MISSION STATEMENTThe
Missoula Oblongata is the name given to the collaboration between long-time
friends Donna Sellinger, Madeline ffitch and Sarah Lowry. As a company, it
is committed to creating original theatre that manages to be aggressively
inventive and experimental, while tipping its hat to established traditions
such as clown, vaudeville, and storytelling. The Missoula Oblongata is proud
to be a completely self-sufficient production company, which means that the
artists who write the scripts also perform, design, build, and light the play
themselves. The company provides all of their own lighting (usually desk lamps
and footlights) and the actors run the lighting and sound from the stage.
This technique allows the company to perform anywhere with electricity and
enough space, so that besides two-hundred seat theaters and university halls,
the Missoula Oblongata has also performed at a solar-powered permaculture
farm in Iowa, a public park in Washington D.C, a community center in North
Dakota, and a renovated post office in Illinois.
With this audaciously populist approach, the Missoula Oblongata is proud to
draw on the skill-set and talents of the local community. Not only fellow
theater-makers, but the roommate who welds, the neighbor who is a magician
at children's parties, the cousin with tailoring expertise, and the friend
who composes music for hand-manipulated reel-to-reels become resources that
get tapped when it's time to build a new show.
The Missoula Oblongata grew out of Totally Realistic Productions, a company
which had already completed three season-long tours, received a grant from
the NEA (through the Idaho Arts Council), and performed at the Tony Award-winning
Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park.
The Missoula Oblongata's first touring production was The Wonders of the World:
Recite, a macabre coming-of-age story, taking place in a lighthouse on the
last day of the world. The play toured in the summer of 2006, receiving rave
reviews from critics, and standing ovations from audiences throughout The
United States and Canada. As a response to the overwhelming success of 'Wonders',
the play was revived for a month-long tour in the winter of 2007, during which
the show played to sold-out houses in Philadelphia, Minneapolis,and the company's
new home of Northampton, Massachusetts.
In October of 2006, The Missoula Oblongata created The Ghost Wedding of Arle
Redfern, a full length theater piece designed for performance in people's
private homes. Notable for its seamless inclusion of a delicious four-course
meal, the play and the dinner party are presented to invited guests as a package
evening. Originally created as a fundraiser to support main-stage productions,
The Ghost Wedding of Arle Redfern has taken on a life and a following of its
own, and is now performed regularly, with eager hosts booking performances
far in advance.
The Missoula Oblongata strives to constantly create and recreate avenues for
community invention that are as unpredictable as they are inclusive. An ongoing
project that has come to be known as "The Missoula Oblongata Shakespeare
Repertory Theatre" exemplifies this effort. Instigating non-traditional
productions of Shakespeare's plays, this ongoing series draws on the talents
and skill-sets of local artists, empowers non-artists to involve themselves
in the theatre, and makes new and incredible use of public and private space.
Currently, the Missoula Oblongata is in rehearsals for their next full-scale
touring production, The Most Mysterious Day of the Year—a story about
feuding detective agency clans, the fall of Morse code, and reluctant carrier
pigeons. For this production, the company will be joined by the musical composer
Robert M. O'Brien, who will be playing the proverbial reel-to-reel.
