Launch "The Poor Players" Theater Company in DFW

Co-organised

Clarke Peterson and 4 others are organising this fundraiser.

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THE POOR PLAYERS DFW

The Poor Players are a group of close friends who all came together to form a Shakespeare company out of a deep love for the classics...and who just barely came together on a name for their troupe.

Our performances are distinguished by the kind of contagious energy only found when the actors love not only their craft, but each other, and by occasionally taking place in venues state law would consider unfit for human habitation. (Story below.)

But no longer! ...to the last part, that is.

That's where you come in.

WHO ARE WE?

"Some Random Guy in Irving and His Friends", as we like to say - and not just because of the iambic pentameter.

The Random Guy:

3rd grade teacher by day, rabid Shakespeare enthusiast by night (and, admittedly, also by day), Ellis Sargeant is the creative director and beating heart of The Poor Players.

After immediately falling in love with the Bard at age 10 while tagging along to his older brother's rehearsal, Ellis went on to act in over three dozen Shakespeare plays, to say nothing of the many he personally directed. Possessing at once an infectious love of play and a profound capacity for analysis and reflection, The Poor Players are honored to be guided by his vision and devotion to his craft.

His Friends:

The Poor Players are comprised of a rotating yet highly curated selection of local talent (by which we mean any of our friends that we can trick into auditioning). However, including Ellis Sargeant, the six other founding members of The Poor Players represent the core of the company.

Producer, actor, suspected fae being.

Sometimes found directing, sometimes playing the truest version of herself in a myriad of roles.

To his surprise, keeps getting cast as kings and lords, and playing them convincingly.

Can be summoned via bad pun, Lear quote, Arrested Development reference, or grammatical quibble. (High arts all.)

Proud of the fact that she committed to the bit and died dramatically onstage, though 8 months pregnant at the time.

If Grace is any indication, being a heroic female lead in real life fantastically helps one portray one in plays.

OUR STORY

In 2022, Paul approached Ellis about putting on an amateur production of a Shakespeare play together with their mutual friends.

They settled on A Midsummer Night's Dream, and to this day it remains unclear as to whether this was to give Paul an excuse to play Puck, or if Puck needed a brief reprieve from masquerading as a human named Paul.

In either case, it was on just such a midsummer night that the group who would become The Poor Players made their debut in a church hall with a broken air conditioning system.

It was over 90 degrees.

Inside.

Yet for reasons not fully understood by science, people not only came, but stayed, and even testified afterward that they did so intentionally, and not merely because heat exhaustion rendered them incapable of physical exertion.

Astounded, we asked ourselves: "Were ever patrons in this humid woo'd? Were ever patrons in this humid won?"

Like the old saying goes: laughter is the best remedy for heat stroke!

Inflated by these successes with hubris unrivaled since Babel, we conceived the first inklings of a plan marked by ineffable arrogance and ambition:

to do something like this again, but in a cooler room.

Mary Elsa bravely led our next foray with our off-season production of Shakespeare Unrehearsed: Henry IV Part I, a performance distinguished by Melsa being the only person in the company who knew what she, or anyone else, was doing. (On purpose.) Yet although she proved wit enough for all of us, and although the production proved "argument for a week, laughter for a month, and a good jest for ever," still our hearts burned within us for ever greater heights, and for even cooler rooms.

And so, when the hurly-burly was done, The Poor Players gathered together with grave and solemn intent to perform not one, but two plays, for the entertainment and edification of the whole city-politick.

"The which, if you with patient ears attend,

What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend."

OUR GOALS

We are putting on four performances at the Palace Arts Center in Grapevine, TX this summer:

Sat, June 24th, matinée: Much Ado About Nothing

Sat, June 24th, evening: Much Ado About Nothing

Sat, July 1st, matinée: Hamlet

Sat, July 1st, evening: Hamlet

We've invested $2500 to rent the theater for 8 hours each day, plus one dress rehearsal. We are asking for $3000 in order to account for GoFundMe's transaction fees and provide ourselves with a small buffer against unexpected expenses.

We have already invested our own money to secure the space, and the performances will take place regardless of whether we reach our funding goals. Although we will be charging a modest fee for tickets to our performances, we are doing so to communicate to our audience the quality of show they should expect rather than to make good on our investment. We choose to perform out of love for the stories we tell and because we think it's tremendous fun, not because we expect any kind of reward.

However, if we are able to secure reimbursement for our investment, we can use the proceeds from these performances to help fund our next show, which can be used to fund the show after that, which can fund the show after that, and so on and so forth, "to the last syllable of recorded time."

WHY DONATE TO US?

Because we're a group of friends with full-time jobs and families doing this for the love of it, and more adults should get to do things like this

Because according to critics (cough cough, the cast), this is "the best Shakespeare this side of the Atlantic, or at least the Mississippi, and CERTAINLY the best in DFW," and you'll have to come see us to prove them wrong

Because the government keeps cutting funding for the arts and humanities - so you can directly send us the 0.003% of your taxes that used to fund the NEA!