About Upstart Crow Theatreworks
The idea for Upstart Crow Theatreworks was hatched in the fall of 2002 after staging a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream with a cast of Decorah-area children. Now in our 8th year, Upstart Crow Theatreworks has offered twenty-four productions and a multitude of classes and workshops for children and adults. Collaborations between Upstart Crow and Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum have resulted in seven original theatre pieces inspired by exhibits at the Museum. Adaptations of Lewis Carroll (Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast), Rudyard Kipling (Just So Stories) and Dickens (David Copperfield), Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream, Comedy of Errors, As You Like It, Taming of the Shrew, and Two Gentlemen of Verona, as well as three Cemetery Walks in beautiful Phelps Cemetery are among our productions.
Scripts for Upstart Crow productions are chosen with an eye and ear tuned to good literature, "language" plays that are accessible yet challenging and interesting to performers and audiences of all ages. We are also interested in theatre pieces which give life to the past, learning from the experiences of those who lived before us.
Upsart Crow productions and classes have as their foundation a respect for the creative impulse within each of us, and an understanding that the skills practiced in theatre are the same as those useful in life: good listening, an understanding of ourselves, compassion for others, and a healthy sense of play.
