Theatre is Served

Like hungry guests, a sitting audience looks:

Plays are like suppers; poets are the cooks.

The founder's you; the table is this place:

The carvers we; the prologue is the grace.

Each act a course, each scene, a different dish.”

George Farquhar, 17th Century Irish Dramatist

THEATRE IS SERVED brings a new perspective to a long-standing tradition: the marriage of entertainment and eating. From the ancient Greeks to the Moulin Rouge to the drive-in, food and drink have been integral components in our story-telling rituals. New Perspectives Theatre Company honors this tradition while updating it for our modern world, presenting plays from across the theatre history and cultural spectrum whose inherent theatricality and socio-political themes still ring true today. 

The Series is set with seasonal holidays and cultural celebrations in mind. Although actors at THEATRE IS SERVED events have scripts in their hands, the performances are highly theatrical and engaging. The food and drink enhance the interactive, cabaret atmosphere and the engaging, inclusive performance style of NPTC encourages audiences to add their creativity to the mix, providing multiple opportunities for “user-created content.”

Each THEATRE IS SERVED event includes a Concert Reading of a play performed by NPTC's multi-ethnic Companie, dinner from the time period/culture including dessert and libation, and a comprehensive Playbill that provides historical facts and the socio/political context of each play. It's a mini-Theatre History Course and Epicurean Adventure, all rolled into one!

NPTC created THEATRE IS SERVED! in the spring of 2009 to celebrate our heritage as theatre artists and highlight an important part of our mission—that Theatre is above all about gathering the Community to explore, evaluate and investigate the BIG life questions.  The Greeks (who gave us the word Theatre from Theatron) believed that engaging the entire community (in spaces that could accommodate up to 25,000!) would generate enough power and synergy to raise these questions up to the heavens, and that the Universe/Gods would eventually provide answers and insight. The Greeks also gave us the word IDIOT, which to them meant someone who refused to participate in the life of the community! 



Offerings began in May 2009 with (of course) a Greek comedy, Lysistrata by Aristophanes, the anti-war vehicle that is still being presented today. The program has since produced the following:

• The Jewish King Lear by Jacob Adler (19th Century Yiddish Theatre classic)

• The Convent of Pleasure by Margaret Cavendish (17th Century English Restoration)

• Good Morning Miss Millie by Alwin Bully (Jamaica, 1969)

• La Mandragola by Niccolò Machiavelli (Italian Renaissance)

• A Day of Absence by Douglas Turner Ward (Modern Black Theatre, 1966)

• Everyman, author unknown (Medieval Morality Play)

• The Group, A Farce by Mercy Otis Warren (American Revolution)

• Macbeth by Wm. Shakespeare (Halloween, 20th Anniversary Season)

• Voice of Blood and The Painted Woman by Rachilde (late 19th Century Symbolist female playwright)