Our mission

Women* in Theater

Rough Magic Performance Company is a professional theater company focused on supporting women artists, audiences, and stories; we strive to embrace the complexities and diversity of women’s experiences from classics to contemporary work while promoting artistic excellence and community engagement.

Rough Magic Company Values

People First - We are all humans with complex histories, lives, and needs; our basic humanity is more important than any piece of theater; we strive to create a wellbeing-oriented and trauma-informed theater process; we value people over things in our budgets, artistic process, and performance. 

Spirit of Collaboration - Everyone has a voice in our rehearsal room; the director serves as a facilitator, not a hierarchical commander. 

Honoring the Creative Discovery Process - We do not need to know all the answers. While we hope to tell a cohesive and tangible story with our works, we hold space for mystery and ambiguity and for the audiences to interpret and make meaning from our work. Artists, staff, and audiences are all collaborators in the rough magic we create together.

Intersectional Feminism - We recognize the historical harm of feminism in America, promoting White, cis-gendered supremacy. We are committed to honoring the full diversity of women/non-binary people’s experiences through the intentional diversity of our team of artistic collaborators and in gathering community input to ensure the authenticity of our stories. Our work is in service to social justice and dismantling forms of oppression such as sexism, racism, LGBTQIA+ discrimination, ableism, sizeism, etc. 

The Process Informs the Product - The way we approach and how we conduct ourselves in rehearsals and production meetings informs the theater performances we create. Cultivating a caring and collaborative rehearsal culture enhances our performances.

Actor-Led - Actors are artists; they deserve ownership of the stories they tell and how their bodies are utilized in performance.

MAY 30TH, 2020

LETTER OF SUPPORT FOR BLACK LIVES MATTER

We at Rough Magic offer our support and solidarity with all who mourn George Floyd this weekend. We are joining with others in a call for the arrest and conviction of the four ex-law enforcement officers who perpetrated the murder, as well as the need for deep systemic change to eradicate the racism within the Twin Cities police forces and beyond. We believe that one way to start that work is to examine, acknowledge, and deconstruct the ways in which white supremacy plays out in our own work and our lives.

Our mission of telling women’s stories has drawn us into the stories of the mothers, sisters, and daughters of these black men and boys murdered by American police. If you’re interested in doing some of this story-telling with us, please consider reading this article about how racial trauma affects African American mothers: https://www.vox.com/…/…/black-mothers-grief-sadness-covid-19

We are also planning our next virtual playreading of “Rachel” by Angela Weld Grimke - a powerful anti-lynching play from one of the strongest female voices in the Harlem Renaissance. Please contact us if you’d like to participate or listen.

We urge anyone who can to donate to support the family of George Floyd (https://www.gofundme.com/f/georgefloyd ) and to advocate for an end to white supremacy and racial injustice in all of our communities.

Alayne Hopkins and Catherine Justice
(She/Her/Hers)
Co-Artistic Directors

*A NOTE ON INCLUSION

Women: Rough Magic Performance Company recognizes the limiting nature of the use of the term “woman”. We recognize that gender is a social construct and exists as a spectrum. We include in our mission anyone on the gender spectrum who identifies all or even some of the time as a woman. We also serve and welcome those who are non-binary, recognizing that not all non-binary, trans, and cis-gendered women identify with all aspects of femininity.

Intersectionality: Rough Magic Performance Company works through an intersectional lens. We recognize that systems of oppression and discrimination are interdependent and span social categories beyond gender (race, class, ability, religion, parental status, size, age, sexual orientation, etc). We are lifelong learners on how systematic oppression can be dismantled holistically through our work.