AGILE RASCAL BIKE THEATRE
BETHLEHEM PROJECT
In October 2019, Agile Rascal participated in Touchstone Theatre Company's Festival Unbound.
Festival Unbound was an opportunity for the community of Bethlehem, PA to commemorate the historic closing of their famous steel mill and an opportunity to envision a new future. It was also an opportunity for Agile Rascal to envision a new way to collide performing arts with cycling. Rather than bring the arts to our audiences on bicycles, we brought our audiences, on bikes, to the arts.
Over a 2.5 mile ride, our participants were invited to envision their landscape in a new way - one full of history, possibility, and creative potential.
LISTEN TO JAREN FEELEY'S BRILLIANT SCORE
TO HUNT A WILD UTOPIA
Saddle up! Our Leader has prepared what is bound to be the most successful hunt for a wild utopia yet. They've found the best location (Bethlehem), procured the necessary equipment (horses) and gathered the best group of hunters they could find (you!)
But as we head out on our hunt, the locals we encounter seem to have some very different ideas about the specific nature of utopia. Is it some fully-automated dream future or some anachronistic nostalgia trip? Soon the hunt isn't as clear-cut as they had hoped, and a certain Professor who studies delusional utopian pursuits has got a lot of new scholarly material.
But maybe, if utopia is real, it's the approach to the hunt, not the impulse that's wrong. 'To Hunt a Wild Utopia' invites its participants to ask the big questions about what makes a utopia, and what's the point of hunting something so impossible, and yet, so irresistible?
The Leader of the Hunt
The Professor and his fearless steed, Chowder
The Leader riding side saddle on Billy, their horse
A participant (okay, our designer, Lexy) gets ready for the hunt
An old woman warns us that utopia is always just behind us
A Sign Spinner tries to sell us on Communism as utopia
Billy tells of once being a man who worked at the mill
The Busker spins tales of bygone utopias
CAST AND CREW
Jackie Rivera - The Leader
Sam Cordes - The Professor
Dara Silverman - The Horse
Kendrick Haunt - The Teenager, The Old
Woman, Fisher Person 1
Kean Haunt - The Dates, Sign Spinner 1,
Fisher Person 2
Jaren Feeley - The Lover, Sign Spinner 2,
The Busker
Dara Silverman - Writer and Director
Lexy Ho-Tai - Horse Puppets, Props
Jaren Feeley - Composer
Kendrick Haunt - Costumes
Rose Schwietz - Stage Manager