Burning Coal Theatre
Burning Coal Theatre Company production of
Much Ado About Nothing. Photo: Right
Image Photography, Inc.
Raleigh's Burning Coal Theatre creates "literate, visceral, affecting theater that is experienced, not simply seen." The concept originated with founding artistic director Jerome Davis and his wife and fellow actor Simmie Kastner in 1995 when they were living in New York City. They decided to start a theater company outside of major metropolitan areas and moved to Raleigh. The company's name is drawn from a biblical passage: "If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him drink; for by doing so you will heap burning coals upon his head."
"Burning Coal was an itinerant company for the first 10 years of its existence," Davis recalls. "We had the good fortune of finding a very generous theater community here in the Triangle that was willing to let 'interlopers' in." At the beginning, Burning Coal mounted productions at places like the Thompson Theater at North Carolina State University, ManBites Dog Theatre in Durham and the Kennedy Theater at the Progress Energy Center for Performing Arts, which served as its unofficial home for most of the 10-year period leading up to its permanent location at the 140-seat Meymandi Theatre at the renovated Murphey School in downtown Raleigh.
While the company has mounted classical plays like Shakespeare's Love's Labours Lost and Ibsen's A Doll's House, it also is dedicated to premiering contemporary new works.
"New work is the lifeblood of any art form," Davis says. "It's easier to do plays that have already been done and have a tried and true record, but that way ultimately leads to stagnation. We're trying to develop a theater in which writers can submit work with an understanding that — to borrow a phrase from George Devine, who founded Britain's Royal Court Theatre more than 50 years ago — the writer has a right to fail and feel comfortable doing so."
The company engages community members of all ages with programs including WillPower! which sends a professional theater artist into schools to work with teachers on creating stage productions; Kidswrite! which solicits original plays between 10 minutes and one hour in length from kids in sixth grade through high school and mounts full productions of selected works; and adult classes in beginning and advanced playwriting, acting and more. Burning Coal takes a group of middle schoolers to New York City once a year to experience Broadway plays and also takes adults to London every other year for a tour that includes six plays.
Davis continues to believe that theater plays an essential role in the life of a community.
"When people walk into a theater space, they enter into a world that is not demonstrably their own. There are people there who behave differently, have other interests, other life stories and life histories. So we are pushed out of ourselves and pushed to look at the world in a broader way. If we stay in our houses and lock ourselves up, we foster a 'me and mine' thinking, but if we go into a theater space, we begin to think about 'the other.' And a quick glance at today's newspaper will show you that we need much more of that in our country and in our world. The arts are the way to get there."
View of series of videos featuring Jerome Davis, Artistic Director, Burning Coal Theatre Company.