Kickstarter

Naked Feet would like to produce a Philadelphia World Premiere of our original, all woman, collaborative theatre piece in 2012. We began working on this piece in 2005 and it has been a deep labor of love for the 4 of us. Here is a little history about the process we developed to find our play:

'The Orphan Tree' was born from an experiment in ensemble exploration. Hannah Tsapatoris MacLeod, Vivian Appler, Jackie Ruggerio and Makaria Tsapatoris created this piece in collaboration using group movement exercises, explorations of gesture and sound and later individual and group writing experiments. We explored, developed and finished our play over the course of 5 years.

We were searching for the Great Mother that seems to be lost in our culture. Her presence is distinct in older religions and mythologies - but where was she now? And what impact did her absence have on our society? How could our society have become so unbalanced?

To fully comprehend Her absence, we needed to know where we came from. We  delved deeply into the mythos of our collective consciousness to unearth the ancient archetypes that shape our understanding of 'woman energy', immersing ourselves in the study of myths, legends and fairy tales from countries all around the world.

We also felt there was a need to find the silent voices or our society and pay them homage. We poised the questions  "Who are the silent voices? Who are the orphans of our society? Who has lost their power?" The answers came with an investigation into abuse, sexual slavery, domestic violence and hate crimes. This work was deeply involved, emotional, raw and uncomfortable at times. In the end, we were blessed with the privilege of hearing the silent ones of the earth and giving them voice in our play.

For the first three years we wrote hundreds of scenes using a process we developed which we called 'Writing by Consensus'. This process involved writing one line of potential dialogue and then passing the paper on to our fellow collaborator who in turn would write a response and pass it on again to the next woman and so on. Through this process of "Writing by Consensus", The Orphan Tree was born.

We hope to produce a fully realized World Premiere of The Orphan Tree in  2012. This will require having a fully functioning tree that the actresses can hang off of, climb, jump out of and sleep in and a giant shadow puppet theatre. 

There are 9 actors to be paid $500 minimum;1 Director $500 minimum; 5 Designers $500 minimum; 1 stage manager $500 minimum and at least 2 musicians $500 minimum. Right there it will cost $9,000 just to pay everyone involved a small fee.

Plus there are the expenses for advertising and marketing, rental space for rehearsal and performance approx 4, technicians/puppeteers who will be running the show, video documentation, costumes, props, and puppets. These expenses add up and we hope you can help us realize our original work.

WE ARE ONLY ASKING HALF of what we believe it will take to produce this play. We can only make the dream happen with everyone's support. THANK YOU!!!!

Hannah Tsapatoris MacLeod - Founder/Producing Artistic Director - Naked Feet Theatrical Productions