(Lander, WY) – A new theater company called Equality Stage performed its first production last week, staging Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night” three times in Fremont County. The company performed Friday and Sunday in Lander’s City Park and Saturday at Central Wyoming College in Riverton.
The company is led by Andrew Thornton and Jeremy Swanton, who serve as directors.
Thornton grew up in Riverton and has worked as an actor in Chicago, Washington D.C. and Los Angeles. He returned home over the holidays with Swanton, who has a background producing theater in New York and Chicago. The two got involved with a production of “Secret Garden” at Central Wyoming College, which led to the creation of Equality Stage.
The Equality Stage put on its first show in Lander Friday night in City Park. The new company put on Shakespeare’s the Twelfth Night with a cast of talented local actors. h/t Carl Cote Quanell Davis and Joseph Thonton chatted during the play Friday in Lander. h/t Carl Cote Louisa Wesley found the snack bag during intermission at the Equality Stage’s performance of the Twelfth Night Friday. h/t Carl Cote
“Coming back to the community and seeing all of these actors and seeing this amount of talent really inspired me,” said Thornton. “Going out into the world and working with professional equity actors who went to schools like Yale and NYU and Juilliard, and seeing the talent we have here, it’s really not that different. It’s just a matter of production and technical infrastructure that we might not have here.”
Thornton said the company’s goal is to build up that theater and entertainment infrastructure here in Wyoming.
The company originally planned to stage “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” for the summer solstice, but switched to “Twelfth Night” after Swanton pointed out that Thornton’s two younger siblings, who play the twins Viola and Sebastian in the show, would work well in the roles. Thornton said staging the show during Pride Month also felt timely, since the play, as many of Shakespear’s do, deals with gender expression and identity.
The cast included Suzie Herrington as Olivia and Matt Hartman as Orsino. Parker Applebee, who had never acted in a play before, played Sir Andrew Aguecheek. Quanell Davis, a high school student, played Antonio.
Casting came together partly through the “Secret Garden” cast and partly through an open casting call. Thornton said he hopes to run a more open casting process for future shows so actors of different experience levels can work and learn together.
Herrington said rehearsals came together quickly, over about two months, with much of the preparation, especially memorizing lines, done independently by the play’s cast members.
“Definitely did a lot of work on our own, especially with the memorizing, because I think that was the hardest part,” Herrington said. “It’s (Shakespeare) just not natural English either.”
Herrington moved to Lander in 2020 and said the production gave her a chance to return to theater after a gap during the pandemic. She said the show also helped her build a community of friends outside of rock climbing.
Equality Stage is a nonprofit, and none of the cast or crew are paid.
“It’s a non-profit,” Harrington said. “We don’t get paid… We do it because we love it.”
Thornton said audience turnout was strong in both Lander and Riverton, and that the show reached viewers who had little or no previous exposure to Shakespeare, including his seven year old nephew and others whose only prior exposure to Shakespeare was reading “Romeo and Juliet” as a high school freshman.
Looking to the future, Thornton said Equality Stage plans to tour the Wind River area during the summer, aiming to reach Lander, Riverton, Shoshoni, Dubois and Fort Washakie, with two or three plays planned. The company has also discussed bringing “Twelfth Night” to Dubois before moving onto the next production. In December, Equality Stage plans to collaborate with Central Wyoming College on a musical based on “The Gift of the Magi,” developed with college students.
Thornton is excited to get more community members to get involved in future projects.
“Come out, reach out. Audition, come see a show, come to a workshop, whatever,” Thornton said. “We are here. We’re very excited about being a part of this community, and it’s not all talk for us. We’re going to be here.”