The Brunt of Ballet | Heather Maloy of Terpsicorps

Like most leaders in the arts, Heather Maloy spends far more time raising money, hunting for rehearsal spaces and recruiting dancers than she does immersed in the work she’s so committed to—cultivating the ideas and creating the dances that are the signature of her Asheville-based company, Terpsicorps Theatre of Dance.
 
For 21 summers, Terpsicorps has fielded troupes of young professionals from all over the U.S. and beyond, who put their feet to the fire of Maloy’s imagination. I met with Maloy just before her company started rehearsals for their new production, inspired by Edvard Munch’s singular painting, “The Scream.” Performances are July 25 through 27 at Diana Wortham Theatre.

We’ll talk with the company’s founding director about keeping her dream live and evolving her company through two decades of challenges, how she parses through scores of auditioners to select her company and how she defines growth when her company is only on stage for two weekends each year.

SPONSOR: Terpsicorps Theatre of Dance returns for one weekend only with the premiere of "Before the Scream." Performances are July 25-27 at the Wortham Center for the Performing Arts.

Wake Up, Asheville! and ¡Despierta Asheville!  (in Spanish) are new morning newscast podcasts that give you all the local news you need to know in under five minutes. Both are free to subscribe/follow wherever you get your podcasts!

Transcript

Matt Peiken: Do you create a new show every year? 

Heather Maloy: I create something new on the program every year. So some years it's a big full length, but most years it's a rep show where we bring back most of the program and then there's something new whether that be a big long sort of featured piece or a short piece filler piece. 

Matt Peiken: What determines that what makes that pivot for you whether it's rep That you've already done or diving into a full Money production money. 

Heather Maloy: Yeah, I would do big full lengths all the time If I had the funding to do big full lengths all the time. Maybe some directors now feel like they can get more out of a series than out of a movie Do you know what I'm saying? Oh, yeah. Because you can really dive into what you're trying to say in a much bigger and broader way. 

Matt Peiken: So this is your 21st actual season running. Talk about what your funding model and funding chase was [00:01:00] every year before the pandemic. And how has that shifted now? 

Heather Maloy: Sure. So I think that most dance companies start with an influx of money. There is a sponsor or there's an organization or an actual or a city itself who steps up and says, we want a professional ballet company.

And then they do something. financially to help that happen. And I liked Asheville and I was extremely naive. And I said, I'm going to move to Asheville. And in three years, I'm going to have a year round professional ballet company and be paying people and all the things. And I moved here with, 5, 000, I think, like nothing.

And it's been an interesting road. I'll just tell a short story about our very first performance. It was mostly my friends because I was still dancing so I had just left the North Carolina dance theater Which is now the Charlotte Ballet and a big group of my friends came everybody wanted to do my work And we were all gonna work together, and I you know signed contracts with them And I'm gonna pay them and just no money was [00:02:00] happening and no tickets for selling and we all got out on the streets that weekend and we were giving out lollipops with flyers attached to them to make people take them so that they would come to the show and we sold okay.

We got a standing ovation after the first act and I got up on stage and cried and it was real tears and I was like, these people that you see are not going to get paid if you don't give some money and I had little girls in white dresses with baskets like it was church. 

Matt Peiken: Is this at the Wortham? 

Heather Maloy: Yeah, this is at the Wortham, walking around and we raised enough money that night to pay the dancers for that show And the next show because I started out doing two shows a summer. 

Matt Peiken: You mean productions or just performances, you're talking about just two performances.

Heather Maloy: No two Productions Two full productions a summer. I used to do them in june and in august And that lasted for, I think the first maybe five years until the first recession hit. So I remember the recession. Yeah. So that was five [00:03:00] years when that happened. Just nobody was giving money.

Matt Peiken: You said that you had a three year plan. I remember when I did my first story about you and the company with BPR, you said you had a three year plan that was in a drawer and it had never come out of the drawer and at that point you were closing in on 20 years and still operating for, you would hope to be a year round company and you are still a summer only program.

