Little Shop of Horrors
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DIRECTOR'S NOTE
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The desire to colonize and grow is a principle upon which Empires have been built. Our own nation has fought for centuries to maintain such power from being embezzled by those who want to exploit it. The discovery of nuclear fusion in 1938 led to the first atomic bomb being dropped on the unsuspecting people of Hiroshima in the summer of 1945. The world was never the same. One world war, two more atomic bombs, and over a decade of global destruction in the name of nuclear defense later, Sputnik took its inaugural lap around Earth’s orbit. So began the space race between Russia and the United States for galactic domination. This fascination with our world’s outer limits launched a deep-seated fear of a foreign, even extraterrestrial, invasion.
Art, always at the cusp of culture, reflects to its witnesses the best and worst of themselves. Books like Orwell’s 1984 conversed with artwork from the futurists of the early 1900s while absorbing the absurdity displayed on the stage. Artists arrived at a genre that would give vision to the global feelings of disillusionment, meaninglessness, and surrealistic chaos of the post-war years: Sci-fi. The 1960s brought classics like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Red Dawn, and Planet of the Apes, and with them a new convention of storytelling. Sci-Fi investigates dystopian futures often influenced by external forces to explore the internal human condition.
Little Shop of Horrors made its off-Broadway debut in 1986, yet its setting and music transport us into the 1960s shadows of Skid Row. The balance of eras allows our story to live on the edge of sci-fi and absurdity, and the juicy middle of 1980s creamy camp. Audiences are invited to explore their own character as they view the vibrant people who give life to Mushnik’s Flower Shop. Seymour is our everyman. Like him, we are asked the question: what would you sacrifice to have everything your secret, greasy heart desires?
RENT
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DIRECTOR'S NOTE
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In June of 1981, the CDC published an article in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly warning of new cases of pneumocystis carinii pneumonia; an infectious disease later to be designated as AIDS. By the following year, the New York Times coined the term GRID (Gay Related Immune Deficiency) and the scapegoating of queer men began. This misconception not only traumatized the queer community but had severe life-threatening political ramifications. In September of 1985 President Reagan finally publicly acknowledged the existence of AIDS as nearly 12,000 cases infected our nation. It was not until queer AIDS activist groups like ACT UP began to demand a seat at the literal and proverbial table that the governmental agencies actively worked toward delivering relief. AIDS peaked at the turn of the century claiming the lives of nearly 2 million people a year. Since then continued efforts by queer activists and scientists have led to a drastic decline of these numbers over the past three decades.
The 1980s & 90s delivered a heartfelt loss of queer art and queer voices, including that of revolutionary theatremaker and creator of RENT, Jonathan Larson. Twenty-five years later Larson’s legacy lives on in the quest taken by his characters to find beauty and balance between Bohemia and the realities required for collective change. Today as a nation we mourn and heal as yet another epidemic ravishes our world. In this context, we ask: What is the role of the artist during a time of loss? We answer with an enthusiastic expression and celebration of life, music, and art.
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The Mystery of the Violated Vagina
The Mystery of the Violated Vagina takes place in a uterus just after the host body has been raped. External detectives investigate the “incident,” not wanting to call it a rape, while the host body deals with the real threat of insemination. This original musical straddles the lines of melodrama, absurdism, vaudevillian variety shows and late twentieth century television while dealing with the grey area of consent and the physical and emotional damage done deep inside many. The Mystery of the Violated Vagina scaffolds theatrical tools such as puppetry, music and an overall queer camp aesthetic in a comedic fashion to highlight the most absurd fact of all, that rape in fact exists at all and that most of the cases are rarely prosecuted.
Shakespeare Night LIve
Describe your image
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DIRECTOR'S NOTE
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Consider this note your metro card toward a New York state of mind, Tallahassee style. Just one block east of New York City’s 49th Street subway exit stands 30 Rockefeller Plaza the home of comedy legends like Radner, Fey, and Pohler. A legacy of laughs teleported into our living rooms every Saturday Night, Live! It’s the liveness of it all that energetically endures half a century later and has influenced comedians and audiences alike week after week, year after year.
