's First Round and tell us a bit about FlyOver Fashion Fest and Mission Iowa City Community Kickoff.

From our lead actor:

"One of my favorite monologues I'm performing next week at the Englert:"

What came in the beginning? God or Us?
Perhaps it was language that came first..
And, if so, maybe we all know
What we fear already and we can Live. Now.
In the beginning was chaos and chaos gave birth to the earth,
The sky, the underworld, Love, Darkness... and laying together the earth gave birth to the sea.
In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God.
In the beginning someone said, "Let there be light......"
But how? How did they know the word light?
Language
Someone created matter itself, like language creates thought in our minds.
It birthed the world on the tongue, in the mouth, in the lungs, in the brain, in the blood....
It was the word itself that formed the world.
That formed me.
That formed us.

50 % Discounts available only this week message below

This week only there are still half off tickets available for BRUNO LITTLEMORE at the Englert (April 29- May 1)

If you want the code simply leave a message in comments.

So rumor has it Sean may have a code from the Englert for half off tickets that only works this week for friends and family. Sean has decided people who follow this page count as friends.

If interested leave a message and we will see what we can do.

Thursday at 5pm we do an open showing of some moments from BRUNO LITTLEMORE. The adaptation of Benjamin Hale's book. The book is amazing and this is probably one of the more ambitious and dangerous pieces we've done. It's at the public library and Barrington Vaxter and I will be there with the dance company to talk about what we are doing and why.

MISSION CREEK

Making the headlines. TV and papers!

Awesome. Tune into 6 News Lawrence at 6,8 &10 tonight for great interviews with St John Catholic School and Cara from Working Group Theatre. They are talking about the school-only production of Out of Bounds.

8:45 am

Our cast is on the road to Kansas. Very Wizard of Oz. it's the last engagement of the tour. Eight weeks of different spaces, different audiences, towns, hotels. They've performed for right around 20k people on this tour. Very proud of the work they've done. Excited to see how it changes or informs their work going forward. They will be at the Lied Center, so check it out if you can.

I'm as excited as they are for them to get home to Iowa. Good work has been done. Take a bow.

11:45 PM EST

Our cast has arrived in Colorado for their last bit of performing in the state. It's their last week on tour and i feel like a dad looking forward to the kids coming home from college, or camp or whatever analogy makes sense with a theater tour.

Very proud of the group. And a weird culmination of six years of work and development. Building a company. Losing members, gaining new ones, re connecting with old ones. Such a weird ephemeral thing we do- making things to share until they literally disappear.

One week. I know the cast is probably aching to get home. I'm not gonna say "I hope they knock it out of the park," I already know they will.

12: 59 EST

Today Working Group's OUT OF BOUNDS is at the Shea Performing Arts Center in Buffalo, NY. To date OUT OF BOUNDS, a community based project comprised of two shows (one for TYA student audiences and one for adult- parents, administrators, teachers- audiences) has played 25 venues in the past two years. It's played to over 30,000 audience members. It has already booked another full national tour in the Fall of 2017. It's been trailed by horrible weather and has been invited into the company of amazing stories and sharing... parents who've lost children to su***de, kids and parents currently in the midst of cruelty who feel alone, administrators who feel undervalued and more.

We are a company that 5 years ago started on top of the set of another theaters production. We're a company who worked site specifically for years because we had no capital or support to rent a space. We're a company who were told often that what we were doing and where we were doing it was irrelevant. Barrington says a great thing in this show about cruelty, that it is "trying to extinguish another person's light to better burn your own." We sometimes do that as artists and producers as well. As agents. As cultural arbitrators. Even as spectators. How can it bother you though, when your posse is 30K strong.

To Jacob Yarrow and Charles Swanson and everyone at Hancher, to Cathy Edwards and Quita Sullivan and the NEFA posse, to Diane Rodriguez (and her insane help and support), to Theresa Holden and Stacy Meshbane and so many more... thank you. You're helping us do what was literally stated to be impossible. Drake started from the bottom. We started from Iowa. And we're making it. A national theater talking about right now. Right here.

I can't be mad at that.