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Honoring Jaie Deschene with Web of Murder

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by Mary Parker, Director of Web of Murder You meet a lot of amazing people while doing theater. Anyone who agrees to spend some of their valuable free time doing anything artistic is, at the very least, a kindred soul. In my experience it is hands down the easiest way to make friends as an adult. In the percolating broth of Boston area community theater, there are certain people that almost everyone knows. Jaie was one of those linchpins - a director, actor, singer, and overall multi talented person who was known and respected in every organization she worked with. Theatre@First was no exception, and her moving and powerful  Trojan Women  in 2014 was the first show I stage managed for. I would work with her again several times, as an actor, makeup helper, and costumer, and each time I learned something valuable. Not just from her, but from the clever and exciting people she surrounded herself with. Her death hit the community hard. If it had just been her bright light extinguished, tha
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Exit Strategy

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  Artistic Director Elizabeth Hunter By 2025 I will have led Theatre@First for more than twenty years.  It has been one of the greatest joys of my life and I am incredibly proud of what we have achieved together.  But it will be time for me to stop and let a new generation of leaders decide the next steps of our journey. Generational transition is a very delicate time for any organization.  My hope is that by June 2024--just three years from now--we will have a plan in place for how Theatre@First will be led after I step down.  Ideally a new person or team would take over at that point--or sooner--giving us at least a year in which they can pick my brain and rely on my experience as we transition responsibilities and they develop their own vision for the future.  And then I would step back entirely and plan not to work with Theatre@First in any capacity for at least a year, to give the new leadership team the space to make this wonderful place truly their own.  We do not have the luxur
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SUPPORTING AAPI

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  STOP ASIAN HATE     A STATEMENT IN SUPPORT OF ASIAN AMERICANS AND PACIFIC ISLANDERS The leadership of Theatre@First are horrified by the March 16 murders of eight people at spas in Atlanta and by the increase in hate crimes against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders throughout the United States by more than 150% over the past year.   Together we mourn the loss of the six women who were targeted for their race, gender, and employment. We also mourn the two other victims and hope for the full recovery of the surviving injured bystander. We are particularly concerned at this time for the Asian American and Pacific Islander artists and other participants, audience members, and friends within our community who feel the impact of these events most sharply.  Theatre@First is a strong community, full of care and support for all of our AAPI members in the face of bigotry, hatred, and violence.  We see you, we love you, and you are not alone.  Resources  How to Support the Asian-American C
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What It Means to Be an All-Volunteer Community Theatre

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  Community theatre in action by Elizabeth Hunter, Artistic Director One of the defining policies of Theatre@First is that we are an all-volunteer community theatre.  No one gets paid to work with us.  Not our actors, not our production staff, not our crew, and most especially not the Artistic Director.   No one pays to work with us, either.  We do not have membership dues, or costume fees.  While we love it when our participants sell program ads, or fill our audiences with ticket-buying friends and family, there is no requirement or minimum.   This policy has some disadvantages, of course.  There are plenty of people who love theatre and make their living at it, which we respect and support.  And there are people who feel that all theatre work should be paid, or that they cannot afford to devote so much of their time to non-paying endeavors.  We miss out on working with those individuals.  We have no leverage, other than the pleasure we offer of creating theatre in community, for enc
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All the World's a Stage

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  by Shelley MacAskill Theatre@First is starting a new program called All the World’s a Stage , a monthly discussion group for plays by BIPOC authors, both American and international. The goal is to broaden readers’ horizons beyond the largely white American- and European-centric theater we’ve seen and read our entire lives. We’ll discuss these works as book clubs often do—things we liked, things we didn’t, who our favorite/least favorite character was. We’ll hopefully also discuss the differences and parallels to our own cultural experiences, and what influences race, ethnicity, religion, and culture have in forming the characters and driving the plot in ways that we may not have expected. What led me to want to form this group? I’ve told this story many times before to friends: Several years ago, a listicle came across my Facebook feed discussing “10 essential plays everyone should read,” or something like that. Okay , I thought, I’m a theater nerd, I’ll bite. I forget the exact pl
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Change Is Possible

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BLACK LIVES MATTER    Last month we issued a statement declaring our concern and support for the Black community and our commitment to antiracist change at Theatre@First . Since then we've begun to look at every aspect of how Theatre@First operates and how we need to change in order to build antiracist theatre here in Somerville. Now we're here to tell you about the antiracism actions that we are currently moving forward.           IMMEDIATE ANTIRACISM ACTIONS updating our website to highlight our concern for equity, diversity and inclusion facilitating EDI training for officers and Steering Committee members teaming up with leaders of other local theatres to find resources, support, and accountability for our actions adding regular accountability reports to our Steering Committee agenda adding BIPOC-centered shows to our monthly recommendations to members making the Theatre@First social media forums a space for antiracist theatre resource
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Black Lives Matter

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This statement was issued by the leadership of Theatre@First on June 3rd and shared with our participants and supporters via email.  We continue to explore ways that we can dismantle barriers, create change, amplify the voices of BIPOC, and support the protests against racism and police violence as a theatre community.  BLACK LIVES MATTER The murder of George Floyd has been added to the list of too many Black lives that have been taken by police and other perpetrators of white violence. While live performance at Theatre@First is on hiatus, we are still here and we are grieving and raging at the specific injustices and systemic racism that yet again echo across our screens and through our streets.  We are particularly concerned at this time for the Black artists and other people of color within our community, who are especially impacted by the cruelty of recent events.  We see you, you are an important part of our community, and you are not alone.  Black, Brown, an
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