Core Company Testimonials


Meredith Freidman Meridith Friedman

Core Co. '08
Connecticut College '08
MFA in Playwriting, Northwestern '10

The Orchard Project's emphasis on process over product allowed me the opportunity to watch how a company creates theatre, as opposed to just seeing the finished production. Through workshops with the visiting companies, I was able to actually experience each company's creative processes for myself, which has helped me to define and develop my own aesthetic. Over the course of the five weeks, my theatrical vocabulary expanded enormously, both in terms of new techniques and methods that I have added to my own creative process, as well as a more articulate language with which to talk about theatre. 


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micheline healMicheline Heal

Core Co. '09
Oberlin College '09
Coming into Core Company, I was looking for an education in theater: to broaden my experience in performance beyond the dance world that I had been training in for so many years. I could not have been exposed to so many different methods of creating theater and such a wide variety of ideas about performance in any other program. We not only drew inspiration from the work that we were exposed to, but were given feedback by some of the most innovative minds in experimental theater. But the most important thing that I learned at the Orchard Project was the importance of play - that some of the best ideas happened in the middle of a whiffle ball game and that giving someone an empty room with the words "no pressure" produced some of the most interesting work that I've ever seen.
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Mark McCloughan

Mark McCloughan

Core Co. '08
Wesleyan University '10

A few months out from Core Company, I began to realize that it was a much more influential experience than I originally felt. At the end of our time in Hunter, I felt positively about many aspects of the program: the quality of interaction with artists, the beautiful setting, the exposure to a wide range of work. As I sit here and think, I realize that it was much more than five weeks of hanging out with amazing artists. The time I spent at the Core Company allowed me to see myself as an artist. By having the opportunity to watch established companies, performers, and writers create and refine work while simultaneously working on my own projects, I was able to see myself as a peer of these amazing artists. Not to say that I could do all of the things that they do. I know I still have a lot to learn. But the way many of the resident artists asked about my work, my interests, and my goals allowed me to see myself not as an underling but as a member of an artistic community.