Meet Iron Crow Theatre's New Artistic Director, Sean Elias
I first met Sean Elias as an actor for a show I costumed for Baltimore Shakespeare Factory. He was friendly, funny and fun and I liked him right away. I was so happy when I found out he was the new Artistic Director and CEO of Iron Crow Theatre, I know Iron Crow is in very good hands. Congratulations Sean!
1. The new website looks great! What can we expect that is also new?
Thank you! The website is a labor of love and something I am very proud of. Iron Crow Theatre has begun so many things a new this past year with so much more on the horizon. First and foremost, we have a new structure. We’ve disbanded the resident company/ensemble model and are now run entirely by a volunteer administrative team. We found this better serves our mission and the work to come. Now we can welcome so many varied and talented artists to our stages; now anyone is free to become a crow! We’ve hired our first Public Relations and Outreach Manager, the very talented Jeanette Wooten, promoted the wonderful Heather Peacock to Director of Production and started a new formalized internship program with the dedicated Logan Kauffeld being one of our first. We also launched our first ever, and what is now to be annual, Season Announcement Event. It was a wonderful red velvet roped, champagne and cupcake filled event that also celebrated the launch of our first ever educational campaign, Queer: Broaden Your Definition. This campaign is aimed at celebrating the inclusive nature of the word, and to help others to see themselves at Iron Crow Theatre who normally would dismiss our work as simply for those who identify as gay or lesbian. This season will also see the official launch of our education department led by the brilliant Ann Turiano. We’ve made history this season by commissioning local, award-winning baltimore playwright, Rich Espey, to create our first ever queer piece intended specifically for Baltimore’s youth. Set to embark on a regional tour to local middle schools, this work aims to provide students, faculty and staff alike, the opportunity to engage with and dialogue around, what it is to identify as a part of the “queer” community. We’ve also launched our biggest season in the history of the theatre. Typically we produce 3 MainStage shows. This season we’ve added an additional two performances as part of our SecondStage series. AND! We’re committing to yearly special event performance of The Rocky Horror Show, what we believe is the ultimate queer theatrical experience. We’ve launched our first ever online store and we’ve got some great plans for an online series related to our productions set to go live on our website once our season launches in September. So there’s lots of new to celebrate from new ticketing software and services to a new potential partnership with the Acting Company from NYC we’re soon to have more details on shortly. And, we’re just getting started!
2. How do you see the new Iron Crow Theatre fitting in to the Baltimore theatre scene?
I want Iron Crow Theater to become a destination theatre. For example, Everyman Theatre and Center Stage theatre have patrons that travel specifically to Baltimore to see their productions. Patrons travel great distances because they believe in these organizations and enjoy their work. Their both local companies based in Baltimore with great regional impact. That’s what I want for Iron Crow Theatre. I’m not necessarily speaking of scale, the desire to have a large proscenium space with a multi-million dollar budget (but if you know a millionaire who would like to help, please let me know) but rather having a similar impact as these great institutions on this city and the region. I want Iron Crow Theatre to fill the space between large professional equity house and smaller budget DIY theatre companies. Becoming a theatre that is able to offer 1- 3 equity contracts per show while also offering EMC points to local students or up-and-coming artists is a dream of ours. It’s a space not filled by any other theatre here in Baltimore, but is filled in almost every other major city in the northeast. l also want to ensure that Iron Crow Theatre remains connected to the national dialogue around theatre in general, and specifically queer theatre. What I’m missing from most of the local companies in Baltimore is a sense that they are connected to the national discourse around theatre and its needs, best practices and new standards/vehicles of creation.
