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Hello friends, family and Ground UP Productions supporters,
This marks our first EVER Go Fund Me page, and we hope that you will help reach our goal of $6,500 for our upcoming endeavor. This is an important one, and a project that truly has the potential to change the world, this coming spring and for many years to come, through education. Please have a read and consider donating $5, $10, $100, $1000... anything to help this project come to life...
TREATY: A PLAY ABOUT HOW TO NOT BLOW UP THE PLANET
By Chris Thorpe
Directed by Kate Middleton and Laura Standley
Featuring Josh Evans, Stephen Heskett, Seth Shelden, Laura Standley, and T. Shyvonne Stewart*
Fellowship in residence, The Foundry, W. Stockbridge, M.A.
Workshop residency, rehearsal, production, May 26-June 7 Performances June 5 & 6, 2025.
Ground UP Productions is honored to have been awarded a two-week fellowship this Spring at THE FOUNDRY, a multidisciplinary arts space in West Stockbridge, MA, to rehearse and stage a full-scale production of TREATY: A Play About How To NOT Blow Up The Planet, by Chris Thorpe. TREATY was originally produced by Ground UP, in February 2024, in our annual New Works Winter Reading Festival.
This powerful new play is more than just Ground UP’s 28th production— It’s a call-to-action on one of the most pressing global issues of our time: complete nuclear disarmament. Adding to the significance of this opportunity, Seth Shelden, a founding member of Ground UP Productions, will perform in TREATY and lead panel discussions with some of the biggest thought leaders behind the issue today. Seth’s work with ICAN (International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons) helped the organization win a Nobel Peace Prize in 2017. We are so very honored to have him on this project.
The Foundry’s generosity is truly an amazing gift, but it only provides part of what we need to give this project the impact it deserves, and we are raising additional funds to cover artist stipends, technical needs, and expanded outreach efforts. TREATY also marks the revival of our education program, ensuring that this critical message reaches schools, community groups, and audiences of all sizes, far beyond the theatre.
Don’t miss the chance to be among the first to experience TREATY, a call-to-action play and the expansion of Ground UP’s Education Outreach Program. We hope you can join us, and thank you for believing in the power of theatre to inspire change.
With gratitude,
Kate Middleton
Artistic Director, Ground UP Productions
About the Play..
After a chance meeting with a disarmament expert, playwright Chris Thorpe fell into the world of nuclear treaty negotiation, The Treaty On The Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, and the ordinary people who are trying to achieve the extraordinary outcome of complete nuclear disarmament. Based on conversations with organizations and individuals involved in those negotiations, including ICAN, the Nobel Prize winning International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, the play is partly a story about the people on either side of the nuclear debate, and partly a conversation with the audience about how we find the space to talk about disarmament in our own lives.
Organizer
Kate Middleton
Organizer
New York, NY
Ground UP Productions
Beneficiary