The Saint Martin Repertory Theatre (SMRT) exists to create space for marginal voices that are unheard in dominant stories. Through mainstage productions, classes, workshops, arts programming and community engagement, SMRT provides a means for such voices to reflect, educate and create strategies for change. Committed to working with youth, the theatre started an apprentice program that hired young people from the Austin neighborhood to serve as members of its production crew.
Along with St. Martin’s Episcopal Church, Good Ground and the Saint Martin Repertory Theatre collaborated with Bodies of Work to produce Embrace the Space: A Family Festival of Disability Arts, which featured the work of artists with disabilities. SMRT’s first public offering was a staged reading of Before It Hits Home, Cheryl West’s powerful exploration of how HIV/AIDS and homophobia affect an African-American family. The company followed with Monologues, a night of poetry, prose and song dedicated to the works of marginal voices; and its first full-length production No Child…, Nalaja Sun’s reflection on her experience as a teaching artist in some of New York’s worse schools.
We produced the play Karma, written by local playwright Senyah Haynes, which follows Queen and Ezekiel Lee, an optimistic young southern couple, who battle to find a way to keep their love alive through the pitfalls of life and the trials of their own making. Theirs is a love that turns into hate, and a hate that turns into something found only through karma. Read the story and listen to interviews from a November 30, 2012 WBEZ story by Cassidy Herrington. Click the WBEZ icon.
Art for the people’s sake.