‘Firehouse Theatre’ cranks up the heat

Collaborating with the London-based Firehouse Theatre, the Georgia College Department of Theatre is devising a play that will incorporate audience participation as well as cooking live onstage. The production will take place during this year’s Global Citizenship Symposium, “Personal and Global Health: My Role, Our Challenges.”

“The Firehouse Theatre will help us see world health interpreted through dramatic performance,” said Dwight Call, assistant vice president for international education and associate professor of anthropology. “This is the fifth year we are sponsoring the symposium, which allows students and faculty to analyze critical world issues from a multitude of academic perspectives, thereby helping students prepare for leadership locally, nationally and internationally.”

Karen Berman, theatre department chair, coordinates the arts for the symposium, and with funding from Georgia College’s Arts Unlimited, Berman had the ability to bring in a group from overseas.

“The Firehouse Theatre of London was chosen to perform at GC during the symposium because they are known for bringing actors of diverse countries and backgrounds together to create world premieres of devised original material based on the communities and topics they are portraying,” Berman said. “I knew they could create a play just for us and I knew that the fact they were from London, we would get a global perspective for the global symposium.”

Currently, the Firehouse Theatre is in the process of creating the play and will soon have a workshop with select GC theater majors, overseeing their roles in the production. These students will perform with actors from the company and also use improvisational elements to allow for audience participation.

“(The actors) are asking our GC theater students to write their own monologues about food, sustainability and global health to be incorporated into the show,” Berman said. “It will be a very personal show, even though dealing with big issues.”

Although the format for the play has not yet been finalized, cooking will be a large part of the production, and is a component that sophomore mathematics and theater major Emily Harper views as a good conversation starter.

“I’m just thinking of how it will bring people together over food,” Harper said. “We’ll be sharing each other’s ideas about food and how other cultures think about it. It’s kind of like a big idea share.”

One of the challenges that must be addressed before the performance can take place is whether the space can accommodate on-stage cooking and whether this violates any fire codes.

The space is currently being examined for any possible issues, and Berman hopes that whatever the outcome, the performance will garner a large audience and active participation.

“This show will be funny and poignant and truthful and, hopefully, relate to everyone’s lives. It will tell stories of comfort foods and favorite foods, and times when food is scarce or not healthy,” Berman said. “We hope it will encourage students to think about the way food is grown and prepared and about their own relationship with food and nutrition.”

Firehouse Theatre has worked with a number of local colleges such as Mercer University in the past, and it’s focus on community awareness through its plays is the primary reason Berman saw the company as the perfect way to help foster personal reflection within the GC community.

“I think it’s going to make everyone think,” Berman said. “It should make everyone stop and think about their role when it comes to health and wellness.”

This year’s Global Citizenship Symposium, “Personal and Global Health: My Role, Our Challenges” will be held on Feb. 6 in the A&S Auditorium at 3:30 p.m.

Posted by Noelle Brooks on Feb 2 2012. Filed under Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.