What is our food utopia? Animal Farm to Table is a new form of dinner theater using the subject matter, philosophy, and themes of George Orwell’s novel and transposing it to today’s Philadelphia. The show will culminate into a community created meal, where the audience has foraged for food amongst the farm.
$20 / 75 minutes
Animal Farm to Table: A community dinner theatre
Inspired by George Orwell’s Animal Farm
Conceived and Directed by Mike Durkin
Written by the Ensemble
Performed at Urban Creators Farm @ 11th and Dauphin Streets, Philadelphia
Pictured: Doug Greene Credit: Daniel Kontz
75 Minutes With: Lesley Berkowitz-Zak, Lisa Fischel, Ife Foy, Doug Greene, Shamus Hunter McCarty, Kevin Rodden
Music by Adam Vidiksis
Dramaturgy by Erin Washburn
Costumes by Jamie Grace-Duff
Scenic and Lighting by Sara Outing
Production Management by Lauren Tracy
Stage Management by Elle Safer
Featuring a Collaboration with food truck, Local 215
Pictured: Shamus Hunter McCarty, Lesley Berkowitz Credit: Daniel Kontz
The Renegade Company celebrates, challenges, and deconstructs the iconography of quintessential artworks, and creates original theatrical pieces that re-purpose those works. Residing in Philadelphia, PA, Renegade is rooted in the community we call our home. With partnerships with local artisans, from puppeteers to ice cream makers, Renegade incorporates myriad sensory experiences in each multidisciplinary piece. Our works occupy the breadth that Philadelphia has to offer: they can take shape in coffee shops, apartments, bars, fields, swimming pools, laundromats, or churches. Renegade seeks to take the familiar works and bring them into present day, drawing on canonical memories and invigorating them with contemporary context.
Pictured: Lesley Berkowitz Credit: Daniel Kontz
Most recently we have created work at FDR Park in South Philadelphia, in a row-home in Point Breeze, at the First Presbyterian Church of Philadelphia, at the Barnes Foundation, and at Mount Moriah Cemetery. Currently we will be creating a new work, Animal Farm to Table at the Urban Creators’ Farm in North Philadelphia. Past productions have included: Beowulf/Grendel, Damned Dirty Apes!, The Hunchback of Notre Dame…A Mute Play, Grimm’s Juniper Tree, Bathtub Moby-Dick, Glass: Shattered, The Amish Project*, Hamletmachine/Medeaplays, A Prometheus Bound: A Folk Musical, and Ubu Roi.
Renegade also prides itself on community partnerships and collaborations. Relationships have included: Curio Theatre Company, Society Hill Playhouse, Free Library of Philadelphia, David Zercher-Weaver- author of Amish Grace, Villanova University- One Book, Swarthmore College, Underground Arts at the Wolf Building, Dr. Shanyn Fiske- Medea scholar, Dr. David Spolum, filmmaker and professor at the University of the Arts, Laurel Hill Cemetery, and the Barnes Foundation. In addition Renegade has partnered with unconventional community collaborators to create sensory-based designs for our productions these artists include: Little Baby’s Ice Cream, Medicine Womyn Mixology School, the Random Tea Room, Le Puppet Regime, and Jig-bee- a Flower Collective, and herbalist Telegraphic Tree. Currently we are working with food truck, Local 215 to create a meal for Animal Farm to Table.
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