The Pomegranate, To Life by Shellie Shulkin, watercolor. © Shellie Shulkin 2021

VIRTUAL AUDIO PLAYS

As we moved from grief to hope in our lives this 2022, Tales of the Alchemysts Theatre also moved from stillness to flow. Live theatre as we knew it became shuttered. During that time our company shifted, pirouetted, to streaming on-demand performances and added a new branch under the umbrella of our theatre, The Pomegranate Projects: Virtual Audio Plays. They have been a great success and continue to provide entertaining and engaging theatre for you to listen to from the comfort of your home.

It is said that in times of tragedy and despair, there is often a silver lining if we just go about and look for it. To be able to produce virtual performances via the web affords us the ability to connect not only with our local audience but stretch further to reach a national and global audience. In the performing arts, nothing really replaces the live experience. We need the audience as if they were the violin and the artist the bow. It’s that shared magic that all comes together when the lights go down and the curtain rises. Unlike a film or a painting that one can revisit and reinterpret, several times after the final take or the last stroke, the theatre is ephemeral, never to be repeated in the exact same way. It’s the beauty and the sadness in the same breath.

As times continue to change, we are excited to have presented our first live play since the start of the pandemic and also our first fully-staged performance piece—a departure from our usual dramatic staged readings.

“The Ruins of Memory: Women’s Voices of the Holocaust” was a stunning and passionate play that was incredibly well-received by our devoted audience and supporters. The timing was perfect for women’s voices to be heard since we live in a country and a world dizzy with imbalance, political polarization, Holocaust denial, ignorance of history, and—continually—an all-out assault on women’s rights, human rights, and democracy.

Tales of the Alchemysts Theatre has been grateful to return to the stage and we are committed to bringing you compelling and insightful performances. We trust that you will enjoy these audio presentations harkening back to the golden era of radio as much as we have enjoyed creating them. “L’chaim, to life” and the virtual Pomegranate Projects to come.

May the ancient symbol of the pomegranate with its many seeds bring hope and new beginnings from our homes into yours.