FORT POINT THEATRE CHANNEL:
HIGHLIGHTS FROM A HISTORY OF NEW CONFIGURATIONS

2007

Theatre director Marc S. Miller and composer Mark Warhol move into Fort Point’s new Midway Artist Studios. They decide to launch a theater company rooted in Fort Point’s diverse arts. Silvia Graziano, Nick Thorkelson, Mary Driscoll, and Daniel van Ackere join them as FPTC founding members.

FPTC offers the first Exclamation Point! with readings of poetry, prose, and drama by artists connected with Fort Point. Over the years, Exclamation Points! explore such themes as “the science of love,” “masks,” and many others.

2008

“4:48 Psychosis doesn’t deal in abstracts; this is death, pain, suffering and rage you can all but taste. You’re brave if you see this show, and Fort Point Theatre Channel is all the braver for presenting it.”—from a review of FPTC’s first major production:

FPTC mounts The Time of Your Life in Lucky’s, a neighborhood bar. A review: “They are living up to their mission of ‘creating and sustaining new configurations of the performing arts.’ I’d recommend Boston theater-goers keep a close eye on this company.”

FPTC mounts Heaven and Earth, an evening of contemporary music, in an empty 30,000-square-foot space in Midway Studios.

Gods, Monsters, and the Other, FPTC’s first play festival, looks at our best and our darkest sides in a celebration of the quest for understanding ourselves and the magnificence of human beings.

2009

Present Imperfect: A Gallery of Short Works by Harold Pinter offers six short plays, each in a different part of the still-undeveloped 30,000-square-foot space in Midway Studios.

Choreographers, composers, dancers, musicians, and designers collaborate on Impermanence & Uncertainty, an evening of contemporary music and dance at Green Street Studios.

Exclamation Point 5: The Science of Love, in a neighborhood art gallery, offers new films and video, plays, and performance art to celebrate Valentine's Day.

2010

Carny Knowledge: A Sideshow Extravaganza of Original Plays and Extraordinary Oddities introduces the Carny Band, with guest musician Peter Tork. Two floors of action surround audiences with a dazzling array of carnival-inspired plays and performances.

Boston Magazine describes FPTC as "a unique initiative in the performing arts in the city" and honors co-artistic director and resident playwright Silvia Graziano as a “New Revolutionary.”

2011

FPTC writes a mission statement: FPTC is dedicated to creating and sustaining new configurations of the performing arts. We bring together an ensemble of artists from the worlds of theater, music, visual arts, and everything in between as a forum for collaborative expression while enriching the Fort Point community, Boston, and beyond.

FPTC occupies 5,000 square feet in 10 Channel Center for free for two years. The first production there is Charles Mee’s Hotel Cassiopeia, a fantasy inspired by the life and work of the master of assemblage art, Joseph Cornell.

For Valentine’s Day, at Boston Playwright’s Theatre, FPTC presents a reading of the libretto for The Marquis de Sade’s Justine, an opera in progress by Silvia Graziano and Meron Langsner.

Occupying several floors of the Boston Guild of Artists, FPTC mounts a benefit for A Woman’s Lunch Place.

2012

FPTC premieres Indiscreet Discretion, a dark look at the battle between our human and animal impulses, with text by Silvia Graziano, choreography by Courtney Peix, dance by Contrapose Dance, and music composed by Brendan Burns.

The tenth Exclamation Point!, FILMSTOCK, highlights works by Fort Point residents, artists, and friends inspired by films old and new.

2013

The Carny Band reunites, providing original music for The Good Person of Setzuan, Brecht’s exhilarating parable of love and money.

The Land, by Jessica Litwak, with Amir Al-Azraki, merges the fantastic and the realistic as it traverses the worlds of the living and the dead. The production launches FPTC’s ongoing focus on Iraq and collaboration with playwright Al-Azraki and the Joiner Institute for the Study of War and Social Consequences.

