Today we’d like to introduce you to Neeley Gossett.
Neeley, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
Nichole Palmietto and I accidentally started Found Stages on my porch in 2014. She was working as a professional theatre director in Atlanta, and I was working as a professional playwright. We didn’t know each other well but had each seen the others’ work and had a mutual admiration. After running into each other at various plays, we realized we had the same artistic and aesthetic tastes, which led us to apply for a development grant for my play, Beulah Creek.
We didn’t receive the grant. That is when we found that it wasn’t just aesthetics that we had in common. We’re both tenacious risk-takers when it comes to theatre. Neither of us is willing to wait for permission to produce plays. We’d rather build our own shows on our own terms. This drive led to the night on my porch when we decided to produce Beulah Creek at the Dunwoody Nature Center.
The play was set at a Baptist camp meeting in South Georgia in the 1930s. In this immersive experience, the audience followed the characters around the Nature Center and even participated in eating milk and cornbread. After the play opened, we realized that this was the kind of theatre we want to make. We want to tell stories that are compelling and have a clear narrative but are also awe-inspiring like the immersive experiences offered in New York and London.
What was supposed to be one show, turned into an almost-five-year journey. Since 2014, we have taken plays out of the theater and into real-world spaces where people live and work. In 2015, Found Stages was part of the second round of the prestigious and highly competitive Alliance Theatre Reiser Atlanta Artists Lab. Among other productions in 2018, the company presented the groundbreaking, sold-out Frankenstein’s Ball on New Year’s Eve at the Highland Inn Ballroom. Found Stages became a 501c3 non-profit organization in 2018, which has allowed us to build a board and expand. We are now beginning rehearsal for our largest show to date.
This Halloween season, Found Stages’ Frankenstein’s Funeral will take audiences on a physical journey through Mary Shelley’s 200-year-old novel. This immersive experience takes place Oct. 4 – Nov. 3, 2019, at St. John’s Lutheran Church—a historic Atlanta home once known as Stonehenge Mansion, converted into a church in 1959. This intimate experience only has 40 audience members per show. Audience members are invited to share an active role in the experience as they interact with the characters.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc. – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Artistically, Found Stages has always run smoothly, but it is always difficult to find funding for non-profit arts in Georgia because such little money is offered in grants.
What else should our readers know?
Found Stages builds community through innovative storytelling. We are a theatre for people who aren’t theatre people. Our work is immersive and site-specific, and the audience plays an active role in the story. We don’t do plays in theatres, but in the spaces that the plays are actually set. We build stories for specific places like we built Frankenstein’s Funeral specifically for St. John’s Lutheran Church. Found Stages’ vision is to turn Atlanta into a hub for site-specific and immersive theater by bringing the same quality of experiential theater found in New York, LA or London to Atlanta.
What were you like growing up?
I’ve always been creative. I always wanted to “play” theatre or art gallery. When I was in kindergarten, I would hang my drawings on a clothesline in our front yard and ask my neighbors buy to them. When I was in elementary school, I always wanted to write and direct plays starring my friends, but when they came over to “rehearse,” they only wanted to climb on the swing set.
A few weeks ago, I told the Frankenstein’s Funeral writing team (Nichole Palmietto, Annie Harrison Elliot and Addae Moon) that they allow me to “play” with friends like I wanted to when I was young. They’re my dear friends, and when we get together, we make theatre. This is exactly what I wanted to do when I grew up.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.foundstage.org
- Email: neeley@foundstages.org
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/foundstages
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/foundstages
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/foundstages
Image Credit:
Josh Moss, Casey Gardener
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