Never content to settle for the status quo, Stone Soup Theatre Arts has reinvented itself once again. This year we’re exploring new venues, introducing new craft development workshops and experimenting with a new format.

In August, the company left its New York headquarters for the first time in our history, traveling to Georgia for the International Leadership Assembly of Hillel, the national Jewish campus organization. We performed The Unofficial First Draft, a new play by our longtime friend and associate, Randy Anderson, for an enthusiastic crowd of college students from around the country.

This Fall, we’re the students. Stone Soup is pleased to introduce our newest initiative - Souped Up Sundays. We’ve invited experts in different aspects of theatrical performance to lead us in a series of workshops. Our first session, led by song and movement teacher Ben Spatz, was a great success. In the coming weeks we’ll look at the ways our thought process relates to action in a session with Gia Forakis and we’ll study the art of puppetry with imnotlost. Souped Up Sundays are open to the public. Check out our website for details.

We’ve also decided to make some changes to our performance schedule. Rather than rush into production this fall, Stone Soup is taking a more organic approach, giving our new material time to grow and the pre-written material time to ferment in our minds. We are currently working and reworking a new script by Adam Hunault, one of the writers behind last season’s Penetralia. The show is a satire about the current state of electoral politics and American culture. We’ll perform it this spring paired with Edward Bond’s allegorical short play, Stone. With an April opening, we are allowing plenty of time to workshop the new piece, develop connections between the two plays, and put together a fantastic show.

That’s all from the trenches for now!

We like getting advice. We like when our audience suggests ingredients to add to our tested theatrical recipes. There is one bit of practical, though possibly obscure, advice we recently chose to ignore:

You can’t put two chickens in one pot.

This spring, Stone Soup will combine our two plays into one production: twice the flavor, half the time to enjoy a magnificent feast. We are enlisting help from designers and puppeteers, consultants and board members. These added ingredients take more time and money than our dedicated volunteer core can afford.

Please consider making a donation to ensure our season’s success. We would be most grateful.

Keep scrolling for all the information on how to support Stone Soup.

Stone Soup is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts Staff service organization. Contributions in behalf of Stone Soup may be made payable to Fractured Atlas and are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.

Click here to make a secure online donation on behalf of Stone Soup Theatre Arts.

In the back of a nondescript bar in Manhattan, there was a meeting of the minds of epic proportions ....or, if you want to be boring about it, I interviewed Nat Cauldwell, Stone Soup actor and stage manager extraordinaire. Here are the highlights:

Teresa: Tell me about Nat Cauldwell in 20 words or less.
Nat: Quiet, behind the scenes, gets things done, (long pause) tired. Frequently tired.

How’d you get involved with Stone Soup in the first place?
Ah, Craigslist... Stone Soup posted a need for a clarinet, trumpet, or violin player, and I answered the ad as a clarinet player.

What made you decide to continue working with Stone Soup?
The need for an artistic outlet. I started out playing alto sax in third grade - with the fourth grade band...(!). I grew up playing, and participating in the arts. But then, going to Polytechnic University for 4 years and living in an apartment on Long Island for a while after graduation, I wasn’t doing much. So moving to Manhattan equaled being able to find a creative outlet. And then I found Stone Soup!

What made you decide to transition from performing with the group to doing behind the scenes stuff - like stage managing?
I’d had experience doing it in high school. Actually, my intro to theater was through my 10th grade girlfriend. She was working back stage for a play, and she got me involved doing props...so I was always involved behind the scenes then. And so, when Stone Soup needed someone, I volunteered.

How are you contributing to the “soup pot” lately?
I got to be in the Hillel thing (a workshop production of a new play by Randy Anderson, co-author of Penetralia), where I was basically “the Ensemble”, and that was a lot of fun. I’m definitely going to continue acting in the future, but I think I’m going to stay behind the scenes for season six.

What’s your favorite Stone Soup show so far, and why?
Just the Front, probably because it was the first one...but it was the most fun experience I’ve had. The cast was great and gelled really well - not that the casts since then haven’t been great... but it was a really good mix of people that had the right chemistry.

Two large red and blue squares discordantly shared my TV screen as we sat glued to election coverage on November 7th. Color and geometry updated us on the showdown, but language provided the Democrats with a subtle dominance- instead of charting how many seats Republicans needed to retain power, the networks focused on the fifteen needed by Democrats to take it away.

The theatrics of the evening were undeniable; the underdog versus the tyrant, the uprising of the righteous and oppressed. There were cheers as Santorum was ousted in PA, chills and relief as South Dakotans discard a Republican Congressman and the abortion ban he supported. There’s no question why the tide has turned--Americans are fed up with the war, the lies, the rise of gas prices. Unable to agree on what we wanted, we came together on what we could not accept.

Our new Congress and our humiliated president have vowed to put their differences aside and work together; yet even with the memory of political powerlessness fresh in my mind, I feel myself cringe. After six years in the Bush twilight zone, is cooperation really what we want? We identify ourselves by what we oppose. We divide ourselves by class, race, ideology. We believe that we are either a have or a have-not, the corporate ogre or the everyman, a red or a blue. If those lines begin to blur, do we lose ourselves?

This season Stone Soup takes a look inside the boxes we all live in, and examines the rifts that separate us. Are the gaps insurmountable or may some common ground be found? Join us this spring as we explore identity through Socialist fable and contemporary satire.

Theatre has always sought to transcend boundaries. It is gratifying to see that the world is finally starting to do the same.

• 1 Butternut Squash (peeled and diced)
• 1 yellow onion (chopped)
• 1 cup chicken stock
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• salt and pepper
• pinch nutmeg
• pinch cinnamon

In a large saucepan heat the olive oil and add onions and butternut squash and cook until onions are tender and transparent. Add chicken stock, cover pan and simmer for 8 minutes or until sqush is tender. Add salt and pepper to taste, then add the nutmeg and cinnamon (just a pinch of each to bring out the flavor of the squash). Turn off the heat and pour mixture into a blender. Blend until smooth (you can add more chicken stock if soup is too thick). Add heavy cream and blend again until soup is thouroughly mixed. Adjust seasonings to your liking. Serve hot and with crusty bread. Enjoy!