Past Productions
Speak Truth to Power: Voices from Beyond the Dark, by Ariel Dorfman — October-November 2005
Based on Speak Truth to Power by Kerry Kennedy and edited by Nan Richardson, Speak Truth to Power: Voices from Beyond the Dark is a one-act play that tells the inspiring stories of women and men around the world who have, at great personal risk, stood up to oppression in the non-violent pursuit of human rights.
Speak Truth to Power is designed to foster conversations about human rights around the world: how to fight for their preservation and how to defend those whose rights are violated.
Speak Truth to Power was a project of the gray space Performance Company’s Human Rights and the Arts Education Program, and proceeds from this production support the ongoing work of the Human Rights and the Arts Education Program.
For photos of the performance and links to related materials, visit our Speak Truth to Power production page.
TGIF or Who is Monster Mom, by Janet Allard & Lisa D’Amour — November 2004
The Gaia Collective and the gray space Performance Company commissioned playwrights Janet Allard and Lisa D’Amour to write a new work on the subject of Women’s Human Rights. The culmination of this collaboration is a play that tackles the challenging issue of Infanticide called TGIF or Who is Monster Mom. A panel discussion followed each performance with representatives from local health and women’s rights organizations. Performances took place at The Minnesota Opera Center, November 5th - 20th, 2004.
In the United States, children are most likely to become homicide victims in their first year of life; 46% of killed infants die within their first hour of life. It is recognized that women who kill their newly born are typically not threats to society who need punishment in prision, but rather that they are in need of mental health therapy and rehabilitation. TGIF or Who is Monster Mom is a play that tackles this issue. It puts a face to the statistics and asks why infanticide is so pervasive. TGIF tells the story of 4 women, who first appear to be quirky waitresses, but soon prove to be much deeper pools of private pain. It steals its way into the audience’s hearts though humor and then challenges their minds with the cold truth.
The Gaia Collective is a theatre company dedicated to telling the stories of women, and the gray space Performance Company works to educate and engage people in human rights activism through the performing arts. Together, we have commissioned Janet Allard and Lisa D’Amour to write a play fusing these missions. A former Fulbright, McDowell Colony and two-time Jerome fellow at The Playwright’s Center, Allard’s work has been commissioned for the Guthrie and Children’s Theatre Company. D’Amour, Obie Award winner, has been commissioned by the Guthrie, is a McKnight Advancement Grant recipient and a former Jerome Fellow.
Earnest (staged reading) — July 2003
Earnest, written by Joe Morris Doss and Andrew Michael Doss, tells the true story of Earnest Knighton, Jr. during the eight months leading up to his execution. Joe Doss (retired Episcopal Bishop of New Jersey) came to know Earnest while serving as one of his attorneys during his 1984 capital appeal. As attorney and priest, Joe facilitated Earnest’s understanding of himself as a person who could kill another human being. It was Earnest’s fervent desire that his story be told so that people learn from it and avoid his fate. This play is his legacy. This production was a collaboration between the gray space Performance Company, the Episcopal Church of the Gethsemane, the National Episcopal Church Prison Ministries and the Volunteers of America.
Corpus Christi — October 2002
Corpus Christi, by award winning playwright Terrence McNally, is a brilliant retelling of the passion play. In this version, Jesus and his Apostles are cast as gay men. Designed not to be a religious history lesson, Corpus Christi attempts to bridge the gap between the gay community and “traditional” Christian doctrine. This production again unites the gray space Performance Company and Amnesty International/Twin Cities, highlighting the OUTFRONT network, AI’s program on human rights and sexual identity.
One for the Road — October 2000
One for the Road, by Harold Pinter, is a brief, but disturbing look at the atrocity of state-sanctioned torture. It’s a stark and brutal reminder that torture is as wide spread and pervasive today as any time in human history. One for the Road helped launch locally Amnesty International’s third international Campaign to Stop Torture and was a benefit for the Twin Cities based Center for Victims of Torture, a nonprofit organization providing direct care to survivors of politically-motivated torture and members of their families.
Mountain Language and A Place Under the Sun — September 1999
Mountain Language, written by esteemed playwright and longtime human rights activist Harold Pinter, is a short one-act that bares witness to the brute spectacle of state-enforced oppression. Set in an unnamed country, it consists of four brief prison scenes where inmates are savaged by guard dogs and the speaking of their native language is forbidden. Irving Wardle of The London Times calls Mountain Language, “...a scream of outrage, designed simply to point out yet again that such scenes are being enacted in prisons all over the world...”
A Place Under the Sun, written by the gray space founding artistic director Bryan Cole, is a one-act play in the style of the Theatre of the Absurd. It tells the story of two people dealing with their existence inside a prison where they are being held incommunicado, without charge or trial.
Both plays were produced as the premiere production of the gray space Performance Company.
