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TPAC Is BACK
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In 2017, Kelli McLoud-Schingen and other Tulsa community members had a vision: a theatre company built around telling under-told stories that would give underrepresented actors access to feature roles. From that goal, World Stage Theatre Company was born and has been telling incredible human stories ever since.
“Community theatre is about more than roles and lines, it’s about community. It’s about performing theatre as it was designed to be presented, to challenge our perceptions of what it means to be human, what it means to be part of a community,” McLoud-Schingen says.
To do so, the nonprofit arts company provides talk backs after its shows. Representatives from local organizations related to the stories told are brought in to help facilitate discussions with the audiences about the themes highlighted in the productions and how Tulsans can relate those themes to their own lives and communities.
The organization’s third season was interrupted and put on pause due to the pandemic. Though they tried to fill the in-person void with recorded stage productions and virtual Facebook interviews called Theatre Talks, that intimate bond between performer and audience was missing. Now that it is safe to present these stories in person, McLoud-Schingen and her team intend to come back strong.
Their first production back, “Tulsa 21! Black Wall Street,” told the story of the Tulsa Race Massacre and played to a
Kelli McLoud-Schingen
sold-out house. Their new season, titled Stories of Our Humanity, will open with a well-loved classic: “The Shawshank Redemption.”
“We’re so excited to start our fourth season in such a big way,” McLoudSchingen says. “This show is easily identifiable and beloved, but it is also an incredibly powerful tale of humanity. There are so many themes that could be easily missed. What does it mean to be institutionalized? What does it take from your humanity? It’s also a beautiful story of friendship shaped in an inhumane system.”
Like all the stories chosen and told by World Stage Theatre Company, “The Shawshank Redemption” is a story that holds the mirror up to every single one of us and forces us to ask important questions of ourselves and our society. Many know the story, first written by Stephen King and adapted into the beloved movie starring Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman.
“The wonderful thing about this story,” McLoud-Schingen adds, “is that it’s a story people already love and want to see, but it also asks very timely questions about our society, questions that haven’t changed all that much since the time period the original novel was set in. Does the prison system work? Does it rehabilitate? What happens when an innocent is sent into the system? How do we reconcile the acts of inhumanity done at the hands of those charged to care for the prisoners? These are important questions that deserve our attention — particularly now.”
“The Shawshank Redemption” opens a season that also includes “The Legend of Georgia McBride,” “Doubt: A Parable,” “The Song of Jacob Zulu,” and “The Revolutionists.” The Stories of Our Humanity season is, to McLoudSchingen, exactly what theatre is meant to be. “It is central to why theatre itself is so important. We must constantly question who we are as a society and who we, ourselves, think we are. We must continue to explore what it means to be human. I believe this is the perfect show to return to those conversations.”
Presented by World Stage Theatre Company Sept 9-10, 17 at 8 p.m. Sept 12, 19 at 2 p.m. Sept 11, 18 at 2 and 8 p.m. LIDDY DOENGES THEATRE
