Photo courtesy of Thinking Cap Theatre

One of Thinking Cap Theatre’s last productions at the MAD Arts Gallery in Dania Beach was the world premiere of O Christmas Tree by Bree-Anna Obst and Nicole Stodard. In the production last holiday season, Anne (Carol Sussman), Frankie (Phillip Andrew Santiago), and Claudia (Angelina Lopez Catledge) rejoice during a scene from the play. 

By AARON KRAUSE

When Thinking Cap Theatre (TCT) in South Florida desperately needed assistance, the community responded in a big way. Specifically, patrons and others helped the professional, nonprofit organization raise roughly $40,000 in about four weeks. As a result, TCT will be able to present its 2023-24 season in its new home at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts, 201 S.W. 5^th Ave. in Ft. Lauderdale.

TCT will present two shows as well as an ongoing podcast and multiple play readings in the Broward Center’s Abdo New River Room. It can seat about 250 people, but TCT will reconfigure it so that it can seat about 90 people, TCT Artistic Director Nicole Stodard said.

TCT will stage Tango Palace by the late great playwright and Pulitzer nominee María Irene Fornés (1930-2018) from Oct. 27-Nov. 3. In addition, TCT will mount a production of Shakespeare’s “The Taming of the Shrew,” adapted and directed by Stodard, from March 22-April 3.

But Stodard said none of the above would be possible had TCT not been able to raise the necessary funds. Stodard added that she and others at TCT were stunned in June when they learned that they suddenly had no home.

Last year, TCT presented its season at the MAD Arts Gallery in Dania Beach, and the plan was to remain there for this upcoming season. It was an in-kind venue, meaning TCT did not have to pay to use the space. However, over the summer, Stoddard and Co. learned that changes MAD Arts implemented meant TCT could no longer use the facility for programming.

“The prospect of not having a space was pretty devastating,” Stodard said. She added that TCT had applied for and received grants for this upcoming season. If TCT could not find a new space, the organization would have had to default on the grants.

TCT had few options; most performance spaces were occupied and booked well into the future. And, so, Stodard and Co. had to come up with a new plan. It involved asking the community for donations.

“We were very worried about how the fundraising campaign would go,” Stodard said. “We knew that we were saturating our audiences with the same request.”

But the community responded – and for that, Stodard said she is grateful.

“TCT prides itself on theatrical experimentation, equality, and excellence,” she said. “To this end, the company has amassed a loyal fan base that appreciates the opportunity to see daring theater locally that it could not otherwise see without traveling to New York, Chicago, or L.A.

“TCT thrives on experimentation, both in terms of the plays we select and how we rehearse and stage them. We challenge conventions and embrace playfulness. This is how we work to keep the art form dynamic and evolving.”

Stodard said she is excited about TCT being able to perform at the Broward Center.

“For so many reasons we are really excited about this move,” she said. “For one, we are honored to work in this state-of-the-art facility among so many talented artists and leaders; for another, we are thrilled to bring TCT’s bold, boundary-breaking work in the style of Off- and Off-Off Broadway to this new venue and to new audiences. We are thinking of this season as our ‘Off-Broward’ launch.”

TCT will debut at the Broward Center with Tango Palace, an early play by Fornés. She was a nine-time Obie Award winner and a prolific author of nearly 40 plays. In addition, she was a pioneer of the 1960’s Off-Off Broadway movement, and an originator of site-specific and immersive theater. In fact, TCT presented a production of Fornés play, Fefu and Her Friends in June 2022 at MAD Arts.

Tango Palace is an allegorical power struggle between the two central characters; Isidore, a clown, and Leopold, a naïve youth. As is true with much of the playwright’s work, Tango Palace stresses character rather than plot.

Fornés wrote Tango Palace in late 1962 and the piece received its first staging a year later in San Francisco. In the play, “Fornés reveals her indebtedness to Samuel Beckett’s absurdism, Oscar Wilde’s wit, and a modern camp style that her one-time lover Susan Sontag captured in her landmark essay, ‘Notes on Camp,’” Stodard explained. “Tango Palace, a dark, funny, and whimsical examination of perilous passion, tests the limits of the age-old saying that ‘all is fair in love and war.’”

