RALEIGH, N.C.: Burning Coal Theatre Company has announced the inaugural Four Corners Project recipients, which grants the company’s Murphey School space for one week, four times a year to creative individuals working on innovative or exciting projects. The selected artists and organizations include Rebecca Ashley Jones, OdysseyStage, Megan Yankee, and Nancy Rich.
First up will be The Lord Chamberlain’s Men Present: Pericles Prince of Tyre (Nov. 5-8), adapted by Jones from Shakespeare’s Pericles. The play explores how the creative team and actors prepared for the premiere of Pericles in Shakespeare’s time.
Next up, OdysseyStage will present Other Desert Cities: A Reading and Discussion (TBA). This event will feature a reading of Jon Robin Baitz’s play and a post-reading discussion about the piece and the relevant themes to COVID-19.
Following will be Qué gringa, que gringa (TBA), created and performed by Yankee. The solo performance is about the author’s exploration of her unknown ancestry, adoption, and mixed heritage. Audiences will be encouraged to participate in dialogue and choreography throughout.
The final selection will be Tangos Quentos (Jan. 2-3, 2021), choreographed by Rich. The piece a presentation of stories told physically, with tango music serving as the prompt for the non-spoken dialogue.
Jones is a local theatre actress, sometime director, and high school history teacher. Jones focuses mostly on Shakespeare performance and has been seen in the area performing Shakespeare with Sweet Tea Shakespeare (Macbeth), Raleigh Little Theatre (Measure for Measure), and Bare Theatre (Two Gentlemen of Verona, Timon of Athens). Her greatest achievement, however, was getting the opportunity to produce, adapt, direct, design, and act in her dream play, Much Ado, with the Women’s Theatre Festival last summer, presented on Burning Coal’s stage. Rebecca is a co-founder of a new classical theatre organization in the area, the Empty Chair Theatre Project. With Bobby Callaway and Nicholas Tycho Reed, they are committed to creating experimental, unique, and memorable classical and classical-inspired theatre.
OdysseyStage is a non-profit community theatre dedicated to entertaining audiences of all ages, educating adults and children through theatrical participation, and empowering local talent. Each year, they produce several shows that feature Triangle-based playwrights and take on powerful themes.
Yankee is a biracial citizen-artist based in Durham, N. C. Yankee is happiest when working at the unlikely intersection of anti-racist experimental dancemaking and trauma survivor advocacy. Her choreography has been generously funded by institutions in Texas, Ohio, and North Carolina and presented across the U.S. and abroad in Belfast, Northern Ireland and Kampala, Uganda. She is also an award-winning trauma-informed movement educator for children and adults of all experience levels.
Rich is a local director and choreographer with more than 20 years of experience in directing and choreographing musical theatre projects for Raleigh Little Theatre, Cary Players, Justice Theatre Project, Actors Comedy Lab, and Theatre In The Park.
Founded in 1995, Burning Coal Theatre Company produces overlooked classics and contemporary plays and musicals that address current issues.