FTPC’s last production at 10 Channel Center, Facing Down Death, brings together Erik Satie’s Socrate with a work-in-progress, The Ten-Block Walk: An Old Person's Odyssey by Erin Huelskamp and FPTC’s Christie Lee Gibson.

On With Living and Learning launches a long-term collaboration with FPTC with Hidden Faces of Courage. Conceived by Mary Driscoll, the play combines monologues, spirituals, and rap to amplify the voices of women reentering the community from prison.

2014

Reel to Reel combines Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape with The Archives, a woman-centered play created for FPTC as a counterpoint to Krapp’s comic-sad monologue.

FPTC, with the Joiner Institute, Odysseus Project, and Center for Arabic Culture, presents Amir Al-Azraki’s Waiting for Gilgamesh. Al-Azraki explores the many points of view held by Iraqis about the events leading up to and following the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of their country.

Teatro for Kids!, FPTC’s first youth class, offers Spanish/English bilingual theatre classes for kids in the 4 to 7 years old.

FPTC presents In the Summer House, Jane Bowles’s rarely seen masterpiece that Tennessee Williams called “not only the most original play I have ever read, I think it also is the oddest and funniest and one of the most touching.”

2015

Channel/Dance: An Evening of Movement, Art, and Theatre assembles eight teams, each joining choreographers with artists from non-dance disciplines, to collaborate in inventing short performance works.

FPTC launches Senses: A Performance Series at Fort Point’s Internal Matter café, with vocal jazz by FPTC co-artistic directors Olivia Brownlee and Nick Thorkelson.

The gates of Channel Center Garage open to Inter-Actions: Performance Art x Art That Performs. Dozens of performance artists collaborate with an interactive art installation. FPTC also presents most of Inter-Actions during the Outside the Box festival on Boston Common.

FPTC, Contrapose Dance, and Ensemble Warhol offer the operatic-dance episode Jeanne: The Story of a Woman. “The music shares moments of poignancy and tenderness, but its real success lies in its ability to integrate all aspects into an intellectually provocative dramatic whole.”—a review.

In a boxing gym, Tempest Productions, FPTC, and The Club by George Foreman III presents a dramatic reading of Body & Sold, a documentary play created from interviews with runaway youth who were lured or forced into the prostitution trade.

2016

Senses offers Animation: The Next Generation, with new works by students at Boston-area art colleges.

Dreambook, a musical play conceived by multidisciplinary artists Dan Osterman and Nick Thorkelson, reimagines pre-Civil War New Orleans in their invitation to envision the past, with fresh eyes and ears, while coming to grips with changes in American culture since then.

Senses moves to Midway Studios for Shorts, a program of short films from members of AgX, a newly formed filmmakers collective.

In Boston and Iraq, FPTC and collaborators offer free performances and an art exhibit from the “Basra-Boston Project,” connecting scholars, playwrights, poets, painters, archaeologists, and others.

2017

With its first Live Arts Boston grant, FPTC presents Dhalgren Sunrise, an original production of sci-fi, music, dance, video, and drama based on Samuel R. Delany’s classic novel Dhalgren. “When the musicians are in full throttle, Dhalgren Sunrise triumphantly enters the precincts of Delany’s unreal city.”—a review

FPTC presents The Three Births of Wadih Alwani, by Palestinian journalist Mahmoud Nowara. The “monodrama” describes Nowara’s life before, during, and since being imprisoned in Syria. FPTC begins collaborating with Nowara to develop the script into a film.

FPTC presents Ghost Sonata, August Strindberg’s modernist classic The Ghost Sonata. “It is fascinating to have all of the play’s secrets and mysteries unfold in front of you until you turn around and realize you’re enveloped.”—a review

FPTC celebrates 10 years of new configurations with an exhibit and gala. The Carny Band reunites with special guest Peter Tork of the Monkees. An historical display includes sketches, posters, videos, paintings, photos, sculptures, costumes, props, set pieces, and underwear.

