After leap-frogging around town to perform in borrowed digs since its founding in 2000, Amphibian Stage Productions swapped its nomadic lifestyle in October 2012 for a permanent home of its own on Fort Worth's historic southside. And since that watershed event, the local theater company has evolved exponentially.
"It's done so much for us," said Artistic Director Kathleen Culebro, who launched Amphibian with the help of two fellow TCU grads. (The theater's moniker, by the way, is a nod to the trio's beloved alma mater.) "It's allowed us to brand ourselves as a fun, engaging and playful place to see theater and to really show people who we are."
And what they are is a multipronged performance venue offering a variety of entertainment, educational and outreach offerings, Culebro says.
"We do mainstage plays, we do staged readings, we do National Theatre Live broadcasts at the Modern Art Museum, and we sometimes do cabarets," said Culebro of Amphibian, which counts Hollywood heavyweight Kevin Kline among its biggest fans. "We also do once-a-month practice-your-Spanish happy hours. We offer public speaking workshops, and we have a really cool program called Tad-Poles, which is a stilt dancing troupe." Frequently featuring guest artists from around the world, Tad-Poles was created for at-risk kids in underserved schools, community centers and homeless shelters.
Amphibian's primary mission, Culebro explains, is to challenge the way audiences view the world around them. "We want to produce plays that will stay with you beyond the final bow, that will help you get to know yourself and those around you better," Culebro said.
But didacticism is never the goal, she stresses.
"We're not interested in preaching - we're interested in just starting a conversation," she said. "Sometimes our plays ask difficult questions or things the audiences have never thought of."
Designed by Culebro's husband, Greg Ibañez, and built by Fort Construction, Amphibian's South Main Street address features trim lines that channel a cozy connectedness and helps underscore the sense of immediacy that live performances inherently evoke. "On most performances, our theater holds just under 100 people. So there's an intimacy there that really affects the relationship between the actors and the audience," Culebro explained. "When they feel that connection, they're moved fairly profoundly and think about it over the next few days."
To experience that connection yourself, snag a seat for Lebensraum, a thought-provoking staged reading set to hit the boards June 8 and 9. (For more info, flip to the Stage and Theater section in this month's Events listing.)| by Alison Rich |
