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“It's not hard to find talent among the more than 80 theater companies in Washington. But brilliance -- that rare confluence of perfect design, direction and performance -- that's something else again. The Rorschach Theatre achieves it… proof that limited resources do not stymie great talents, any more than big budgets can squeeze works of genius from mediocre minds.”
- Washington Post 6/01 (about THE ILLUSION)
ABOUT RORSCHACH THEATRE
Jenny McConnell Frederick and Randy Baker
Artistic Directors
Through uncommon uses of environment and intimate passionate performances, Rorschach Theatre seeks to lure its audiences beyond the limits of ordinary theatrical experience so that they may discover new elements of their own humanity.
Rorschach Theatre is a company that has received significant acclaim for its fierce performance style, its bold use of theatrical space and its dedication to challenging works that are at once relevant and timeless. The company’s work has focused on helping to reveal the contemporary relevance of fable, finding magic in rough spaces, connecting timeless works to a contemporary audience.
In its ninth season, Rorschach Theatre has produced more than two dozen plays seen by more than 30,000 people in Washington area. They have been nominated for four Helen Hayes Awards, been a finalist for the Mayor’s Arts Award for Outstanding Emerging Artists and been the recipients of two Young Artists grants and two Artist Fellowship Grants from the DC Commission for the Art and Humanities. Rorschach Theatre won a Mary Goldwater award in 2006 and many Rorschach artists have won Mary Goldwater awards for their work with the company. The company’s work has garnered the attention of The New York Times, The Washington Post, American Theatre Magazine and National Public Radio, as well as countless local publications. The company has become, "proof that limited resources do not stymie great talents, any more than big budgets can squeeze works of genius from mediocre minds." (Washington Post)
Rorschach Theatre is a member of the LEAGUE OF WASHINGTON THEATRES, THE CULTURAL ALLIANCE OF GREATER WASHINGTON and THE EDGE, an alternative
arts partnership that along with Rorschach Theatre
includes Theater Alliance and Catalyst Theater
"Good storytelling is a sort of fearless magic act, in which events move too quickly to tolerate objection. And this is the way that director Randy Baker and the rest of the Rorschach troupe tell this story: with such assurance and commitment that the impossible seems true."
- DC Theatre Scene 5/09 (about 1001)
"Rorschach Theatre lost its space, but not its mojo. The little, forward-thinking company had to leave its longtime home in a Methodist church in Columbia Heights... If its first production in exile, a world premiere of Jason Grote's "This Storm Is What We Call Progress," is any indication, then homelessness may not be such a trying condition. Grote's play is both mind-blowing and a bit mind-numbing, but as modeling clay for a troupe that likes to get its mitts on provocative, idea-crammed and still-evolving theater, it's primo material."
- Washington Post 6/08 (about THIS STORM IS WHAT WE CALL PROGRESS)
"IF YOU SEE ONLY ONE PLAY during the six-month-long Shakespeare In Washington Festival SEE ROUGH MAGIC... the play itself prooves an inspired choice for an impoverished but balls- to-the-wall theater company."
- The City Paper 2/07 (about ROUGH MAGIC)
"I think its become clear that Rorschach, operating out of a restrictive church space, has out of necessity and boundless inventiveness, come up with an identity and style. There's nothing quite like it in the Washington theatre world."
- The Georgetowner 7/06 (about THE ARABIAN NIGHT)
"a well-drilled cast tackle their assignments with the ravenous pleasure of hyenas feasting on a leg of gnu."
-Washington Post, 10/05 (about THE BEARD OF AVON)
"Rorschach's staging grips you from the start... Hawthorne may have always been engaging, but he's never been this hip."
-Washington Post, 2/05 (about THE SCARLET LETTER)
"There should be no way to begin staging Bulgakov’s hallucinatory work… But rather than shrink from the challenge of the piece the Rorschach troupe appears to savor it…"
-Washington Post, 8/03
(about MASTER AND MARGARITA)
“A young troupe with no taste for the easy way.”
-Washington Post, March 2002
(about LORD OF THE FLIES)
For the WASHINGTON POST feature article on RORSCHACH THEATRE, THEATER ALLIANCE and CATALYST THEATER,
click HERE
Rorschach Theatre participates in the Helen Hayes Awards' WASHINGTON THEATRE TIXCERTIFICATES program.
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