FPTC Announces 10th Anniversary and Live Arts Boston Grant

Fort Point Theater Channel today announced its tenth anniversary plans, beginning with Dhalgren Sunrise in June. This scripted/improvisational, interactive, multimedia performance project is based on Dhalgren, a groundbreaking work of American magical realism by the noted African-American science-fiction writer Samuel R. Delany.

FPTC has received a Boston Foundation Live Arts Boston (LAB) grant for Dhalgren Sunrise. LAB is designed to respond directly to the needs articulated by Boston's arts community through Boston Creates. LAB provides critically needed, flexible, project-specific grants to Greater Boston's performing artists and small nonprofit performing arts organizations to create, produce, or present artistic work for Greater Boston audiences.

FPTC co-artistic director Mitchel Ahern adapted Dhalgren Sunrise and directs the project. As Ahern explains, "Movement artists, musicians, and readers have created a performance vehicle inspired by the novel's diverse themes: identity, family, urban living, violence, and sexuality, and the nature of time and reality."

Beginning with Dhalgren Sunrise, FPTC will present a year of challenging works, guided by a mission of creating and sustaining new configurations of the performing arts. The company plans two major projects in its 10th anniversary year in addition to Dhalgren Sunrise: August Strindberg's The Ghost Sonata and Jeanne, a new work created by FPTC co-artistic director Mark Warhol.

In The Ghost Sonata, coming in October, a society ruled by irrational power transforms free people into puppets of the status quo. According to FPTC co-artistic director Christine Noah, who leads the project, "A mummy tells the truth about a politician who maintains his power with lies, and an estranged family must recognize the secrets they have hidden behind for years."

In 2018, FPTC, Ensemble Warhol, and the Doppelgänger Dance Collective will present an excerpt from the new opera Jeanne by FPTC co-founder Mark Warhol. Jeanne tells the story of a woman trapped in a narrowly defined, frustrating, day-to-day existence due to her beliefs and values, fate and circumstance. "Idealism awakes in her the desire to change her life," says Warhol.

Also during the anniversary year, FPTC will continue its free Exclamation Point! series of theme-based evenings blending various arts. Ideas under consideration include "Onscreen/Offscreen," combining live and projected action, and "The Colors of the Rainbow Are Yellow," on the precarious position of Asian-Americans in the local arts scene. For the next phase in FPTC's Basra-Boston Project, a workshop in Dubai will bring together Boston-area and Iraqi artists to support Iraqi women's voices.

FPTC grows out of Fort Point's unique, artist-grounded community. In 2007, the first Exclamation Point! marked its start with an evening of new writing by neighborhood artists and friends. Since then, every project has been distinctive, built upon the diverse mix of arts represented by a core group of artistic directors, now numbering about 20.

Fort Point Theatre Channel is dedicated to creating and sustaining new configurations of the performing arts. We bring together an ensemble of artists from the worlds of theater, music, visual arts, and everything in between as a forum for collaborative expression while enriching the Fort Point community, Boston, and beyond.

Fort Point Theatre Channel, resident at Midway Studios, is comprised of a core group of artistic directors: Mitchel King Ahern, Mario Avila, Olivia Brownlee, Rick Dorff, Mary Driscoll, Danny Gessner, Kathryn Howell, Naomi Ibasitas, Heather Kapplow, Ian W. King, Anne Loyer, Roberto Mighty, Marc S. Miller, Christine Noah, Sally Nutt, Hana Pegrimkova, Nick Thorkelson, Douglas Urbank, Daniel J. van Ackere, Yuxi Wang, and Mark Warhol.

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