“Don’t be a bolting-hutch of beastliness!”

It’s not easy being a  hilarious, classically trained, highly accomplished, cooperative theater ensemble of actors who work frequently on TV, film, and Broadway and who founded a theatre company to celebrate and reinvigorate the classics!  And…to raise funds in order to convert a Glendale storefront into a Cultural Arts Center and new home which includes a fully-fledged annual season of  three fully-staged classical theater productions, a popular free reading series, Playwrights Lab, and outreach programs for students, educators and audience members that connect the essentially human elements in classical texts to contemporary issues and ideas.  In order to keep it going, sometimes you need to get a sense of humor.  And that’s what they did!

#ShakespeareInsultChallenge

Antaeus Theatre Company is using its trademark sense of humor in its new crowdfunding campaign, playon.info.  

“In the Antaeus tradition, where classical meets contemporary, we’re using a crowdfunding platform to help raise money for our new home,” explain co-artistic directors Bill Brochtrup, John Sloan and Rob Nagle. “We hope it will help us engage the community and the world-at-large, like the timeless plays we perform in our theater.”

Here’s a handy Shakespearean Translator

The Play On! Capital Campaign was publicly launched last June to raise funds to convert a vacant storefront at 110 East Broadway in the City of Glendale to a Cultural Arts Center.

To date, Play On! has raised $1.3 million through contributions from donors, board members, and company members. The refurbished space will house an 80-seat theater and a 45-seat black box, as well as a lobby gallery and a classics library. A production of Tennessee Williams’ Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, fully partner-cast in Antaeus tradition, is on track to inaugurate the new space in the fall of 2016. (Until that time, the company continues to produce at its current space in the NoHo Arts District, with Cloud 9 by Caryl Churchill scheduled to open on March 10 and Hedda Gabler by Henrik Ibsen, in a version by Andrew Upton, scheduled for June 2.)

“The generosity of the entire company has been astounding,” says Antaeus co-associate artistic director and Star Trek veteran Armin Shimerman. “We are blessed to have so many passionate people in our midst whose hearts are so devoted to the arts. Having emptied our pockets, we now look to a wider community to help build our new home.”

Following in the footsteps of highly entertaining fundraising videos created by Antaeus in past years (including “Naked Actors Need Costumes” and “Turn Off the Dark”), the company’s new Kickstarter video seeks to raise $75,000 of the remaining funds necessary to begin construction.

Launching in tandem with the Kickstarter campaign, the Antaeus “Shakespeare Insult Challenge” will feature familiar faces from the science fiction universe, including fan favorites from Star Trek, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and more, each calling out one of the insults sprinkled throughout the Bard’s plays (“Thou burlyboned, poxmarked skainsmate”) and encouraging viewers to donate, create similar videos of their own and spread the word via #ShakespeareInsultChallenge.

Antaeus Theatre Company is a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. All donations (minus the value of any premiums received) are fully tax deductible.