Support our Third Year! Check out our Year-End Update video below!
What we do & why your support is essential:
Running a small non-profit theater company in New York City is a terrifying endeavor. So why did we start one? We founded SEA DOG THEATER because we believe that telling and receiving stories in the form of live theater cultivates compassion, nuance and curiosity in ourselves, our artists, and our audience. We believe that these traits are foundational to our individual and societal health. From first rehearsal to final performance, theater is a communal experience that becomes more fulfilling with each new participant and point of view. In an increasingly alienating and self-centered culture, we believe that gathering as a group of strangers in a public space in order to dialogue about society’s most pressing questions is in itself a revolutionary and reconciliatory act. We have experienced and witnessed this time and time again.
Here at SEA DOG THEATER we do two things extremely well. We explore society’s most pressing questions of alienation and reconciliation through innovative and immersive theater productions and we cultivate an ecology of conversation and hospitality that involves our artists and audience at every turn. We believe that live theater, open-hearted dialogue and communing over good food and wine are a vital antidote to our fragmented society. SEA DOG THEATER’s mission is to be a catalyst of hope, community building, and reconciliation in all that we do.
Our goal is to produce professional theater in New York City, pay all our artists and provide a hospitable experience for our audience. All this, while keeping ticket prices at an affordable price. Since it is virtually impossible to achieve this by ticket sales alone, we are dependent on individual donations and grants to make up two thirds of our yearly operating budget.
5 Great reasons to become a sustaining member!
1. SEA DOG THEATER is a community where stories converge. We believe that the best kind of theater reminds us of our own stories and as a result encourages us to share our own longings, fears and hopes with one another. There are few places in our culture that allow for these kind of authentic, hope-filled gatherings. We believe that by cultivating communal conversations around theater and questions of alienation and reconciliation, we are creating a necessary space for people who want to join the current conversation but don’t know how.
2. We explore life’s most pressing questions surrounding alienation and reconciliation. We only produce material that we believe is timely, necessary and addresses a void we perceive around us. The questions that drive us are: Where, How and Why does the reality of alienation intersect with the struggle for reconciliation? We are not interested in plays that moralize, serve a particular propaganda or offer easy solutions to these questions. We produce new plays, devise our own work, and stage existing material that is relevant in our culture today.
2. We pay all our contributing artists. It is often standard practice to hire artists for readings without paying them. From the very beginning SEA DOG THEATER has been committed to paying everyone we work with.
3. We make our productions affordable to our audience. We make our reading events free for all who attend and charge only $20-30 per ticket to our full productions. In a city of exorbitant ticket prices, we want to be a place that offers outstanding theater at an affordable price with an overall goal to make the theater-going lifestyle accessible and sustainable.
4. Hospitality is always included and at the center of what we do. Our goal is not solely to produce great theater, but to cultivate a space where our audience feels encouraged to share their own stories. We intentionally create a space after each performance where strangers become friends and conversations are had. Guided by a collective generosity, we offer wine, hors d’oeuvres and a space to dialogue about the questions of the play. Whether you are an artist or audience member, you will always be welcomed as a friend and will leave encouraged.