Did you ever psychologically make that shift to saying, We're content to be a summer program. We are going to thrive in that. Or have you always had in the back of your mind, our growth plan is still to become a year round ballet company. 

Heather Maloy: That's a hard question because at this point, if someone came to me and they gave me 20 million and they said, we will fund your ballet company, because budgets are a lot now, like a ballet company budget, back when I started the company it was like four million a year. So it's got to be like ten [00:04:00] To 15 for a tiny company. 

Matt Peiken: It depends on the company. If you look at like a chamber ballet company, like James Sewell ballet of the Minneapolis or, smaller full company, like Cincinnati ballet, some of them have even you there, they have union wages, and that can really go get up there.

Heather Maloy: Oh no, it's a lot. Like it's way more than I can wrap my head around. And I just think it's more than Asheville can afford, at least with the priorities that Asheville typically has. So early on, I decided what if we share, because a lot of dance companies do this model too, so we'll share the fundraising with another city.

I had a lot of connections in Winston Salem, so now we have this dual residency between Asheville and Winston Salem, so we fundraise equally in both cities. 

Matt Peiken: Yeah, and you perform, you, usually you will open in Winston Salem, correct? That's new. And then you'll come to Asheville? Oh, is that? Okay. 

Heather Maloy: That's new since the pandemic.

Matt Peiken: Okay. Okay. 

Heather Maloy: And that is because we've always had the same dates on the calendar in Asheville since 2003. And then during [00:05:00] COVID, there was a huge changeover over the theater and they didn't even know we existed and our dates weren't on the calendar. It's my fault though, because I didn't think that I had to say, cause I'd never had to, I didn't think I had to call up these new people and be like, make sure my dates were on the calendar.

So I wrote them and I was like, Hey, just making sure my dates were on the calendar. They're like, nope. I said, Oh, so now, instead of being in June. the end of June or the end of July so like a whole other month, it's actually better, like it worked out better. 

Matt Peiken: So you're saying, but this dual model in a sense, so in a sense you're operating in two cities.

Yes, and that has proved to be at least much more sustainable doing it that way than just being Asheville centric. 

Heather Maloy: Yeah, because it, it opens up Our avenues for support. 

Matt Peiken: Yeah, have you thought to tour these productions and do three cities, four cities? 

Heather Malloy: Definitely. We talk about that all the time. What's challenging is that it costs a lot of money to self present. So when you go see a performance, there's one of two things happening. Either the company is presenting itself, which means they're renting the [00:06:00] theater. They're doing all of the marketing themselves. All of the expenses are on them. But then they keep their ticket sales.

So that's self presenting or you're being presented. And typically if you're going to go on tour as opposed to having two residences, you're being presented. Most theaters only present in the fall, winter, spring. They don't present in the summer because there's fewer people who go to the theater in the summer months.

Matt Peiken: And what's funny to me is your rationale when you thought I'm gonna move to Asheville and do this company Is that it's a tourist city and that's when most people who would buy tickets are going to be coming to shows. And you also told me something when we first talked that you learned over time that Asheville these I'm paraphrasing here But pretty close to what you said Has a challenge supporting large scale arts organizations.

And that's something you probably only learned from being here and doing your work. Do you still hold to that? And if that's true, what do you think [00:07:00] Asheville's challenges are when it comes to supporting larger arts organizations? 

Heather Maloy: I wish I could have a good answer for that because I would like to understand it better myself.

I think it's doing better. The art museum raised a ton of money and the symphony seems to be doing really well. And, that's relatively new. I think that the symphony is doing as well as it is. So it is possible. I'm hoping that with having our new managing director on board, that she will start to understand that dynamic a little bit better.

But I think what stands in our way as far as funding goes. What helps us and stands in our way, it's a double edged sword, is that we're a summer only company. If you don't catch that one show a year, I mean it's three performances, but if you don't catch that one series of shows a year, you don't know about us.