Although some might think sketch comedy a frivolous and superficial sport, it takes a level of artistic smarts to combine wit, words, and a live studio audience. From the tiniest funny look to the largest of physical gags, directing and acting choices have been made to craft Shakespearean sketches and parodies that use comedy to engage with the world and add to the Bard's artistic legacy. On Southern Shakespeare Company’s tenth anniversary, we celebrate the Bard's knack for comedic timing by gathering some of Tallahassee’s finest performers, writers, and musicians together on one stage.
Tonight, we pay homage to the humorous powerhouses who captivated our hearts every Saturday night by delivering laughs as bright as the New York skyline. So, stand clear of the closing doors and join us for a comedic ride of Shakespearean proportions.
A Town Divided
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DIRECTOR'S NOTE
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As a touchstone for this project, actors, stage managers and I went on a dramaturgical hunt for moments of racial tension, civil rights activism, and cultural education in Tallahassee's history. The results were disturbing and inspiring. Tallahassee’s legacy is a complicated one. From Florida A & M’s University being built on old plantation land with reminants of lynching trees throughout its campus, blood still dry, to the overwhelming service of black activists during the civil rights movement by leading sit-ins and the first national jail-in, to housing one of only three Freedom Schools in the state of Florida for freshly freed enslaved people to gain support and an education, Tallahassee finds itself an influential small town amidst a powerful global racial war.
A Town Divided uses stories collected from the Tallahassee community to highlight the complications and miseducation that lead to racial tension and long term communal divide. The play’s allusion to Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet only adds to the timelessness of such a battle. For centuries audiences have witnessed what comes from fruitless feuds based in hate, as they watch the tragic fate of Shakespeare’s star crossed lovers. And, although the universality of the fight for the freedom to love without shame rings true in this adaptation, what I invite you, the audience, to investigate is not what happens in the struggle, but instead to pursue what happens in the light. The moments of joy between Rob and Julle are real. The connection between Rob and Tyrone transcends expectations. Thus, this play lives in the light of possibility.
Murderous Moveable Macbeth
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Shero
Written and Performed by Christy Rodriguez de Conte, "Shero: Femme Fatale" delves into the feminist struggle through the eyes of Shero/Heart: male Detective by day and a female avenger by night. When Villinulva, a steroid filled villain whose love for the feminine has turned her to violence, and her feline side kick pussy the puppet terrorizes the women of the city, Shero is forced to reflect upon her own methods heroism. This Lesbian Superhero comedy flips the comic book narrative, providing strong female characters and an even stronger exploration of power and gender.
QUEER AS FAUST
The Mickee Faust Club is Tallahassee Florida’s tongue-in-cheek answer to a certain unctuous rodent living in Orlando. Fauskateers have formed a collective of artists that converge to write, direct and perform the raucous and wily cabarets; a mix of political and socio-sexual satire, literary and cinematic parodies, vaudeville, original and adapted songs. Christy has been writing, directing and performing with Mickee Faust Clubhouse since 2013 and proudly served as the Executive Producer for their 14th annual Queer As Faust Festival.
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Lovers N Friends
Six lesbians of color navigate their way through life’s challenges with attitude and a fabulous sense of style!
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"One of the most inclusive, realistic and downright funniest shows!" - AfterEllen.com
Discover Season One of the scrappy low-budget hit, The Lovers & Friends Show. With its honest and often humorous depiction of urban lesbian life, The Lovers & Friends Show has opened the eyes of people within and outside of the LGBT community.
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Christy Rodriguez de Conte served as the Associate Producer, Assistant Director, writer and one of the lead actresses for the show from its conception.
Other
"Other" is a one-woman show written and performed by Christy Rodriguez de Conte. This show takes a comedic look at gender identity vs. gender perception and the empowerment that can come from beign an other!