Our 2024 Theatrical Season of Works
We want to create more grand, theatrical, visually exciting works for audiences to enjoy—but we can't do it alone.
That’s why we’re asking for your support.
Currently, we fund our productions from our own pockets, and this does not a sustainable artistic practice make. We rally creative friends and new passionate artists alike to join our creative teams, working for far less pay than they deserve. We believe in our work’s power to excite, entice and entertain audiences—all vital ingredients to a thriving local arts scene. Our work has covered a range of issues, including the importance of art in a capitalist society, family violence, sexual assault, and intergenerational trauma. We want to continue exploring these themes in satirical and cathartic ways, because we believe these topics must be discussed and examined within the arts.
But The Crocodile was just the beginning.
In 2024, The Beast Trilogy will continue with
RHINOCEROS
by Eugene Ionesco, in a new version by Zinnie Harris.
Coming to fortyfivedownstairs October 31st, 2024.
In October and November of 2024, Spinning Plates will be returning to fortyfivedownstairs for three weeks to present Rhinoceros by Eugene Ionesco, in a new version by Zinnie Harris.
One sunny day in a quaint provincial square, Berenger and Jean have arranged to meet at a café before the town is thrown into chaos when one by one, its residents begin transforming into Rhinoceroses. Ionesco’s absurdist cult classic locks horns with conformity and responsibility at the end of the world, brought stampeding into the twenty-first century by the acerbic pen of Zinnie Harris. With a similar team of creatives to The Crocodile, Rhinoceros promises to be absurd, hilarious and eye-poppingly theatrical.
WHERE WILL YOUR MONEY GO?
Your donation will go towards helping us mount our 2024 production of Rhinoceros—and most importantly, enable us to pay creatives a better fee and provide them with the tools that they need. Rhinoceros requires a larger cast size than we've ever worked with before (which will include the ensemble from The Crocodile, Cait Spiker, Joey Lai, James Cerché and Jessica Stanley), as well as some new faces that we've never worked with before.
Currently, we fund our productions from our own pockets, and this does not a sustainable artistic practice make. We rally creative friends and new passionate artists alike to join our creative teams, working for far less pay than they deserve, and often giving up countless hours of their time for free. We believe in our work’s power to excite, entice and entertain audiences—all vital ingredients to a thriving local arts scene. Our work has covered a range of issues, including the importance of art in a capitalist society, family violence, sexual assault, and intergenerational trauma. We want to continue exploring these themes in satirical and cathartic ways, because we believe these topics must be discussed and examined within the arts.
To continue to work with artists that excel in their fields, as well as to offer opportunities to artists that can’t afford to work for free, we must be able to pay our creative team for their work. Any funds that we receive will go towards the artists in our team, as well as budgetary items that will allow them to work to the best of their ability (including set, props, costumes, lighting and audio equipment).
If you've seen and loved our work and want us to keep going, your support is endlessly appreciated.
If you know of someone who might also enjoy our work, and who may be a position to help support the arts, your spreading of the word is also immensely appreciated.
Rhinoceros is currently slated as an amateur production.