Good Company Theatre offers ‘Window Seat Sessions’ to five-member audiences
Good Company Theatre presents "The Window Seat Sessions" on weekends over the next four weeks on Wall Avenue in Ogden.
Good Company Theatre presents "The Window Seat Sessions" on weekends over the next four weeks on Wall Avenue in Ogden.
OGDEN — Necessity may be the mother of invention, but it took COVID-19 to really get the ol’ creative juices going.
Good Company Theatre is again offering more out-of-the-box thinking this summer with “The Window Seat Sessions.” Each weekend for the next four weeks, one or two performers will present 20-minute sets, three times a night, in the theater’s studio space next to the theater at 2404 Wall Ave.
But there’s a twist.
The studio has five floor-to-ceiling windows looking out on Wall Avenue, and GCT will set up five seats on the sidewalk outside the building — just five audience members per performance — one seat in front of each window pane.
“The idea is the performers will be on the inside, and the audience on the outside,” theater co-owner Alicia Washington said.
Washington, who owns the theater with her sister, Camille Washington, said they’d been thinking about how to proceed in a post-pandemic world, and up to this point they simply couldn’t think of a way to safely present the performing arts to audiences.
“We really felt just a need to do what we do best, which is create,” Washington said. “And, to allow our performers and collaborators to do what they do best — which is also create. So this was just the perfect energy coming together.”
As performing arts groups like GCT look for ways to offer audiences a taste of the sort of live performance that was taken for granted five months ago, these sorts of nontraditional shows may become more commonplace.
“We keep saying that it’s a return to normal,” Washington said. “But this is just a little bend in that.”
“The Window Seat Sessions” begin Friday and Saturday, Aug. 14-15, with a performance by contemporary dancer joBdance.
On Aug. 21-22, performances continue with Olivia Custodio presenting a partially improvised stand-up show exploring “the Dumpster fires that are commonly know as … a first date.”
Then, on Aug. 28-29, jazz singer Dee-Dee Darby-Duffin will perform a short concert for the tiny audiences.
And finally, on Sept. 4-5, Ava Zawhore will present a drag performance.
Shows for “The Window Seat Sessions” are at 8 p.m., 8:40 p.m. and 9:20 p.m. each Friday and Saturday.
Seats are socially distanced, and all audience members must wear masks. For the performances, GCT will have a portable partition set up between the seating on the sidewalk and the rest of Wall Avenue.
Washington said these sorts of unconventional theater performances are what makes theater so varied and accessible.
“The funny thing I love about theater is I believe it can happen anywhere and everywhere — outside, inside, on a street corner or in an extravagant hall,” Washington said. “It doesn’t feel beholden to a proscenium stage.”
Thanks to an Ogden City Arts grant, Washington said all performances are free. However, with only five seats per performance, spots are limited and filling up fast. To reserve seats, visit goodcotheatre.com or call 801-917-4969.
WHAT: “The Window Seat Sessions”
WHEN: 8 p.m., 8:40 p.m. and 9:20 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, Aug. 14-Sept. 5
WHERE: Good Company Theatre, 2404 Wall Ave., Ogden
TICKETS: Free, but seating extremely limited; reserve tickets at goodcotheatre.com, or call 801-917-4969