Letter from Ukrainian Tetiana Kytsenko

March 15, 2024

Here is a letter provided to Goat in the Road by our Ukrainian dramaturgical consultant, Tetiana Kytsenko, as we worked on the play Top 5 Survival Moves:

My husband’s grandfather, who lived in the Bryansk region, recalled how in the 1930s people literally crawled there from Ukraine - half-dead, weak from hunger. Local women left some food for them in the bushes on the side of the road: the Russian authorities forbade helping those starved to death.

My great-aunt Antonina, while working on a collective farm, hid a handful of grain to feed her hungry younger sister at home. Because of this, she served several years under the “three ears of corn Stalin’s law” and she was never allowed to return to her hometown, where, with a criminal record, she was doomed to unemployment.

My great-uncle Minai was mobilized in WW2, sent, as we would now say, to a “meat assault” and died almost in the first battle. My great-grandmother was sent to camps because she shouted to the head of the collective farm: You made an exemption for your son, but they killed my Minochka!

My paternal grandfather was dispossessed by communists, his house, mill, and land were taken away. He and his wife fled to Adygea, where my father was born. After returning to Ukraine, they lived in poverty; my father was sent to the Suvorov Military School. There he had to switch to Russian and never again communicated in his native language in everyday life.

Perhaps you will say, all this is in the past, we must live in the present. But now Russia is using the same methods against Ukraine. In an attempt to provoke famine, the Russians are bombing our food warehouses, and last summer, Brovary, where I live, was shrouded in the stench of tens of thousands of tons of rotting chicken and fish. Residents of the occupied territories are first forced to take Russian passports, and then mobilized and sent into “meat storms:” there are now almost no men left in the Donbass and Lugansk region. Everywhere where the Russians have established their power, for the slightest disloyalty to it they are put in the pit, and then sent to camps or killed. (How many dungeons we will still find in liberated villages!) They can be evicted from their own home in the occupied territories just like that - so that there is somewhere to accommodate the military. Who then, when leaving, take from Ukrainian houses everything they can, and what they cannot spoil and break. And finally, about the language: if earlier Ukrainian was banned and made the language of the “countryside,” now the occupiers are burning books in Ukrainian. And in the village of Aleksandrovka, Kherson region, where I was at the theater laboratory in 2022, a tank stood in front of the library and shot it until it was completely destroyed.

Those who convince Ukrainians to give up territory to the enemy must understand: this is not about land, but first of all about people. 95% of Ukrainians do not want Russia on their territory.

Our democracy is said to be young, but freedom is in our blood, and it is for this that Ukrainian soldiers are now fighting. This is what our people strive for.

- Tetiana Kytsenko

Season 15 Announcement

November 1, 2023

It's a little hard to believe that Goat in the Road has been around for 15 years. We started with a small crew of four artists and a barebones grant for the Play/Write program. But, with your help, our award-winning educational work is now operating in 11 schools, reaches nearly 500 students each year, and has served thousands of families in the New Orleans area. Meanwhile, we've produced over 20 original, ensemble-based shows in partnership with community organizations. Thank you for supporting us as we've figured this out bit by bit, grown in spirit, and worked to be useful to our wonderful community. 

This season includes a dynamic and eclectic mix of new work and educational programming. We're thrilled to be working with two remarkable artists in the city -- Katya Chizayeva and Dr. Denise Frazier -- on two very different projects; Untitled Ukraine Project (premiering in March at the Contemporary Arts Center) and Carlota (work-in-process showing in May).

You'll also see that we're doing a different kind of storytelling this year with our Walter Anderson Museum Audio Guide, creating a unique audio experience for museum patrons. And of course, we are bringing you our Play/Write Showcases (April and May 2024), and our touring Goat in the Schools program.

Also, check out our video celebrating this year and looking forward too:

2022 - 23, A Big Year for Goat in the Road!

July 2023

Summer is scorching in New Orleans, and we’re catching our breath, cleaning up the office, and reflecting on the 2022-2023 season, the company’s biggest year in history. 