When the play premiered, it was so successful that Arthur Ballet quickly anthologized it in Playwrights for Tomorrow.

“Tango Palace will resonate with anyone who’s ever tangoed with a tumultuous lover and lived to tell,” Stodard said.

Guests can visit TCT’s website, http://thinkingcaptheatre.org, to register for free public programming that will complement the stage production; this additional programming includes talkbacks with the director, cast, and Fornés and Tango scholars. In addition, audience tango instruction with the production’s choreographer will take place after the 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 28 performance.

TCT’s podcast, Thoughts on Theatre and Life, includes multiple ongoing series, one of which uplifts Fornés’ legacy. Also, guests of Tango Palace can deepen their engagement with the play by tuning into The Future of Fornes for stimulating conversations with leading Fornés scholars from coast to coast. The podcast is also available on Amazon, Apple, Google, and Spotify.

Sponsorship for Tango Palace comes from various grants. Performance dates and times are as follows:

7:30 p.m. Friday, Oct. 27

2 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 28 (plus post-show talkback with Dr. Lillian Manzor on Biculturarism in Fornés’s life and work.)

7:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 28 (post-show talkback and Tango instruction with Dr. Teresa Marrero and choreographer CJ Torres).

3 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 29 (post-show roundtable with Manzor on Fornés and South Florida, featuring the playwright’s nephew and colleagues).

7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 31 (Halloween dress-up and post-show talkback with the director and cast).

7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 1

7:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 2 (post-show talkback with Stodard on Fornes’ Living Legacy and TCT’s Embodied Research and Rehearsal Practices).

7:30 p.m. Friday, Nov. 3.

***********

TCT will follow Tango Palace with a mainstage production The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare (1564-1616), adapted and directed by Stodard. This will be a contemporary adaptation which still preserves Shakespeare’s language.

In the play, set in Padua, Lucentio and other suitors pursue Bianca. However, her father tells the suitors that Bianca’s bad-tempered older sister, Katherine, must marry first. They encourage Petruchio, who has come to Padua to find a wealthy wife, to court Katherine and free Bianca to marry.

Boca Magazine named TCT’s last Shakespeare revival, a reimagining of Shakespeare’s great tragedy, King Lear, one of the top 10 plays of 2018.

“With Shrew, TCT turns to one of Shakespeare’s most controversial works, a play that has left audiences divided on whether the playwright was a misogynist or a proto-feminist,” Stodard said. “Made famous in a mid-twentieth century revival that starred real-life sparring lovers Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, this comedy epitomizes the age-old battle of the sexes in the tumultuous courtship of Katherina and Petruchio.

“Thinking Cap’s innovative staging will allow performers and audiences alike to experience and judge different casting and directorial choices in real time to explore our shifting perceptions of what’s playable, offensive, or funny.”

“Shakespeare’s works play differently in every age,” Stodard said. “This particular work presents a meaningful opportunity, in this moment, to ‘hold a mirror up to nature,’ in the words of Hamlet, and to demonstrate the perennial nature of some of our current debates.”

This main stage production is part of The People vs Shakespeare’s Shrew, “a multifaceted project that invites audiences to engage deeply with this problem play through complementary programming that includes the following: a staged reading of Shakespeare’s first folio script of Shrew; a staged reading of John Fletcher’s 1611 response play titled The Woman’s Prize of the Tamer Tamed; Sunday Talkbacks with the cast and creative team; and Shakespeare Was Here; a six-episode podcast series with Shakespeare practitioners and scholars from around the country.

Support for this program comes from various grants. The following are performance times and dates:

7:30 p.m. Friday, March 22

3 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Saturday, March 23

3 p.m. Sunday, March 24

7:30 p.m. Thursday, March 28

7:30 p.m. Friday, March 29

7:30 p.m. Saturday, March 30

7:30 p.m. Monday, April 1

7:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 3

Ticket prices for TCT’s main stage productions are $45 for general admission, $20 student rush tickets are the door for 21 and under with valid Student ID. The registration link for complementary free public programming is http://thinkingcaptheatre.eventbrite.com.

For more information, go to http://thinkingcaptheatre.org. or call (954) 610-7263.