STRAWBERRY THEATRE WORKSHOP

"Greg Carter, Artistic Director of Strawberry Theatre Workshop, says, 'It is crazy that there is so much funding available for "new work" in theatre, but only if that work is defined as new writing. Theatre is inherently new every time it is newly interpreted. That is why playwrights like Ibsen, Williams, and Shakespeare endure. This is the art form in which a great writer like Ibsen offered his words. He had every intention that actors, directors, and designers do something new with it every time they picked it up. The idea that the playwright is the only peson capable of bringing originality to the stage is idiotic.' " –– Miryam Gordon 6/27/2008

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO STRAWBERRY THEATRE WORKSHOP?

"Strawshop's dedication to providing dignified wages for actors, directors, and designers is undermined if the company can only do work in venues where capacity is too small to break even or conditions are too compromised to ask more than a token price at the door... The fact that Strawshop is finding quality facilities tied to colleges is perhaps a sign of the future. As traditional infrastructure is removed, the organizations that are in the worst position to replace it—growth organizations like Strawshop or the newly announced New Century Theatre Company—are trapped in the underclass. Shared facilities and co-producing relationships (like the one that created Galileo) may be a viable answer. Unfortunately, spaces like the Erickson are available on a very limited basis, and may remain so unless the schools involved see a clear benefit to the collaboration." –– Greg Carter 5/28/2008

ORGANIZATION GENIUS

"Carter started Strawberry Theatre Workshop with two resolutions: one political, the other professional. Politically, the ground on which STW stands is socialist. The kinds of plays that the company produces have this defining theme: The world is not as it ought to be. And the reason why the world is perverted, upside down, is because the best of humanity is continually challenged and undone by the worst of humanity. In The Water Engine (by David Mamet, produced in 2006), an inventor is terrorized and murdered by oil interests. In An Enemy of the People (Henry Miller's adaptation of Henrik Ibsen, produced the same year), a scientist is undone by an unscrupulous businessman. The best of humanity is science, social welfare, peace; the worst is greed, corporations, war. The world that ought to be, then, is a socialist one, but the world we live, suffer, and fight in is neoliberal." –– Charles Mudede 9/12/2007

IGNORE THE PUPPETS

"For the past two years, Strawberry Theatre Workshop has been making some of the most exciting theater in town... There is a richness to Strawberry's work. It is technically innovative: Foley sound effects, live music, elaborate sets tailored for their space that fill out the theater and fit the production like a well-made suit. (Carter has a master's degree in architecture.) It attracts large casts of good to excellent actors (Amy Thone, Rhonda Soikowski, Todd Moore, more)—actors who are paid by Strawberry director Greg Carter." ––Brendan Kiley 6/27/2007

MANY RIVERS TO CROSS

"On September 11, 2001, Thornton Wilder was dead. He was not available to speak to firemen in New York through a megaphone, or to call a news conference in Washington, or to read a memorial sermon at any number of services all over the world. Thornton Wilder did not speak in 2001 because he had died in 1975, when the World Trade Center was two years old." –– Greg Carter 9/7/2006

THE MOST IMPORTANT STORY EVER WRITTEN

"We are told Christmas is a holiday for children, and yet all the memorable Christmas stories are filled entirely with adults. Clement Clarke Moore's narrator in A Visit from Saint Nicholas is the father, not the child. The lovers in O. Henry's Gift of the Magi are adults. As are George Bailey in It's a Wonderful Life and Dr. Seuss' Grinch. Though a young girl asked the question, it was a newspaper editor who answered Yes, Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus. And if Charlie Brown is a child, he's a child caught in a mid-life crisis... The secular canon of Christmas is grown-up. Perhaps, because the movement in these stories is a movement of faith, and faith from a child is unremarkable." –– Greg Carter 12/9/2004

ON PATRIOTISM AND WOODY GUTHRIE

"Woody Guthrie saw this land--America--and it's people as inseparable, and he adored them both. He exuded a patriotism that was completely different than the fear, guilt, or brand-name allegiance called patriotism today. Woody loved America because he loved Americans. He profoundly believed in the capacity of Americans to take care of one another, to think outside themselves, and to share the burdens of humanity. In that sharing alone, Woody found a joy worth living for. And worth fighting for... What a fantastic idea." –– Greg Carter 9/16/2004