 in the studio. I'm Matt Blake. And today we're going to be talking about the Bike City Theatre Company. And I'm joined today by JR Yanker, who is the artistic director, as well as Sarah Marsh-Crowder. Crowder. Crowder. Thank you. Dr. Sarah Marsh-Crowder, who is, I was so focused on the title that I forgot to make my apology, who is the literary manager, as well as the Company Turg. We almost got it. Drama Turg. Company. All right. Tell me about your title. Let's start there. I am responsible for overseeing the acquisition and management of scripts, potential plays, and pieces of work that we might be interested in doing. I work closely with the artistic director. It helps determine what we're going to produce and why we won't produce something, also a useful thing to know. As a drama turg, I provide analytical support, research support, pretty much any kind of support that a playwright or a director or a production team might need to understand what they need to understand about the play. Or developing new work, which is very helpful. Yeah. And developing new work, it's like I'm a professional outside I. That's what I do. Yeah. All right. And then for the Bike City Theatre Company, tell me more about that. It sounds like you have a good drama turg. Anyone else? Great drama turg. We're very lucky. So Bike City Theatre Company, we founded it in 2017. Yeah. Yeah. And so we're still the new kids on the block, but we are focused on new work and original work. So we are focused on bringing new plays to the public as well as developing our own in-house original work. All right. Excellent. So 2017, is there a mission behind the Theatre Company? There is. There it is. I'll let you chat about it. Yes. We have a trifold mission, which is that we try to promote community, sustainability, and theatricality. So we believe that we should be deeply invested in our community and draw from it as a resource and also provide material that speaks to it and that can engage in a conversation. Well, that can engage in productive conversation. Let's put it that way with the community. Sustainability has a couple of facets to it because sustainability is a really cool buzzword right now. You know, people want to talk about things being sustainable, but that's a form of greenwashing. We're thinking about sustainability as in, how do we not only produce theatre in an ethical way, environmentally, psychologically, how do we pay people? How do we make sure that people are having an experience that's productive and conducive to art making to the best of our ability? So that's the kind of sustainability we're looking for. And the theatrical is just a reminder that we're here to do something that only theatre can do, which is to engage the senses in a live, immediate, present way. So that would be the mission. We have a nice little tagline that goes with that too, which is expect everything. Expect everything. I like that very much. Excellent. So any shows coming up that you're working on right now? The next one that folks will be able to see, we have our salon reading series, which is sponsored by the city. Thank you, city. Thank you, Davis. Yeah, we do a free play reading for the public every month. And I believe March 30th is Dance Nation. Dance Nation, which is a new record by Claire Baron. So premiered in, I believe in New York in 2018. It's been getting a lot of buzz around the regional theatre circuit. We're really lucky to be able to land it just to do a concert reading of it. And it's a tremendous story that's a little bit reminiscent of Sarah DeLapp's The Wolves, which was produced at Cap Stage last year. So it's about women and about girls and how do we move through these different phases of life? But it's got a really interesting dark edge to it. Very dark. Definitely for grownups. Yeah. Definitely for grownups. Definitely very dark. And so what sort of venue do you use for for this alone? We operate out of Repower Yolo's gallery space. Indigo architecture is the entire building, but that's where Dairy Queen used to be. For old Davis. Yes, for old Davis sites, Dairy Queen. But now there's a awesome art gallery there and Repower Yolo is a solar company that operates out of there. Okay. Part of their mission is helping other nonprofits. And so they actually donate that space to us nights and weekends free of charge. So they're really the reason that we exist the way we do. So we're super grateful. So if you want to go solar, Repower Yolo. And I do believe, speaking of sustainability, I do believe that structure is a hay bale structure. It was fascinating to watch them build it. Yeah. And it's an interesting space and an interesting... It's a really cool building to be in, you know, to see how it kind of breathes and operates in the world. Yeah. I think it was one of the first zero net energy buildings in the state. Oh, it's fantastic. So yeah, Indigo does really, really cool stuff. Yeah. That building is awesome. All right. So more reason to come out and see a reading. Yeah. Yeah. And what is the address? That is 909 Fifth Street. So 909 Fifth Street, it's right on the tracks or right off the tracks. It's not on the tracks. Yeah. That is excellent. And so that's coming up. Any other ideas or things in the works right now? We have plenty of things in the works. A lot of stuff in the works. Ideas. Do you mean schemes? Thousands of schemes. Yes, yes. So many. Yeah. Any given time. Yeah. We currently tour of our bike safety musical Light the Way is on the road in Solano County. That was written by Jade Gregg. And it's touring Solano schools right now. This last year, it toured to all eight DJUSD elementary schools. And so that is currently on tour. There will be a public performance of it coming. And so look to the website for more information about when that will be. And then we are also with the help from the city and Solano Air Quality Management District developing a new school show for the Davis elementary schools that's going to be going out. So we're developing that right now, which involves workshopping and prepping for that production. And then we are also in March going to be working on a adaptation of Esperanza Rising that is going to be... It's based on the novel by Pam Munoz Ryan. And Esperanza is usually