Lightning Rod Special

Role: Creative Producer and Company Member

Lightning Rod Special is an original performance company that creates raucous and contemplative works to ask questions of ourselves, our audience, and the world at large. With big hearts, we tackle lightning rod topics in ways that scramble theatrical conventions and intellectual assumptions. Exploding complex questions with precision and play, Lightning Rod Special makes live performance from the ground up.

As a company member, I serve on the core creative leadership team of several award-winning, critically acclaimed productions. In the rehearsal room, I help shape the script and early concepts in writing and rehearsal sessions. I lead the development of the visual world with a team of fellow designers, producers, and technicians from ideation through budgeting and installation. Outside of traditional productions, I produce and support company events, including the annual fundraiser. Finally, I initiated company conversations around anti-racism and dismantling white supremacy culture in the theater industry.

Productions

The Appointment (2023)

Using cutting humor, catchy songs, and some very lively fetuses, The Appointment unpacks the many systems that disempower groups of people from making informed reproductive decisions with hilarious, devastating, and hilariously devastating results. This “thoughtful and profoundly imaginative show concludes in a silence that is all the more eloquent for the sound and the fury that preceded it.” - The New York Times

Credits:

Lead Artist: Alice Yorke; Lead Book Writers: Alice Yorke, Eva Steinmetz, Scott R. Sheppard, Alex Bechtel; Music, Lyrics and Arrangements: Alex Bechtel; Director: Eva Steinmetz, Co-Creators and Performers: Katie Gould, Jaime Maseda, Lee Minora, Brett Ashley Robinson, Brenson Thomas, Danny Wilfred; PSM: Jo Fernandez; ASM: Kelsey Vivian, Designers: Oona Curley, Masha Tsimring, Rebecca Kanach, Nina Field, Noah Mease; Choreography: Melanie Cotton; GM: Renee Blinkwolt and Lucy Jackson; PM: Jes Levine; Executive Producers: Rachel Sussman and Erica Rotstein.

SPEECH (2022)

SPEECH is a poisonous love letter to cancel culture. The show isn't just happening on stage. It's happening in your DMs. And in your kid’s eye rolls. In your hook-up agreements. In your attempt to actually compost this year. During your daily subway cry. It's all the things we don't say about the things we DO say.

Credits:

Creators: Shayok Misha Chowdhury, Scott R. Sheppard, Alice Yorke; Writer: Scott R. Sheppard in collaboration with the ensemble; Director: Shayok Misha Chowdhury; Assistant Director: Andalyn Young; Creator-Performers: Fernando Gonzalez, Yuki Kawahisa, Jaime Maseda, Terran Scott, Scott R. Sheppard, Alice Yorke, Jehan O. Young; Designers: Peiyi Wong, Oona Curley, Victoria Gill-Gomez, M. Florian Staab, Kimberly Redman; Technical Production: Flannel & Hammer.

Underground Railroad Game (2016)

Good morning, America! Welcome to Hanover Middle School, where a pair of teachers are getting down and dirty with today’s lesson. The nimble duo goes round after round on the mat of our nation’s history, tackling race, sex and power in this R-rated, kaleidoscopic and fearless comedy.

Credits:

Lead Artists, Co-Creators and Performers: Scott R. Sheppard and Jenn Kidwell; Director: Taibi Magar; PSM: Lisa McGinn; ASM: Natalie Hratko; Designers: Oona Curley, Tilly Grimes, Steven Dufala, Mikaal Sulaiman, Emilie Grossman; Movement Consultant: David Neumann; Fight Choreography: Ryan Bourque; Additional Contributors: Sarah Sanford.