Open Flame Theatre: THE WILDERNESS

Help Open Flame bring The Wilderness to Philadelphia Community Farm

Philadelphia Community Farm Inc., is a rural based intentional community farm located on occupied land of Anishinaabe, Dakota, and Ho-chunk Nations, along the St. Croix River Valley. Philly Farm is a volunteer run Intergenerational, Multi-Abled, Black, Brown, Indigenous & LGBTQ led and centered farm community and nonprofit 501(c)(3); committed to creating access for historically oppressed people to connect to their history through land, food systems & cultural practices.

We are a volunteer run Intergenerational, Multi-Abled, Black, Brown, Indigenous & LGBTQ led and centered farm community and nonprofit 501(c)(3); committed to creating access for historically oppressed people to connect to their history through land, food systems & cultural practices.

Open Flame Theatre is a queer/transgender/gender non-conforming theatre ensemble based in Minneapolis, MN. Founded by Walken Schweigert and Katie Burgess in 2009 under the name the Unseen Ghost Brigade, Open Flame creates outdoor, site-responsive operatic performances about rewilding and the inherent power of transgender people. Through live music, dance, large scale climbable sculptures, and circus arts, Open Flame opens portals into surreal other-realms where the power of the imagination is released and reclaimed as part of the larger struggles for justice and freedom from colonization and the culture of capitalism.

“The Wilderness” is a full-length, original performance composed, written, and directed by Walken Schweigert and created by Open Flame Theatre. The final part of our “Rewilding Triptych”, which began with The Wastelands in 2012. After almost 15 years of dreaming and scheming this show is finally starting to come into being. 

    A humble meeting of Frog and Toad stories by Arnold Loebel, Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett, and Caliban and the Witch by Silvia Federici, this comic and tragic performance unravels time even as it grounds us in space. Inspired by traditions of witchcraft and magic, what begins as a journey of two clownish characters through the woods quickly turns whimsical and deadly as our heroes realize they are not as alone as they think they are…

    In a world made so toxic by capitalist imperialism, we become lonely. We think of our human selves as separate from the non-human life around us. This stems in part from the individualism that is endemic in modern neoliberal societies. Understanding and experiencing solidarity, collective power, and our part in the web of the community of life that includes plants, animals, rocks, and the movements of the weather, is both healing for us, as well as a perspective that undermines hegemonic, colonial oppression. Meaning-making is not the realm solely of humanity; all life participates in the creative energy of meaning-making.

    This performance was made for Philly Farm. For the specific trees and forests in the specific place where we will be performing. We need your help to get it there! All donations to Open Flame currently go towards this endeavor.