So it's a little bit harder to raise money. So the Symphony, for example, has lots of shows. As the year goes by, 

Matt Peiken: They have monthly, there's a monthly program with Asheville symphony, right? 

Heather Maloy: Yeah. [00:08:00] So they're in people's faces all year. They know that it's a big local institution. And for us, bringing in dancers from other companies in the summertime, maybe it doesn't feel as much of a local organization to people because of that.

And it's just harder for us to be known, but I did a thing where I looked at our numbers last year and I want to say that it was 20 percent of our audience are tourists. Which is pretty high. 

Matt Peiken: Is that high? I, okay. That's actually great. That speaks a lot to locals who are loyal to Terpsicorps.

Heather Maloy: Yeah. But so in Winston Salem, it's all locals. 

Matt Peiken: Oh, okay, 

Heather Maloy: it's all gonna be locals in Winston Salem. Here it was somewhere between 20 and 30 percent that were tourists, but a lot of them are repeat tourists, which means that they come to Asheville to see Terpsicorps. 

Matt Peiken: That's great. Are you rehearsing in the same dance studio up in Woodfin that, no, you've bounced around. Tell me about your journey, [00:09:00] just securing rehearsal space. 

Heather Maloy: It's been a journey since day one. When we got here, we literally rehearsed at the Orange Peel. We would lay our dance floor down on top of a sticky beer floor, and we would rehearse until it was time for them to get ready, and then we'd pull our floor up and go.

And then we got a studio in the Wedge Building. After John Payne, who owned the Wedge building, after he passed away, we lost that space. We moved into the River Arts District part the Foundy area. We were the first people to take a chance on the Foundy area. There was nothing there. It was empty, homeless people, and there, there was nothing.

Wasn't even good graffiti yet. It was just bad graffiti. I was a big empty warehouse and myself and two other artists. We split this giant warehouse that's now the the skate park, the indoor skate park. We split that up into three sections and we rented out artist studios. to pay for our rehearsal space, which was a great model, worked really well for [00:10:00] us.

But then the landlord just let it go. And I had no idea that there was anything that was not up to code. And I walked up to teach my class one morning and there was a condemned sign on the building and I was not allowed in after investing a lot of money in the space. 

So that was number two. So that was the second studio I invested money in and got kicked out of. Then we rehearsed in Pack Square for a summer to call attention to the fact that we didn't have rehearsal space. Then I opened a school in part so that we could afford rehearsal space because I was already teaching.

So I was like if I'm going to be teaching anyway, and I love teaching, why don't I just combine these two things that I do and open a school? And we had someone who wanted to run a school cause I didn't want to run a school, but we couldn't afford to pay someone to run a school. So that was very short lived.

So I was running a school and a company and had a two year old. And when COVID happened, I was like, what am I doing? This [00:11:00] is ridiculous. All the school did was pay for the space. It didn't make any money for the company. I hadn't created a full length or done anything that I felt was like stepping outside of my box creatively in all that time.

I was like, I have got, I've got to make some changes. So we searched the country and found this couple who were very well respected in the national dance community to come in and take over the school. And our deal with them was we're giving you a school for free as long as we get to rehearse there for free, always, because that's all I wanted. 

Matt Peiken: So you turned your school and the operations of it over to these people who wanted to run a school? They were already doing the school. 

Heather Maloy: They were running the school at Ballet West. 

Matt Peiken: Oh, wow. Okay in Utah. 

Heather Maloy: In Utah. They had over 800 students And I you know again famous names in the dance world for teaching.

Matt Peiken: Amazing that they wanted to come here to do it though. 

Heather Maloy: [00:12:00] Yeah. 

Matt Peiken: Are they still, so what happened with that arrangement? 

Heather Maloy: They did it for a year and a half, and then they just walked out. 

Matt Peiken: Really? 

Heather Maloy: Just walked out. Literally got a phone call We're gone. And what was awful about that was that I was no longer the owner of any of that, But we had a deal that if they walked away, I got everything back So I got my stuff back, but again, I didn't want to run a school. 