Total Audience Reach: 5,000 
Play/Write Student Reach: 500
Goat in the Schools Reach: 1,700

• In August 2022, we hosted our 13th annual Play/Write Showcase at the University of New Orleans (UNO). This two day event, rescheduled from May 2022 (thanks COVID!), presented 16 plays written by New Orleans students, performed by local theater companies.

• In October 2022 we opened The Family Line, our newest immersive historical play set at the BK House, which ran for 13 weeks. The play, which was about the 1892 General Strike, was a huge success with sold out houses, over 2,000 people attending. In addition, The Family Line won two Big Easy Awards: one for Best Play and one for Best Director(s) - co-directors Richon May Wallace and Chris Kaminstein!

• In February 2023, we remounted Roleplay in collaboration with Tulane University students and staff. Roleplay examines sexual violence and campus culture at the University, and reached 800 students.

• From February - April 2023 GRP’s touring youth show, Goat in the Schools, visited 11 schools, had two public performances, and was enjoyed by over 1,700 audience members. 

This spring we hosted two Play/Write Showcases:

• April 19: our first ever Showcase in St. Bernard Parish at Nunez Community College. Eight student plays were brought to life by Goat in the Road, the Coffee House Players, and Prescription Joy.

• May 15 & 16: our 14th annual Play/Write Showcase at UNO, a two day affair that presented 16 student plays.

• In addition, we added 11 new ensemble members and four new board members as we continue to grow the Goat family!
  

  
  Thank you to all who made this season a huge success!

The Curtain Closes (for now)

February 17, 2023

Running two shows at the same time is a first for us Goats. 

On Sunday, January 29th The Family Line closed its 3-month run, just as Roleplay was in the midst of its second performance.  We’ve spent these past two weeks striking both sets, putting props back in storage, sweeping the floors, and catching our breath.  And we want to THANK YOU. 

If you came out for either show or both, we thank you.
If you sent us supportive emails and comments, we thank you.
If you just watched from afar and enjoyed the view, we thank you. 
We could not do this work without our amazing community. 

Roleplay finished its eight-show run on February 5th for raucous Tulane crowds, and featured a remarkable ensemble of Tulane student actors. The cast brought to life the struggles and joys of campus life at this particular moment in time; examining sex, gender, consent, and anxiety in ways that were funny, sharp, and deeply relevant. We could not be more proud of this show, and these students.  

Meanwhile, The Family Line was the most successful show Goat in the Road has ever done, with rave reviews and dozens of sold-out nights (we sold out 95% of our houses). If you want to see some of those raves you can check them out here, here, or here.  More than that, the show felt like a succinct expression of where Goat in the Road stands, as a company, at this moment. It brought together a deeply thoughtful group of artists, it focused on an under-told piece of New Orleans history, and it (hopefully) did that in a way that was funny, dynamic, and magical. 

And we won’t stop here. Our ambition is to run this type of immersive work year-round in New Orleans, becoming a more permanent part of the cultural landscape. If you want to help bring that ambition to life, then reach out to us!  We need:

- Ideas for potential spaces
- Ideas for potential funding sources (private and public)
- General enthusiasm!

It’s been a thrilling year for us, with more to come. This spring we have a variety of events from our Play/Write and Goat in the Schools programs.  Here’s a little sneak peek:

--> Saturday, March 4th: ‘Goat in the Schools’ public performance.
--> Friday, March 17th: Goat in the Road’s BINGO NIGHT!
--> April 19th: Play/Write Showcase – St. Bernard edition
--> May 16th and 17th: Play/Write Showcase – Orleans edition

We can’t wait for the rest of this year. 
Have a wonderful Carnival, and see you on the other side!

Sincerely, 
Chris Kaminstein and Shannon Flaherty
(Co-Artistic Directors)

January 6th, 2021

More and more of Goat in the Road’s work is looking to the past for lessons in our present.  The last two immersive shows we’ve done have been about Reconstruction-era New Orleans, a time that resonates deeply with this current moment in our country. Reverend William J. Barber says we are living through a ‘third Reconstruction’ (thinkprogress.org, December 2016); a time when our nation is making the moral decisions about who will be involved in our democracy.

