Dec 23, 2009 — Deborah Kirby, who founded Journeymen Theater five years ago, has announced the closing of her company. Kirby, whose work examined Christianity through the lens of theatre, has been important to many local performers and to playwrights around the country.
She was among the first of the small theatres to welcome DC Theatre Scene, when we began just months after her opening. And it was she who introduced Ronnie Ruff to Lorraine Treanor, and thus made possible the Web site you are now visiting. She speaks with Jane Horowitz in today’s Washington Post.
Journeymen did great performances. This is sad, indeed.
That is depressing news.
Thank you for some lovely shows, Deborah. Tis truly sad to see JTE go, and Catalyst as well. I wonder how many more companies will shutter in the lean days to come.
I’m sad to see Journeymen go. I’ve had the pleasure of working there on several occasions and I admire the mission statement (religion was never hurled in your face, it was always about humanity and like-minded individuals) and courage of all who were involved. There were some great works produced and I know Deborah must be proud.
Well, I know it isn’t particularly Christian language, but this development is a damn shame. Journeymen gave us a lot of really great productions, including Experiment with an Air Pump, Manicures and Monuments, Life is a Dream and Spinning Into Butter, and we saw some really great actors there, including Tiffany Fillmore, Becky Peters, Andy Brownstein and the incomparable Lindsay Allen. If memory serves me correctly, Alexander Strain got his start as a director there. Even more importantly, Journeymen selected complex, resonant plays in which the characters were awful and wonderful and relentlessly human all at once, and put them on with an attention to detail which can only come from love. For this, I suppose, we are indebted to Ms. Kirby, and we can only hope that in some way she continues to keep her hand in.