attached to the fourth grade curriculum in California schools. So that may be where some people have heard of it. Yeah. It's a great book. So we are doing a show with young performers at Montgomery Elementary coming up. So we have a lot of stuff going on. And that's the tip of the iceberg. Yeah. There's also what we call the big show rather than the main stage. So we're thinking about what the next big show is going to be and plotting out how that's going to operate and where that's going to happen. And then we're also thinking about the big show after that. And it's always that. So you have a history of doing the big show then. And since 2017, how many... I don't know if you count big show versus other performances or how you... What is the track record? Oh, no. It's dependent on the year and what we have the opportunity to do and what we're working with. So our first show that we came out the gate with was Gutenberg, the musical, which is a two-hander musical about two gentlemen who wrote a show about the invention of the printing press. But it's zany. It goes off the tracks. It's not historically accurate in almost any way. Yeah. Super fun. So that was our first, what I would call a main stage offering. But the nature of our company right now is pop-up theater. So that show toured. It went to Sudwork. It went to Super Owl Brewing. Watermelon Music. Watermelon Music. It performed out back of the Pence Gallery. And so that's been the nature of a lot of our shows right now, is that they travel. So we're bringing theater to the people. We're trying to. We're really trying to. And our most stable productions so far have been the salon readings, which started in February of last year. And we've been doing them monthly. This year we're doing 10 months out of 12. Last year we did full 12 months. But then we realized we might like a little bit of a break. So that we can actually plan and be effective. Okay. And then as the literary manager, sort of before, so coming into something like a salon reading, how many things are you reading? How many people are you reaching out to? What's the sort of scope just to make one of those happen? Because cutting back to 10 still sounds pretty ambitious. It is. So some of it gets sort of gleefully taken care of. Because we promote new works and new playwrights, we're able to turn around and go, okay, well, who do we know that's writing good stuff right now that we want to support them? So we've been able to have local playwright. I mix up his name all the time. Nicholas Walker Herbert. And we were able to do a set of his 10 minute plays this last summer for one of the readings. And we have one of our company members, Kevin Carlyle Gish, is actually we're putting together a roster of his 10 minute pieces that we're going to do in April. It's titled I Am Lizard. Very strange, very fun. Very surreal work. So that, you know, suddenly when you're, when you've got playwrights that you know, people who are your friends and colleagues and that you want to support, it becomes very easy to slot them in. You're like, oh, where can we fit them in? We got to know Jeanine de Maria through the Ground and Field Theater Festival. And she's a wonderful playwright operating out of Los Angeles. And like, we like hanging out with you. So how do we get you back? What can we do? How can we create a slot for that? In addition, I read a lot. I read constantly. And it's, oh, such a burden to read plays. Oh, the terror. No, it's, it's great. I listen to a tremendous number of podcasts about what's going on in American theater. I, you know, I just sort of try and suss out what's happening and what, who's writing what and what's happening over in London to see where new playwrights are coming from or new voices, just, just to kind of, you know, sift out what's happening. And yeah, and just read as much as I possibly can. And then when somebody, the best, the best advertisement, the best research and work I do is when somebody walks in and goes, I really love this play. I'm like, okay, well, let's, let's read it. Yeah. The salon readings operate from the premise that plays are meant to be heard. They, they are meant to be spoken aloud. You can't get the full measure of a piece of dramatic writing unless you have somebody inhabiting it, even if it's as simple as just reading it aloud. And there's a real magic and energy that comes from a first table read. And we're trying to recreate that a little bit for the audience. It's, it's sort of low tech, but high, I don't know, high quality is the word I'm looking for. High excitement. High excitement. High excitement, high quality. And just to get people listening again, you know, you don't always have to go see, you can have a really rich theatrical experience in a really local way that doesn't always have to be a fully produced musical like cats are wicked or something really beautiful. Hamilton, those are fantastic and wonderful and they absolutely should exist. But this is a way to sort of get the people in the seats having that live experience. And it's also a really great opportunity for us to put a show up in front of the audience and see how the audience reacts to it. We do talk backs after some of these and some of the material that we do in the salons ends up going to our main stage stuff. So, so it's, it's a good way to gauge out, you know, right with the audience. I would, I would think that it's a great way to just expose people to art, right? So a theater ticket and going to the theater and parking and Hamilton is great. And Hamilton is ridiculously expensive, right? Incredibly. And so it just seems to me a great way to introduce people to art and let them see a bit of what goes on behind the scenes that allows for that final production to take place. Absolutely. And thanks to the city, it's free. So folks can come check it out. We have snacks and coffee too. It's good to know. Where can people learn more? Bikesitytheater.org. Bikesitytheater.org. And we spell it pretentiously. So it's theater with an R-E instead of an E-R. But you'll still find us, don't worry. You'll get to us. Excellent. Thank you so much for joining me in the studio and we'll see you out there in the in the city of Davis. Thank you. Join us. Thank you for joining us.