Henry Louis Gates Jr., in his excellent history of the Reconstruction-era Stony the Road, says this: “I’d venture that few American historical periods are more relevant to understanding our contemporary racial politics than Reconstruction.  Think of the fundamental questions the study of the period forces us to consider: Who is entitled to citizenship? Who should have the right to vote? What is the government’s responsibility in dealing with terrorism? What is the relationship between political and economic democracy?  These are all Reconstruction questions.” 

White-led terrorism was the biggest threat to democracy at the time, and is still our biggest threat. The mob that stormed the capital yesterday carried Confederate flags and hung nooses outside the Capitol. More than Russia or other foreign adversaries, the biggest threat to America’s democracy is white supremacy.

The link below is to an overview of the ‘Battle of Liberty Place’, which should rightly be called ‘The White Supremacist Uprising on Canal Street’.  Although the story is complex, the essence of it is this:  the White League of New Orleans pitted themselves against the Metropolitan Police Force in order to overthrow the election and establish Whites-only rule.

As story tellers, we must remember that our work for fellow citizens is through the narratives we perpetuate. Bryan Stevenson says this about the post-Civil War period, which is instructive:  “The true evil of American slavery was the narrative we created to justify it…[T}he North won the Civil War, but the South won the narrative war. There was no actual accountability. There was no reckoning.”

It's time for truth. It’s time for accountability. It’s time for reckoning. 

Link to 64 Parishes’ overview of the Battle of Liberty Place.

Happy Holidays from Goat in the Road!

December 2020

AND HERE’S TO A FANTASTIC 2021!

We at Goat in the Road hope you are finding ways to celebrate and relax this time of year!

Like so many of you, the Goats are continuing to figure out how life works during this time, and what it means to be a theatre company without in-person events. In our educational and theatrical work we are continuing where we can, and pausing where we must. This break in the action has given us time to take a deep look at our company; we have been listening to our community and ensemble about what is working and what we can do better, and striving to make our organization more equitable and just.

Here’s what we’ve been up to:

• Our 12th year of Play/Write, serving 300 fifth & sixth grade students. We are teaching classes both virtually and in-person and working towards our May 2021 Showcase!

•A 5-class Digital Play/Write program that can be done by students anywhere in the country (and beyond!). This fall’s program will culminate in Play/Write Celebration Awesome Wow! on Dec. 16, a virtual showcase of student written work performed by GRP ensemble members.

• Virtual education for adults. This fall, GRP co-Artistic Director Chris Kaminstein led “Finish the Thing”, a playwriting class designed to help writers and creators in all stages do exactly that! The class was a huge success and we’ll be offering another one this spring.

• Lots of internal company work. This includes diversity, equity, and inclusion training, strategic planning, and a deep look at our current policies and operating practices in rehearsal and beyond from an anti-racist and equity lens.

• Celebrating Roleplay! This fall we learned that the cast of last year’s show, created in partnership with Tulane University, won a 2019 Big Easy award for Best Ensemble. We are extremely proud of the student actors and are so happy that all their hard work is being celebrated!

Not only are we taking this moment to reflect on where we are and where we want to go, but also all we feel grateful for. We are deeply missing you, our community of collaborators, audience members, volunteers, and donors. We are confident that when our nation has found a way through this pandemic, live events will play a key role in our community and national catharsis.

Hello from the faraway Goats! Clockwise from upper left: Darci, Francesca, Leslie, and Jeremy.

We will be there with you when that time comes (we can’t wait!).

Please consider a contribution to GRP this holiday season.

All donations are tax-deductible.

Much love, the Goats

www.goatintheroadproductions.org

An Update to our New Orleans Community

September 18, 2020

BIPOC theater artists in New Orleans and beyond have spoken loudly and clearly about the need for reconciliation, accountability, and change within the theater community.  In response, Goat in the Road Productions is engaging in a period of self-reflection and goal-setting, with the intention of becoming a more explicitly anti-racist organization that is working for equity.  We are committed to this work, to taking the time to do it thoroughly and thoughtfully, and to being accountable for past wrongs.  

