A Message from the Ensemble

 

Thank you for visiting our website! You might have a couple questions. While there is no right or wrong way to explore The Fires We Don't See, here are some things you should know:

 

 

How to use this website

Click on each tab, either a character or a creative member, as you please. You can choose to consume the website from beginning to end, or in any order you like. 

 

Our website is viewable on mobile or desktop, but we like a full-screen desktop experience the most.

 

Take your time. It would take you just as much time to watch a full, traditional stage play as it would for you to consume all of the content on our site. Like the theatre traditionally performed in buildings, we ask for your generosity and time.

 

Unlike a traditional play, you may pick and choose what you want to see, run to what interests you, jump, pause, and play - just as the ensemble did in our own work. 

 

We do not ask for you to ignore the meta-theatrics of performing Chekhov in our bedrooms. And basements and kitchens and backyards.

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Why did we do this

 

Kickstarted by Matthew Antoci, GraceAnn Brooks, and April Ella Lichtman, the 2020 Cinnamon Summer Series ensemble saw the COVID crisis as an opportunity to explore digital methods of devising.

 

Our original goals were to:

1. Form a devising collective in order to be held accountable by a group with a common goal

2. Create a space for collaboration and conversation

3. Investigate what universal truths might be embedded in an older text

4. Experiment with digital devising methods

 

What ended up being created was 

• a space to build piles of ideas, mountains of curiosity, threads of interest

• a project where actors were in full consent of how they performed their roles

• a testament to the critical resourcefulness of actors and creators in the theatre that so rarely gets put to use in the traditional repertory and commercial structures that dominate theatremaking

• a challenge to what performance is

• a challenge to the legacy of “becoming a character”

• an illumination as to what exists beyond the page, and beyond the sanctified canon

 

 

What is this website?

 

This website showcases the creative work devised by an ensemble of multidisciplinary artists. Our collaboration was untitled for most of the process.

We went with "deconstruction."

 

The ensemble has also called it:

an unraveling

an excyclopedia,

an experiment,

an exploration,

a project.

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The title, "The Fires We Don't See, a deconstructed Three Sisters," was voted on by the ensemble at our penultimate meeting.

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The website is not a supplement for a traditional production of Three Sisters. It stands alone.

 

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To get started

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You may watch our video summaries of Anton Chekhov’s classic text here

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You can also learn more about the context of

Three Sisters here

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