King Lear by William Shakespeare
The Miser by Moliere
The Shotgun Players is an ensemble of artists on a mission to create bold, relevant, affordable theater.
We believe in the power of theater as a mechanism through which we and our community examine ourselves and the world.
The Shotgun Players were born in 1992 when eleven people got together and put on a play in the basement of a pizza parlor. Now, we have grown to include a wide subscriber base, enthusiastic critical support and a faithful audience of theatre lovers.
We have won prestigious Dramalogue awards for direction, set design and production; the 1998 SF Weekly Black Box Awards for Best Company, Production and Acting; the 1999 SF Bay Guardian Award for Outstanding Theatre Company; and four 1999 Bay Area Crditics Circle Awards for Entire Production, Original Script and Ensemble for local playwright Adam Bock's Swimming in the Shallows and Choreography/Fight Direction for Romeo & Juliet.
The group that once depended solely on Artistic Director Patrick Dooley's determination and resourcefulness now has a growing annual budget, a managing staff, company members, artistic associates, a board of directors and an ambitious seven-show season. Our passion and resolve fuels our work more strongly than ever as we propel ourselves into the new millennium and another season of premieres, collaborations and inventive reworkings of old classics.
The Forest War by Mark Jackson
Our strategy in 1992 was to build an audience base by doing rarely produced plays by oft produced playwrights. Even if an audience member didn't know who we were, they would be familiar with Mamet, Pinter or Shakespeare.
As we have continued to grow and strengthen our organization, we have multiplied the number of new plays on our roster. While we will never become a company that only does new plays, we firmly believe that it is our responsibility to create theatre that reflects our times.
Just as we are devoted to developing the skills of designers, actors and directors, we are pledged to the cause of the earnest playwright. In service of this commitment, we persistently involve our authors in the experience of rehearsing their new plays. We have also instituted a system of workshops that enrich communication between directors, actors and company members. We find the challenge of inventing revolutionary work uniquely inspiring and well-suited to our personality as a company.