As artistic directors of the company we acknowledge our shortcomings, and that we have caused race-based harm in the community. These shortcomings include our failures to robustly promote BIPOC artistic leadership, not being sufficiently transparent with our ensemble about artistic decisions, and not properly caring for BIPOC artists as we work with emotional and challenging artistic material. We are deeply sorry. 

Over the coming months we will be working with the GRP staff, board, and ensemble to build a long-term strategic plan for the company embedded in anti-racist practices.  Through this process, we will emerge with a renewed set of values and goals. We will make these goals public, with a timeline for implementation by the end of the 2020-2021 season. We aim to work carefully, with an understanding that change is overdue.  

Thank you for your time, and thank you to the BIPOC theater artists who are bringing attention to these issues within our community.  

Sincerely, 

Chris Kaminstein and Shannon Flaherty
co-Artistic Directors, Goat in the Road Productions

A Note from Goat in the Road Artistic Directors during COVID-19 March

March 31, 2020

It’s strange to think about our mindset only two and a half weeks ago. At that time we were anticipating technical rehearsals for KindHumanKind, getting prepared to perform The Uninvited's ninth weekend of performances, and ramping up to the Play/Write Showcase. 

So many changes have happened since then, for all of us. We are giving ourselves time to think about what happens next, and also to reflect on the past year. 

The 2019-2020 season was an exciting one for us.

We brought on the amazing Mary Guiteras in a full time role as Education Director, and welcomed a new Play/Write partner school, Homer A. Plessy School. We had a kick-ass third year of Goat in the Schools, with some of our most hilarious student-written plays yet (go Bagel King!).  

In September we opened Roleplay, the culmination of a long-term collaboration with Tulane University students, Professor Jenny Mercein, and filmmaker Katie Mathews.  In January we premiered The Uninvited with the Hermann-Grima & Gallier Historic Houses.

The show enjoyed eight sold-out weeks before it was cancelled due to COVID-19 precautions.  And in just a few weeks we were set to remount the critically acclaimed KindHumanKind with musician Aurora Nealand.

We are so proud of all three shows, and the amazing artists who made them.  At Goat in the Road we have always strived to push ourselves to make wide ranging work that spans multiple genres, spaces, and styles.

This season, perhaps more than any other in our history, illustrated this ambition: a deep-dive ensemble work with University students, an immersive historical drama, and a visually-arresting concert all packed into a period of seven months.  We were thrilled to give our audiences some creative whiplash.    
 
Why do we say all this?  We want to take a moment to thank you. Our audience has been amazing to us over the past ten years.  You have supported us, encouraged us to experiment, and have been our extended family. We do not take that lightly. It has been our life's work to continue to cultivate and encourage the community around us.
  
Please take care of yourselves. Practice physical distancing. Support the people and organizations that you love now more than ever. And stay in touch. 

 When this passes, theater and community and person-to-person contact will be just as important as it ever was: a way for us to look each other in our (non-digital) eyes, to say hello, to exchange ideas, and to feel human.  Til then, we miss you and wish you well!

From our human computer to yours,
Shannon Flaherty and Chris Kaminstein

Playing White: Whiteness and Goat in the Road's The Uninvited

January 22, 2020
by Denise Frazier

Ensemble member and The Uninvited co-creator Denise Frazier wrote a piece for the New Orleans Box Office Commons about our newest show The Uninvited.

CHECK IT OUT HERE!

Cripple Creek: what you have meant to me

May 9, 2018
by Chris Kaminstein

I’ve seen almost every play that Cripple Creek has produced.  I wasn’t in New Orleans the first two seasons, so I claim ignorance on Waiting for Lefty and An Enemy of the People, but starting with We Won’t Pay I’ve been there as an audience member or (sometimes), a director.  It’s hard to pin down the emotions that came to me when I realized Cripple Creek was finishing its season and then winding down, but there. Are. A lot. Of. Emotions. 

