Film A Feminist Changeling!

Brave Spirits Theatre, a feminist theater company based in Alexandria, VA, is currently staging a brilliant--and important--production of Thomas Middleton and William Rowley’s The Changeling under the direction of Charlene V. Smith. Anyone staging The Changeling has to make a decision about how to stage the rape at the heart of the play; this production does not step around this scene, but puts a critique of sexual violence and rape culture at the center of its production. After seeing it, a group of us said to one another: I want to write about this production; I want to teach with *this production* every time I teach the play. So we (Dr. Katherine Williams and Dr. Liza Blake, University of Toronto, and Dr. Lucy Munro, King’s College London) asked Brave Spirits if they could produce a video version, not only so that we can continue to think with and teach with this production, but also so that others working on the play who do not live in the Washington, DC area can have a chance to see it too!

We are raising funds to cover the filming and professional production of a digital archival video of the show, to make this performance available to audiences and classrooms beyond the current run.

Our ultimate fundraising goal of $5,000 would allow for Brave Spirits to make the video completely available online for free, to allow anyone interested to screen and/or download the production, for research or teaching purposes. The costs for such a project include videography, editing, actors’ fees, and licensing costs for making the production freely available online. All of the money contributed to this fundraiser will go toward these costs, and help to ensure that this production is archived and accessible to students and teachers of early modern drama.

Brave Spirits Theatre is a registered non-profit, and your donations will be tax-deductible.