3. I first knew you as an actor, and a great one at that. Are you acting in any of Iron Crow Theatre’s productions?
I’m honored, truly. You flatter me and it’s great to be recognized for the work I’ve studied all my life, both in undergraduate and graduate study, to be able to do well (and in doing so incurred significantly hefty student loans). So again thank you, thank you! Your praise is meaningful. It’s funny because I started at Iron Crow Theatre as an actor. It was my first paid/professional gig in Baltimore. However, in my new role, I don’t plan on performing at Iron Crow Theatre, at least in the foreseeable future. I’m committed to leading this organization and love this aspect of my life, alongside my love for performing and teaching. I don’t know if you’re aware but I also head the theatre program at the Jemicy School. So I do think of each of these opportunities as separate spaces. There’s my performance space where I am lucky enough to perform in equity and non-equity houses across the nation (I’ll actually turn 30 next week making my Off-Broadway debut at the New Victory Theatre in Times Square), there’s my teaching space where I work with students who are diagnosed with some form of a learning difference, primarily dyslexia, and then my administrative and artistic leadership space at Iron Crow Theatre where I have great responsibility and love for this team, our artists and our patrons. Each space requires a specific focus and an amount of preparation that is truly significant. Mixing these spaces together would undoubtably create a vulnerability in one or more of the other spaces that I’m not wiling to allow for. So for now, they will remain separate. Perhaps, when the time comes where one is able to give way to a combination of the other two, I’ll find myself once again on stage with Iron Crow Theatre.
4. What do you want people to know about Iron Crow Theatre’s mission.
Iron Crow Theatre is a queer theatre, for a queer city. We define queer as the celebration of the renegade and the unorthodox. For us it is an inclusive term that does not solely represent sexual orientation. There are other letters in the acronym to represent such. The acronym has now even grown to be correctly represented as LGBTQ+. So we’re interested in that Q+, as our new education campaign states, we’re interested in broadening the definition of queer. We’ve taken some heat from the community for this, but what one must always remember is that in broadening one does not remove or exclude. We are not erasing the tie to sexual orientation or the history and struggle of the LGBT movement. Some do use queer to label their sexual orientation, however others use queer as a term divorced from their sexual orientation as well – and thats OK! We’re a queer theatre in the broad sense of the term; the self-defining sense of the term. I myself identify as gay (which some would label queer) but we also produce queer work and work in and of itself doesn’t have a sexual orientation. It’s queer in theme, or aesthetic; execution. It’s true, we have cis-gendered individuals who would identify as both heterosexual and queer on our administration. They too have a place at Iron Crow Theatre. Everyone has a place at Iron Crow Theatre. We’re not abandoning our supporters or alienating those who use queer strictly to identify their sexual orientation. We’re adding to our community, helping others who do identify as queer, but maybe not just in reference to their sexual orientation, find a space here as well. Frankly, there aren’t enough individuals who do use queer strictly in identifying their sexual orientation to keep the theatre operational. Also, the entire objective of the LGBTQ+ movement is to join, to be seen as equal and valued just as other more privileged members of society are by a variety of socio-economic influencers. To exclude, to say no, to claim ownership of a word in a way that creates divide seems counter intuitive to the needs and desires of the broader movement.
Iron Crow Theatre is also an organization that prides itself on warmth and professionalism. I’m grateful that Iron Crow Theatre has received such praise for our commitment to these values from members of the press and the theatrical community who already see these values in action. From Washington, DC to New York City, such praise is unanimous.
Forgive me, I get so passionate about this topic. In short, Iron Crow Theatre is not the gate keeper or the definer of queer for everyone. We are simply a home for those who identify as such, however they choose or why they choose to do so, as made possible in our broadened definition. Steve Satta, our founding Artistic Director was very specific in calling Iron Crow Theatre a queer theatre, not a gay theatre. To us, there is a great distinction. But words are powerful and hold personal weight and meaning. We welcome others thoughts on the subject but in the end hope to embraced for the welcoming and supportive, if not driving force of, queer theatre in Baltimore. We’re proud of our Queer: Broaden Your Definition campaign and can’t wait for it to go live on our website shortly! Oh! There’s something else new to look forward to!
Read the article on MD Theatre Guide