I first encountered Cripple Creek in 2008-2009 season, met and broke bread with Andy and Emilie around the opening of the Colton School Studios, run by CANO at the time.  We were all part of a series of performances that took place as the space opened up for artists.  It was a wild and wooly time in New Orleans theater; companies were producing on a shoe string (so, no change), and there was an influx of folks from around the country coming back to New Orleans or coming here for the first time.  While there were some amazing established companies here (Southern Rep, Mondo Bizarro, ArtSpot Productions), a lot grew then - The NOLA Project started around this time, Cripple Creek soon after, NEW NOISE, Goat in the Road Productions, and Skin Horse. These were artists and companies looking for place and purpose, and Cripple Creek was one of the first to develop a clearly articulated vision about their approach to art and the world: create theater that reflects on, and incites, social change.  

Goat in the Road first worked with Cripple Creek on Andy Vaught’s Major Swelling Salvation Salve, an amazing musical parody that riffed on politics, and featured Bobby Jindal singing an evil ballad about his hatred for New Orleans. Our first production meeting was at Kajun’s during karaoke with myself, Andy, Alden Eagle, and Will Bowling, if I remember correctly.  We yelled at each other over the music, trying to plan logistics for this small musical that would premiere five months later.  I think Will agreed to write the music at that time, and thus started a deep and abiding bond—an ongoing discussion between Goat in the Road and Cripple Creek that has lasted nearly a decade now. 

There is a popular novelty t-shirt for theater people that reads, in big block letters:  “I Can’t…I Have Rehearsal.”  It would be funny if it weren’t so true.  Theater folks spend most of their time in a dark room pretending, or thinking about being in a dark room pretending.  In Goat the Road we say that most of doing theater is just making a rehearsal plan, then rehearsing when we planned it.  Cripple Creek company members and artistic directors have spent an enormous amount of their time over the past 12 years in rehearsal or in performance.  Producing 50 events/shows in that time is…insane.  Don’t know how else to put it. Making theater often matches the seven stages of grief.  During the final week of rehearsal and into tech week, you feel anger and denial, “Why did we decide to do this show?  This makes no sense!  Nothing is working!  Let’s Cancel it!”; Pain and Guilt, “I can’t believe we put everyone through this. I never should have gone into theater in the first place; could have saved everyone the misery”; Anger and Bargaining, “Come on show, please be good.  If this show is good I promise I won’t ever do another one ever again”; Depression and Loneliness, “I’m gonna get a drink or four after rehearsal”; The Upward Turn, “Holy shit, this looks good under the lights”; Reconstruction and Working through, “If we cut this transition and fix the end, we’ll be in good shape!”; and Acceptance and Hope, “All right, it’s opening night.  People are in the seats.  Whatever happens will happen.” Over and over again Cripple Creek has gone through this process. Producing one show, then getting to the end, and starting with the next one.  When I think about it, I think of it as an ongoing discussion with the community; ‘What do you think about this?  Or this? What about this?’   Cripple Creek has been holding down that discussion consistently for 12 years now.

Last year Cripple Creek had an amazing season; Taming of the Shrew, Caligula, and Treemonisha.  For those who didn’t see it, I’ll tell you that Taming of the Shrew was one of the best pieces of theater ever produced in New Orleans.  The show was far and away the most ambitious, edgy Shakespeare that I’ve seen in this city in my decade of being here, and one of the best pieces of Shakespeare I’ve ever seen. (period)  The show revealed the truth of why the company has meant so much to the city and so much to the people who have been involved with it all these years.   It was accessible (but not pandering), funny (but not ‘theater-funny’, actually funny), it was thematically rich and bold, and it reached a wide variety of audience in a totally unpretentious way.  The show travelled to Bridge House, Grace House, and was performed for imprisoned populations in Louisiana.  Over and over again I have seen Cripple Creek engage with the issues of our times, reflect on the meaning of our lives, and do so in a way that makes the audience feel it is part of one big, funny, slightly dysfunctional family.  I just think of the names of their shows and these images are conjured up, these feelings in time:

The Skin of Our Teeth
Marisol
Ubu Roi
Mad Woman of Chaillot
Ragtime
Lysistrata
Clybourne Park
Possum Kingdom
The Lily’s Revenge
Balm and Gilead
Treemonisha

Even as I write this I feel that I’m still talking around what this company has meant to me, to Goat in the Road, and what these people who make this company have meant to us.  Maybe like this: it is so rare in life that you get to walk hand in hand with fellow artists who push you, who support you, who mentor you, who get drunk with joy and sorrow with you, who are family to you, who spend their days and nights in dark rooms with screw-guns trying to make a thing happen, who get you, and who you get right back.  This company.  These humans.  These glorious humans who have enriched my life, who have changed me…I don’t know what to say to them.  Bless you? Bless you, and the sweat of your brow. 