Four U.S. women artists and four Iraqi women artists meet in Dubai for Her Story Is, a long-term project focused on empowering women’s voices. Her Story Is events take place in the U.S. and Iraq throughout the following years.

2018

FPTC launches Channel Dance, inviting children and families to join FPTC for dance, art, and music-filled events along Fort Point Channel.

FPTC collaborates with Doppelgänger Dance Collective, Green Street Studios, and Ensemble Warhol in Jeanne and Elizabeth, an evening of new works for dance with live music.

FPTC’s workshop production of José Rivera’s Cloud Tectonics features an original sound/music design, performed live, to highlight a humorous, time-bending love note. “Every aspect of this production was marvelous.”—a review

FPTC sponsors a book drive for More Than Words, a bookstore/social enterprise that empowers the most vulnerable young adults in Greater Boston to take charge of their lives.

Senses enters the world of radio, complete with commercials and sound effects, for Cask of Amontillado, an adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s short story.

FPTC refines its mission statement as part of a strategic plan aimed at enhancing artistic programming, reaching out to new communities, and building a sustainable organization.

2019

Machine 5 Theatre Works in association with FPTC premieres Between the Day and the Night, a non-narrative performance piece inspired by found footage of the day when the French master Georges Rouault burned 315 of his paintings.

FPTC’s second Live Arts Boston grant supports Tempest Reconfigured, a collaboration with community partners to create short works exploring the contemporary relevance of themes from Shakespeare’s The Tempest.

The Great Atlantic Wharf Music Hall Review marshals FPTC’s collective of multidisciplinary artists to produce three after-work cabaret performances, tapping into the dynamic vibe of an old-school music hall.

FPTC launches Serf’s Up, a rollicking evening of original satirical songs. We tackle being born, going to school, getting a job, race, debt, robots, ride-sharing, getting old, and dying, and that’s just before the coffee!

Dabble! Doodle! Dance! creatively engaged children and families in the bright summer sunshine of Atlantic Wharf, supporting FPTC’s mission of enriching our communities through new configurations in the arts.

2020

FPTC joins the multitude of organizations and individuals making a public stand against injustice, standing in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement and with all people fighting against the ongoing racist police practices and systemic policies that undergird relentless oppression. 

FPTC collaborates with the Ipswich River Watershed Association to launch Ocean of Rivers, with walks, presentations, workshops, paddles, and performances planned for Boxford, Ipswich, Topsfield, and Middleton. For 2020, the partners adapt to COVID-19 with virtual and socially distanced experiences, including a pop-up performance and dance and puppet film.  

FPTC presents a live streaming production of Gertrude Stein’s poem Sacred Emily, adapted for online presentation and featuring 16 people performing the poem sequentially, with self-actuated lighting effects.

Her Story Is poets and playwrights continue to bring together Iraqi and American women to exchange work, discuss craft, and create new work reflecting the experience of Iraqi women now and building a path toward dialogue and reconciliation between the citizens of both countries. For the online panel, "The Effect of War on Artistic Collaboration Between Iraqi and U.S. Women Writers,” playwrights, and scholars share their experiences working cross-culturally through translators on creative and academic projects.  

After the 2020 elections, FPTC's SENSES series, moved online in response to COVID-19, features comedian and cultural critic Cyrus McQueen reading excerpts from Tweeting Truth to Power, his in-depth chronicle of living day to day through the Trump era.

For “Où est Fleuri Rose?” Revisited, Mark Warhol, Nick Thorkelson, and Amy MacDonald talk about the genesis and development of FPTC’s 2012 animated film. Several awards in 2020 honor this animated adventure, based on the music of FPTC co-founder Warhol and brought to visual life by Thorkelson and MacDonald's animation.

On the eve of International Women’s Day, six writers from the Street Feet Women present Metaphors Are Not Enough, sharing poems and prose, with some accompanied by music, from their new anthology celebrating and honoring women and girls.