Matt Peiken: And the ill will that creates with students and families. 

Heather Maloy: It was really bad. 

Matt Peiken: Wow. 

Heather Maloy: It was really bad. And so when the school closed, everyone thought Terpsicorps closed. So I had this huge marketing conundrum to try to get past convincing the community because, we were talking about this a little bit earlier.

If you only have a show once a year, it's hard for people to learn the name. So they learned the name of Terpsicorps because it was a school. There were a lot of people in the community who still had no idea that we're a company and thought of us as a school. So when the school went under, they were like, Oh, there's no more Terpsicorps.

So it was this huge effort to try to educate the community on what Terpsicorps [00:13:00] is, was, always has been, is this incredible opportunity for professional dancers who are laid off in the summertime, because that's what happens to ballet dancers, for them to have a place to come and dance and do something artistically stimulating in the summertime.

Matt Peiken: So before we talk about your recruiting of dancers, let's close this chapter on your path of rehearsal spaces. 

Heather Maloy: Yes. The landlord was like, yeah, I'm done with dance studios because they also didn't pay him. So I lost that space. And we had invested almost 100, 000 in that space. Yeah, no, it's so frustrating. 

So after we lost the studio or didn't have the studio anymore now we didn't have a rehearsal space. So last year I started calling every school in town that had a gym. Like you try to just get as creative as possible about what is going to be a space that's big enough with high ceilings and no poles.

[00:14:00] And there actually aren't any dance studios in town that are large enough to rehearse what we do. Cause you need a space that's as large as the stage so that the dancers can dance full out and all the studios in town, either their ceilings are too low or they're not wide enough or there's always just something.

So So we hit a lot of walls and then the Asheville Catholic School stepped up and let us use their space. So we were in the Catholic school gym, which was perfect because we were able to build our two story set in there because it was so big. 

Matt Peiken: This was for last production. 

Heather Maloy: That was for the last production.

Cleopatra. Yes. But they're redoing their gym this summer. So that wasn't going to work. So we had to get creative again. And I wrote all the schools. Most didn't even get back to me. Somebody tried to charge me 10, 000. I was like a fellow nonprofit and you want to charge me 10, 000. I won't say who they were.

And I just started writing event spaces and I was like this [00:15:00] isn't going to get me anywhere cause it's so going to be so expensive. But Harrah's Cherokee center stepped up with their banquet hall, which is huge and it's actually two rooms. 

And we're going to build some extra flooring so that we can have the two studios. And if, it could be a place we go every year if they like having us there because it's ideal. 

Matt Peiken: And they just letting you have it.

Heather Maloy: No, we're renting. Okay. Okay, just to be clear They're giving us a very affordable rate in comparison to what they normally charge. They're being very kind to us in part for a sponsorship, right? 

Matt Peiken: It seems like every year it's just one struggle or another, and I'm just wondering, how did you keep going? And why didn't you just say screw it? I'm in this for the art but I have to fight and struggle so hard for space, for money, for Awareness, marketing, recognition, all these things that have nothing to do with the art. How did you keep at it?

Heather Maloy: I don't, I'm stubborn. I don't know. You could ask my mother or my husband that question , because, isn't the definition of [00:16:00] insanity is to just keep doing the same thing over and over again with no different results. I guess I just, I love what I do. But every year I think, I could stop doing this and do something else.

And then we have the shows and my audience is so loyal and enthusiastic and to have these giant standing ovations and these people hugging you and, Oh my God, we're just so glad you're back. And all of this every year, I'm like, I just can't imagine doing anything else. And whenever I go and create somewhere else on a different company, it's not the same as doing your own thing because you have the total freedom to do whatever you want to do. 

Matt Peiken: Right. Now, you started this company under the premise that, Hey, these dancers, particularly younger ones have nothing to do in the summer. I will go to these great, smaller professional companies and recruit dancers. And that has been the model ever since you started. Have you always found unlike your path in trying to find rehearsal spaces, funders, [00:17:00] sponsors, you name it, have you always been able to find a treasure trove of dancers ready to come and dance for you? 

