Scroll further down to listen to our audio play Far Reaches, or to watch the recordings of our Zoom-staged readings from 2020.
see you at the theatre in 2024!
#WeMakeArtTogether #ArtforEveryone
coming summer 2024: world premiere & tour
When The Mind’s Free
Directed by Toby Vera Bercovici
Featuring: Linda Tardif, Carolyn Goelzer, Myka Plunkett, Annelise Nielsen, and Liz Stanton
Choreography by Annelise Nielsen, Lighting Design by Ezekiel Baskin, Musical Composition & Performance by Samuel V. Perry, Costume Design by Mikayla Reid, Stage Management by Nat Solomon, Produced by Ellen Morbyrne for RLT
We are currently raising funds for our Summer 2024 premier and tour of regional senior, health, and community centers. We are also raising funds for a larger 2024-2025 national tour. Your donations to When The Mind’s Free can be tax-deductible! Click the link below to our Fractured Atlas donation page for easy one-time and monthly donation options. When The Mind's Free is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization. Contributions for the charitable purposes of When The Mind's Free must be made payable to “Fractured Atlas” only and are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.
“There is a desperate need to increase the representation of those living with Alzheimer's and caregivers in media and pieces like this; this disease continues to impact more families and we need art pieces to help the broader public understand this disease.” -Meghan Lemay, Alzheimer's Association, Regional Manager, supporting consultant to When The Mind's Free.
What happens to a family when its leader loses her capacity for reason? This is a core theme from Shakespeare’s King Lear, and it’s a theme for millions of U.S. families who are already dealing with dementia and Alzheimer’s. Millions more will grapple with memory loss in the coming years. The CDC predicts that dementia cases will soon triple, as the baby boomer generation marches into old age. Many people will be confronted with the question: Who do you become when you lose your memories?
When The Mind's Free is a dance-theatre piece that lifts language, ideas, and story from Shakespeare’s King Lear and places them in a contemporary context, that of a lesbian couple’s family dealing with the early-onset-Alzheimer’s of their matriarch and the opioid addiction of their youngest daughter. The piece has been developed over a three-year period of improvisation and in conversation with Shakespeare’s King Lear, as well as in consultation with memory care organizations, caretakers, families, and individuals dealing with memory loss.
When the Mind’s Free is one of the first pieces of theater (to our knowledge) to feature an LGBTQ family dealing with the impacts of Alzheimer’s, as it follows the story of married couple Colleen and Sharon (inspired by Lear and Fool, respectively) and their three daughters, Gwen (Goneril), Rowan (Regan), and Delia (Cordelia). As Colleen’s former self begins to vanish, erased by Alzheimer’s, each family member struggles with letting go of the past and finding peace in the present.
A core component of this project is direct community engagement.
Each performance of the piece will be accompanied by a facilitated space for discussion. We hope to give audience members time to reflect on their experiences of caregiving and being cared for, to share stories and resonances, and to connect with resources and with one another. From our own experiences, we know how lonely caregiving can be, and we hope to provide space to foster community connectedness.
When The Mind’s Free Staged Reading Events in June 2023 were supported in part by the generous support of a Mass Cultural Council Festivals & Projects Grant.
Footage from our December 2019 residency & sharing. Videography by Visible Stories
Footage from our first exploratory residency, June 2019. Filmed by Rachel Hall. Edited by Alberto Carlos Peart.
our first audioplay “far reaches” is still live!
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The recordings of our 2020 Zoom-staged readings of The Lion & The Clown: A Rumi Lovesong for Beauty & the Beast and The Life & Death of Queen Margaret are both available to stream for free below - just scroll down!
Thank you to our extensive community for helping us continue to make art for everyone. You can join our village of support here.
RLT presents our first audio play Far Reaches
cover art by Syl Simmons
written & directed by
ellen morbyrne
featuring
trenda loftin & linda tardif
production managed by SYL SIMMONS
sound recording, creation, & editing by RACHEL HALL
theme song by CYNTHIA ZAITZ, Ph.D
One Raft Person. One Witness. One world covered in endless ocean.
