Companies
Corpus Theatre Collective was founded in 2007 by playwright John Crutchfield, director James Ostholthoff, and actor Anne-Maire Welty. Based in Hendersonville, NC, the company is dedicated to creating a body of work that focuses on the collaborative production of new theatre, the authentic interpretation of existing texts, and the occasional cross-disciplinary venture incorporating music, choreography, and/or technology. Our intent is above all to highlight the talents and skills of the actor as the primary mode of expression. By challenging both our audience and ourselves, we seek, in every new production, to go beyond our perceived limitations in the creation of high-quality theatrical performance, and to build a strong local community of theatre artists and audiences.
Jynormous Theatre Company is a “virtual” performance group founded in 2004 by writer and theatre artist John Crutchfield. The name has its somewhat facetious origins in the fact that there is only one John Crutchfield, and he is well under six feet tall. JTC is committed to bringing together multi-talented artists for the creation and promotion of exciting, new, interdisciplinary theatre. Company members change from project to project, and have included Derek Gagnier, Lara Marshall, Julia Horn, Emily Daughtridge and G. Alex Smith. JTC’s inaugural project was the premier of a new full-length, two-actor version of Crutchfield’s The Songs of Robert, an original lyric drama with live music, which opened at Watauga High School before moving to Saint Luke’s Episcopal Church in Boone, North Carolina. JTC’s current project is a new production of Crutchfield’s Twelve Treatises on Memory: An Epistemological Slapstick (With Sock Puppets), directed by the playwright, and starring Joe Sturgeon and Anne-Marie Welty.
Blue Shift Theatre Ensemble is a group of multi-talented artists committed to the production of new plays and to expanding the forms of theater through interdisciplinary collaboration. Along with these artistic aims, Blue Shift was founded with the social purpose of making professional theater available at low cost to schools and communities. The company began in 1994 as a collaboration between actor Eric Johnson and writer John Crutchfield. Their first project was Brother John, a full-length one-man show about John Keats, written by Crutchfield, performed by Johnson, and directed by Sarah Miller. Keith Rokoske was technical director. The company went on to produce Crutchfield’s verse plays The Songs of Robert and Ruth, as well as the physical comedy SPORT, and The Fatherhood Project. Other members have included designer Chris Todd, actor Brandon Roberts, manager Tamara Hubbard, and cinematographer Adam Larsen.
Poison Frog Theatre was formed in 2006 by John Crutchfield, Joe Sturgeon, and Josh Yoder, for the purpose of creating new, collaborative, interdisciplinary, low-budget theatre. Committed to an aesthetic of minimalism and presentation, the company aims to fuse high-energy poetic language with arresting imagery, live music and dynamic movement. Their inaugural project, The Flowers of Evil: An Immorality Play, uses the poems of Charles Baudelaire and the setting of a Dust-Bowl medicine show to re-imagine the story of Cain and Abel.