Heather Maloy: Yes. 

Matt Peiken: Wow. 

Heather Maloy: I've never had a year where I was like, I don't know where my dancers are coming from. 

Matt Peiken: Do you have a pipeline? I know for a couple of years in my time here, you had pipelines with, I think, Ballet Idaho, and then there was a company in Nevada that you were also drawing dancers from.

Heather Maloy: Ballet Austin, Cincinnati Ballet, NAsheville Ballet was a big one for a while. Yeah, It seems to go in waves like that where someone comes from a company and then they go home and they tell everybody, Oh my God, that was so awesome. Then I get a bunch of applications from that company.

And I also tend to choose companies where I feel like that director and I have a similar taste in dancer because my work is very theatrical. And not all dance companies do a lot of theatrical work. 

Matt Peiken: Talk about that. I know in, you have to recruit dancers every summer. I know some dancers you've had for two, three, maybe even longer seasons, which I would think would be [00:18:00] tough.

You'd mentioned you only have two or three new dancers, but you said you have like more applicants than you've ever had to dance with your company.

Heather Maloy: We had more applicants than ever. We had almost a hundred applicants and when I get an application, I take every application seriously. I get their resume and their photos and then I get a video of them, excerpts of their performances. So that meant going through all of those. And I only had one spot available for a woman, and most of those were from women.

So I would write them immediately and just be like, we only have one spot. Just so you know, let me get through all this. And then I narrowed it down to, I probably had 30 people do this where I wrote them and I said, here's some footage of my work for you to learn so that I can see what you look like in my movement.

And that weeds out a lot of people because some people are like I'm just not going to have the time to do that. And I'm like, nobody has the time to do that. So if you're not really going to work hard to get me this footage, then you're not going to [00:19:00] be the person that I'm going to hire. That weeds out a lot of the men. Women can all find time. 

Matt Peiken: That's so funny. Are they all coming from specific companies or do you have a, or did one company have 10 dancers apply, or are they from all over the country or internationally? 

Heather Maloy: And internationally. There's a woman from Japan this year. And she's dancing both here and in Japan right now. And then one of the new men is dancing in a company in Puerto Rico right now, which is the United States, but not yeah. And he also dances for Ballet Idaho. 

Matt Peiken: How did you pick the person who got the one slot? 

Heather Maloy: It's amazing how you will have a top choice based off of the videos that they send, but then sometimes they just don't look as natural in my work as someone else will.

Yeah, the I would not have thought that the woman that I chose would have been the person I was gonna choose. Not that she wasn't beautiful in the work She sent but in comparison to some of the other videos, you know There [00:20:00] were some principal dancers from some pretty big companies that I said no to.

Matt Peiken: But you're also working with new dancers every year. And it's hard, I would think, tell me if I'm wrong in this. When you're just getting them for the summer, you have to build up a language and a way of working with each other that takes time. You don't have a lot of time in your summer rehearsal schedule.

So talk about what goes into preparing a company that might even be half new dancers, if not more so to your way of working and what you're trying to do on stage. 

Heather Maloy: I think that's one of the things that's really wonderful though about ballet is the common language and the sort of common way of working.

And I think Most dancers who are with professional companies are used to working with new choreographers. So you walk in the room ready for new information that maybe you've never seen or heard before. So I don't feel like there's a big challenge in that. Definitely it's easier if I have a few returning dancers, especially a few returning dancers who really love it there because then they get that positive energy.

Every now [00:21:00] and then there will be a dancer who comes in who has like this Guesting attitude and I call the guesting attitude like

Matt Peiken: Primadona? 

Heather Maloy: They just they're used to getting hired to Go do Nutcracker for Joe Schmoe's ballet school and they get paid a lot of money to do it. And so it's like a job so every now and then there's that dancer who walks in who's like They think it's going to be easy, right?