What do we remember? What does it mean to survive, and what is survival worth? Two people from radically different backgrounds reach towards friendship and understanding, following memories and stories as they seek some kind of truth.
Far Reaches follows a deeply curious, tender-hearted Witness from another world as they discover everything they can about the ocean-swallowed planet of the solitary Raft Person. As the Witness and the Raft Person become ever more entwined in friendship, startling discoveries lead to endless layers of questions: How many other raft people are there? How did the roaches and the people evolve together? What material is that raft made out of anyway? Will we ever learn what a stormfish really is? Do we, actually, know when and where we are? The Witness and the Raft Person will need to unlock deeply forgotten memories in order to understand what their futures might hold.
Listen for free, anytime, anywhere! Click below to stream directly through our site, or you can also listen on our YouTube channel. OR, find our Far Reaches album on Bandcamp using their free app (easy to download on your Apple or Android smartphone).
This program is supported in part by grants from the Amherst, Burlington, Greenfield, Hadley, Holyoke, South Hadley, and Springfield Cultural Councils, local agencies which are supported by the Mass Cultural Council, a state agency.
In the summer of 2019 we spent a full week in residence during the WHAT WE SEE month of theatrical residencies hosted at 33 Hawley Street by A.P.E. & SCDT (see photos below). Before COVID19 we were gearing up for a local world premiere in August 2020, applying to festivals, and seeing where the waves took us. Now, we’ve adapted this script into an audio play! Thank you for YOUR SUPPORT in making this journey a reality.
Photos taken by Tyran Grillo during our 2017 run at Theater for the New City, NYC
On August 15th, 2020, Real Live Theatre presented a live “Zoom-staged” reading of our original feminist epic The Life & Death of Queen Margaret. A reimagining of the story of Margaret of Anjou, liberated from the four Shakespeare plays of which she was a part (the Henry VI trilogy and Richard III), and giving her body, context, motivation, and choice, so that she is no longer the male-imagined female villain, but rather the (complicated) hero of her own story.
A patchwork of text written mostly by William Shakespeare, as deconstructed and augmented by Toby Vera Bercovici and Dan Morbyrne.
CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE RECORDING OF THIS SHARING
Directed by Toby Vera Bercovici. With Choreography by Annelise Nielsen. Stage Management by Ezekiel Baskin. Sound Design by Catherine McCurry. Featuring an original song by Cynthia Zaitz, Ph.D.
This sharing featured a reunion of our 2017 cast & crew (currently living all over the Valley, in NYC, and in Denmark!):
Myka Plunkett, Linda Tardif, Kate Hare, Annelise Nielsen, Ellen Morbyrne, Emily Tanch, Jeannine Haas (AEA), and Lisa Abend (AEA).
This program was supported in part by grants from the Montague and Amherst Cultural Councils, local agencies which are supported by the Mass Cultural Council, a state agency.
The touring cast of Lion & Clown in 2015
On June 5th, 2020, RLT presented a live "Zoom-staged" reading of our beloved original piece The Lion & The Clown: A Rumi Lovesong for Beauty & the Beast. A play filled with magic, beauty, obscenity, grief, and deep abiding love. As audiences said after its premiere in 2014 and again during its tour in 2015: "I really needed that." Thank you to everyone who came and felt the hope with us!
CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE RECORDING OF THIS SHARING
This reading featured a reunion of original cast members (currently living all over the Valley, in NYC, in Florida, and in Pittsburgh!): Kate Hare, Dan Morbyrne, Mike Pray, Trenda Loftin, Alberto Carlos Peart, Rachel Hall, Toby Vera Bercovici, Lucy Gouvin, and Syl Simmons.
Written & directed by Ellen Morbyrne. Original music by Cynthia Zaitz, PhD.
This program was supported in part by grants from the Montague and Amherst Cultural Councils, local agencies which are supported by the Mass Cultural Council, a state agency.
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To see images and excerpts of past productions please visit Photos & Videos.
You can also view a list of our complete production history here.