The Stranger Disease and the Magic of Theater

March 21, 2018

Co-Artistic Director Chris Kaminstein wrote a piece for Popsmart NOLA about our newest show The Stranger Disease.

Check it out here!

What we talk about when we talk about plays

January 8, 2018
by Chris Kaminstein

As I went-a-visiting over the holidays and sat with family drinking and eating many things, I found myself struggling to tell them about the show that I’m currently working on, Foreign to Myself.  In general, I have a hard time talking about my work with Goat in the Road in a coherent way; describing a show to someone who hasn’t seen it always feels a little silly, like describing that crazy dream where your hat turned into your sister but was also Regis Philbin but also your sister. 

The truth is it’s difficult to distill 2-plus years of work into a few scrappy sentences.  And it’s especially hard to make it sound entertaining, when the theme of the show is ‘War, homecoming, and the divide between civilian experience and Military service.’  Have your eyes glazed over yet? 

Sometimes I say, ‘Foreign to Myself is about war and homecoming, but don’t worry, it’s funny.’  But that’s not right.  It’s not a ‘funny’ show.  It has funny moments.  And disturbing moments.  And some ‘edge of your seat’ moments.  But to say it’s ‘funny’ is definitely misleading.  Yet I find myself saying it, if only as a way to secretly apologize for making a play about something so unrelentingly depressing.  If I was European, or better yet, Russian, I would just say:  “This play is about the suffering of human beings—and you must see it.” (Imagine that last sentence in a Russian accent.)

But here we are in America, and I won’t generalize about America, but generally American audiences want to be fooled into watching something serious.  Hell, I want to be fooled into watching something serious.  If the first scene of a play is too serious, half my brain immediately starts thinking about where my wife and I should eat after the show.  Waffle House?  Will my wife go for Waffle House?  Definitely not.  But damn I would love to go to Waffle House after this show.

It’s hard for theater people to talk about the work they do.  Whatever we say the show is ‘about’ is not really what the show is about.  Sure, Hamlet is a play about a prince who is grieving his dead father.  And Death of a Salesman is about a man who loses his job.  And A Raisin in the Sun is about a family who decides to move.  I mean, none of these shows are about what they’re about.  The words are inadequate.  What are these plays about?  Life, man.  Life.  

These last two years of making Foreign to Myself have changed my life.  They have changed my view of our country.  They have changed my understanding of what it means to ‘serve’ and given me a deeper understanding of the pride that Veterans take in being of ‘service’.  At an art opening a few years back I was talking with a former Marine, and generally amazing human, who was lamenting the fact that military service is increasingly far from most civilian experience.  He was disturbed that, because America has an all-volunteer army, it’s too easy for us to forget about the human cost of our wars.  I asked this Marine if he thought the draft should be reinstituted, and he told me no—but, he said, “Everyone should have to do something; serve the country in some capacity.  That way we all have service in common.” 

Foreign to Myself is a reflection on service, and it’s a sad happy fun upsetting demanding entertaining look at one female Marine as she comes back home.  And it’s also about all of us, and the way that going away means that you come back changed, and that this change is not the change of one person only, but the change of our community too. 

Come be part of our community for a night.  We are proud to be offering this show Free of Charge at U.N.O. Nims Theater (2000 Lakeshore Dr.) the weekends of January 12th- 14th and 19th – 21st. 

Reserve your tickets here.

Article about Foreign to Myself in South Writ Large

November 2017

Co-Artistic Director Chris wrote an article about why and how we made our latest show Foreign to Myself in South Writ Large.

Check it out here!