Firelight Theatre Workshop will participate in Peterborough’s First Friday for the first time Oct. 6 from 5 to 7 p.m. with a one-time event, “We Were Friends: The Recap.”
Firelight Theatre Workshop, now in its sixth season, creates original theater work in unusual spaces. The company’s signature series, “We Were Friends,” is an ongoing live play episodic that explores a deep, platonic friendship based on real-life figures Margaret Fuller and Ralph Waldo Emerson. Firelight co-founders Nora Fiffer and Jason Lambert, along with co-writer Henry Walters, set out to produce 12 episodes, starting in 2017. This fall, the 11th installment will be shared.
To catch audiences up on the story and the process, Firelight is opening its downtown studio in the Guernsey Building, 70 Main St., No. 204, to the community to review and celebrate what has happened in Fuller’s and Emerson’s enigmatic friendship.
“We Were Friends” takes place in the present day – with Fuller and Emerson reimagined in a contemporary context. The series follows their 14-year friendship non-chronologically, which means viewers can step into the story at any time without needing to see the earlier episodes. Each installment, written and performed by Firelight, takes place at a different location or uses a different medium to advance the story. While most of the episodes have been performed live, during the pandemic Firelight pivoted to alternative storytelling modes: letters sent by mail, a video installment and an overheard phone conversation via car radio.
“We Were Friends: The Recap” will include multimedia elements, archived materials from previous episodes and conversations with the creators. It will be part theater talkback, part museum exhibit. Regular attendees and newcomers are encouraged to attend, and because the “We Were Friends” series is a celebration of friendship, Firelight encourages audience members to attend events with a friend.
“We Were Friends: The Recap” is a free, open-house-style event. People can drop by any time between 5 and 7 p.m. Refreshments will be provided. For information about Firelight, visit firelighttheatreworkshop.com.