Turpin Theatre Brings Post-Apocalypse to Life in Gathering Blue

Turpin Theatre's first show of the season, Gathering Blue, is set to thrill audiences on November 18-20, 2022. Tickets are on sale now! Purchase them by visiting the Turpin Theatre website and you can access the special $10 Senior/Student ticket price! Adult tickets, and ALL tickets sold at the door, are $15.

We hope you can join us!

Directors' Note

Every new season is a new adventure, and we’re excited that for this adventure, the first stop is Gathering Blue — and we’re excited that you joined us!

Since the first season we joined the Turpin Theatre family, Gathering Blue has been on the list of plays we wanted to produce. Finding unique plays is always a challenge, so when you see a script that really leaps out at you, it’s a great day. There were two things that instantly intrigued us about Gathering Blue. First, being a companion piece to Lois Lowry’s classic young-adult novel, The Giver, it carried a certain cachet that was intriguing. Second, this show’s setting is a setting so rarely found in theatre — post-apocalypse. Many of the scripts we consider are set in such familiar times — the roaring 20s, the Victorian era, the Cold War — and while these eras are certainly not unexciting, there are historical realities that you must respect. People dressed like this. People talked like that. A post-apocalyptic setting has none of these restrictions. With
this play, our designers got to ask: how would people dress? Our actors got to ask: how would people talk? Gathering Blue has given our students a blank canvas upon which to paint — with lights, sounds, sets, props, costumes, and performance— a never-before-seen world.

Creating this world is a tall order, and we are proud to say that these students have been up to the task. For three months they have labored tirelessly, creating the myriad elements you will see in this performance. Trees and thrones, staffs and robes, accents and characters — all coming together to create a distant future, the world of Gathering Blue.

At its core, Gathering Blue is a story about young people with various talents, and how they use them. The making of Gathering Blue is the very same story (minus the oppressive ruling-class, we hope). Everything you will see tonight was created by these students, using their immense talents to tell this timeless story. As directors, we feel incredibly blessed to get to work alongside them, and we are thrilled that you are here to support their work.

With all that said, we invite you to sit back, relax, and enjoy the post-apocalypse.

— Joey Loebker, Alec Bowling, and Malerie Jump

Synopsis

"In this companion story to Lowry's Newbery-Award winning novel "The Giver", Kira, a disabled teenager, has been orphaned in a future world that condemns its wounded and old to die. But Kira has a gift: the art of weaving and dyeing, not just learned from her mother but inherent in a way even she doesn't fully understand. When a magistrate who recognizes her skill rescues her, Kira is given a task: first, to mend the Robe used in the Singing of the Song, an annual ritual that recounts the calamities and despair of the world. And then, to weave the Future. With the help of Annabella, an aged bearer of wisdom, Kira learns the deeper secrets both of her craft--including the secret of the long-lost color, blue--and of her task. Which, she comes to realize, involves creating not the world she imagines but the one dictated to her, where her community will be kept under control through the constant evocation of fear. Alongside Thomas, a carver, Matt, a young friend, and Jo, a singer-in-training, Kira explores both the truth of her world and her place in it--until the arrival of Christopher, a blind man, forces her to choose between fleeing to save herself, or staying and trying to save her community. If art is a key to salvation, who will make it? If blue is the color of hope, who will weave it?"