CASE STATEMENT

The Classics

We believe it is imperative that classical theatre remains a vibrant and present part of contemporary American culture. As part of our heritage, classic stories should be revisited and remembered so that we better understand our past and its relevancy to our future. Quintessence is committed to exploring the classics through a contemporary lens. We call this “progressive classics” or “classics forward.” We do not modernize or rewrite the text. Rather, we allow for our contemporary aesthetics and social values to engage with the play.

TEXT BASED

The theatre is an artform driven by language. Classic plays do not just use dramatic dialogue but heightened language, which is meant to be spoken and heard. This is language that has stood the test of time in its ability to express the most complex human ideas and feelings. Quintessence is a home for Shakespeare, Chekhov, O'Neill, and Angelina Weld Grimké, writers whose distinctive theatrical voices use the power of words and rhetoric to their fullest extent. In an age when language is diminished by modern culture and the influence of digital and social media, Quintessence productions re-engage the power and beauty of language.

The Classical Actor

Quintessence is a home for artists who have devoted their life to the craft of classical acting. Unlike actors in film, television and many contemporary plays, a classical actor must have the ability to create human characters through heightened language. These actors must also master stage combat, dance and music. Finally, they must have the capacity of mind and spirit to become the full strata of humankind: a monarch, a peasant, a warrior, a god. As the focus of American actor training has turned towards the minimalism and naturalism of film and television, there is no longer sufficient exposure to the techniques of speech and performance required by the classics. At Quintessence, master artists such as Robert Jason Jackson, Frank X, Lawrence Pressman and E. Ashley Izard share their technique and expertise with the next generation of classical actors.

Epic Theatre

The scope of many contemporary plays is narrowed to a marketable exploration of a single question. Economics further limit the contemporary playwright’s imagination to small ensembles of characters existing in single recognizable spaces. These limitations do not exist in the classics. Driven by language, the power of the actor, and theatrical imagination, classic plays show that anything is possible on stage. In Quintessence’s intimate 130 seat theatre, we concentrate our resources on underwriting large (8+) ensembles of actors capable of unleashing the full power of these plays through language. We are proud of how we utilize all the fundamentals of theatre to create magic in a small space, or as Shakespeare coined it “a great reckoning in a little room.”

A Repertory Theatre

Quintessence aspires to be a regional destination for classical repertory theatre. For hundreds of years, plays were produced in rotating repertory, a format which allowed for an ensemble of artists to present multiple plays in rotation on alternate evenings. Like the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and the Stratford Festival, people make pilgrimages to experience a weekend full of classical theatre presented in repertory. One of Quintessence’s most successful repertories was the Devils and Saints Repertory: Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus presented in repertory with George Bernard Shaw’s Saint Joan. The combination of plays from two vastly different writers inspired a remarkable response from audiences and reviewers alike. This producing model not only creates a destination cultural experience, but also provides longer employment contracts for artists, decreases rehearsal costs, allows for the creation and maturation of an acting ensemble, and prevents the performances from becoming staid or stale due to repetition. Quintessence has found that audiences who attend one production in repertory return to experience the other production in order to see the same ensemble of artists tackle a different play.

A Professional Theatre

Since its founding, Quintessence has brought some of the region’s – and country’s - best classical artists to its stage. Notable actors include Lawrence Pressman, Broadway artists Robert Jason Jackson, Sam Tsousouvas, James Patrick Davis and Khris Davis, and local legends Janis Dardaris, Marcia Saunders and E. Ashley Izard. In 2018, Quintessence entered into an agreement with Actors’ Equity Association, the union of professional actors and stage managers in the United States, and became Philadelphia’s 18th professional Equity theatre. As an Equity theatre, Quintessence pays its artists a livable wage and contributes to the health care and pension payments of the actors, designers, and directors. This investment ensures that there are professional theatre artists able to make a sustainable living in our city and country.

Classics in the Classroom

Quintessence believes that the most challenging way for a young person to engage with a classic play is to read it as part of an academic assignment. Plays are to be experienced. In an age of streaming and recorded stage performance, Quintessence allows Philadelphia’s local primary, middle, high schools and universities to introduce their students to the classics through visceral live performance. Quintessence also offers classroom workshops with our actors to prepare students for the experience of the play and to understand the process of taking a classic play from the page to the stage. Quintessence Theatre is the only organization to receive the Public Citizens for Children and Youth’s Picasso Grant for three consecutive years of partnership with bringing the classical theatre to Parkway Northwest High School.

Classics for the Community

It is important for the wellbeing of a community to have a place to convene and share its collected stories. Philadelphia is one of America’s most vibrant and diverse cities. It is central to Quintessence’s mission to reflect our community in our audience and on our stage. In 2017, we expanded our definition of classic to include 20th century works including Beckett, O’Neill, Odets and nearly double our audience attendance with the addition of a holiday production of a classic musical. It is our belief that by producing popular world class theatre away from the Avenue of the Arts, Quintessence will enable Philadelphia to re-expand its vision of itself as a city of many great neighborhoods, not just a Center City cultural district. Quintessence is committed to its northwest Philadelphia home at the Sedgwick Theater and to being part of a vibrant and diverse community. The growth of our audience from throughout Philadelphia and the region shows that great professional theatre does not exist solely on the Avenue of the Arts.

Quintessence Theatre Group is dedicated to bringing epic works of classic drama and literature to the contemporary stage.

As Philadelphia’s text-based actor-focused repertory theatre, Quintessence re-envisions the classics to inspire our community to consider what is essential in theatre and in human nature.