THEATER
Updates
In the winter of 2023, Gwen Adams served as co-director alongside Dr. Kathy Phipps to produce Shakespeare’s magnificent The Winter’s Tale with Indianapolis-based Agape Theater Company. In September 2024, Gwen Adams headed out to teach drama with the first sophomore-junior class at Chesterton Academy of Our Lady of Hope in Warwick, Rhode Island. We began rehearsing Charles Dickens’ classic Kate and Nicholas Nickleby. Focusing on Kate’s story, this all-new retelling showcases the story’s best parts (the school, the theater company, the house of fashion, the artist!) with a special twist. We end where G. K. Chesterton wished Dickens had ended the story. Eleven weeks later, it’s tech week for one of Chesterton’s favorite stories by one of his favorite authors.
The Mission
Past Shows Include
The Winter’s Tale with Agape Theater Company
Puss in Boots
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Uncle Vanya
Life Is a Dream
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Header illustration designed by the inimitable Ben Hatke for “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” Summer Street Theater Festival, 2005, Lafayette.
Charles Dickens’
Kate & Nicholas
Nickleby
Adapted by Gwen Adams
December 5-6, 2024
Chesterton Academy of Our Lady of Hope – Rhode Island
William Shakespeare’s
The Winter’s Tale
February 2023
The Indy Fringe Basile Theater
Indianapolis, Indiana
The Mission
Here at Bardstreet . . .
We’re committed to the integration of faith and theater as an important part of cultivating the soil of Christian Culture. We are inspired by these words of Benedict XVI:
Authentic beauty, however, unlocks the yearning of the human heart, the profound desire to know, to love, to go towards the Other, to reach for the Beyond. If we acknowledge that beauty touches us intimately, that it wounds us, that it opens our eyes, then we rediscover the joy of seeing, of being able to grasp the profound meaning of our existence, the Mystery of which we are part; from this Mystery we can draw fullness, happiness, the passion to engage with it every day.
“Meeting with Artists, Address of His Holiness Benedict XVI”
We are inspired by St. John Paul II (1920-2005) and the Rhapsodic Theater, who strove, in a dark time, “to tell the truth, beautifully” (Leah Libresco, “Karol Wojtyła and The Rhapsodic Theater”).
Inspired by Christ himself, who came in person, in the flesh, to dwell among his people, we embrace the fact:
- We are body-soul creatures made for communion with God and others.
- The body is good and a gift from God.
- Theater has its origin in liturgical worship.
And so there will always be something important about coming together, in person, in the flesh, to tell great stories and praise God in communion with others through the vehicle of live, embodied theater.
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“The Tempest” at Bard Fest, October 2019, The District Theater, Indianapolis (Photo by Antonio Chapital)