They think, I'm going to do my little two things because I'm the star and I'm going to walk out and they walk in and they're like, Oh, everyone here is a badass. It's not just me. And everyone's in every piece and everybody's killing themselves. And Oh, I'm actually in rehearsal dancing from 9:30 to 6:30, and usually they come around after a few days and sometimes they're a little bit shocked that this is not going to be a walk in the park and they're not going to be partying in downtown Asheville. They're going to be working really hard. But I would say most of those people, most of your lazier dancers, and there aren't a lot [00:22:00] of them, but your lazier dancers aren't going to apply for summer work either because I don't pay that much better than their Unemployment they would be getting 

Matt Peiken: at home. 

So if that's true, what do you think is the allure? Why are they coming and you've never had trouble? If you're not paying much more than they would get for unemployment insurance where they could rest up and, watch Price is or whatever, I don't know. What do you think the allure is then for them?

Heather Maloy: But dancers want to dance. You only have so many years of your life that you can do this, and you want to have as many interesting experiences as you can to broaden your scope as an artist. And I think that what we do is a little bit unique. I call it contemporary ballet dance theater.

Like I have a lot of words that I throw in there, right? Because it is based in ballet technique for sure. It's not modern dance, but it's also not classical ballet. But it is very rooted. Even my rep pieces are very rooted in something that's theatrical. I'm always trying to say something with the work.

And I feel like a lot of [00:23:00] contemporary ballet. doesn't necessarily do that. That's starting to change, but historically contemporary ballet has been more like a Balanchine sort of abstract work. And I think that dancers are hungry to take a more contemporary ballet style and incorporate the same kind of things they would be using when they do a classical ballet.

You know that they're acting talents and yeah, so natural talents 

Matt Peiken: So you're talking about three things that are in your mind when you're creating new work. One is the foundation of ballet. The other is a theatricality and then something you want to say with your work. You're not just performing steps and moves. So talk about this new work that we're going to be seeing and the genesis of that and how you threaded those three Sort of priorities for you into this new work 

Heather Maloy: So the new work is called Before The Scream and I started thinking that I wanted to do something, that I was going to [00:24:00] do a series of vignettes inspired by what could the moments be before these famous works of art, so I was, and I was looking at lots of different works of art and trying to imagine like what would the moment have been that Happened right before this iconic 

Matt Peiken: image.

Yeah. So Edward Munch's The Scream is just the hook. It's not the sole piece of art. No, it is. Oh, it is the sole piece. 

Heather Maloy: So I was going to say that morphed. So when I chose The Scream as one of them, I started looking at, I can't imagine just choosing one thing that came before this picture, because it could be absolutely anything. And I know that there was a specific thing that actually happened for him that inspired that, but I think one of the beautiful things about any kind of art is that it's up to the interpretation of the viewer. So when you go into a museum and you see a piece of work on the wall, if you don't read anything about it, it means whatever it means to you.

And if that is touching or beautiful to you, then it's almost like it's your own personal work. It's your imagination. And when I talk to people about The Scream and I ask them ideas of what they think would lead up to that moment, everyone has something totally different to say. And a lot of it is really funny.

I didn't want it to just be all darkness and sadness and horror. Obviously, there will be elements of that in there, but the idea is that each one of these vignettes explores a different idea. Like whether that be, you eat ice cream too fast and you get brain freeze, or whether that be your child dies.

Like it runs the gamut of all those layers and there are projections as well that go with it. So if it works, which you know, you never know until you get into the theater, but the thought right now is that the scrim which is a see through surface is on the front of the stage and the projections are being projected onto the scrim and for each vignette, The painting is coming to life in a different way and it always settles onto the final image.

So whether it look like it's being painted or it's swirling or it's dripping into view, it'll be something that ties in with whatever that theme is, so that they always end with the image of The Scream. 

Matt Peiken: How are you interweaving movement, physical movement with those projections? Because I would think the projections that you're talking, these are big. It could overwhelm the audience in terms of, Oh, I'm focusing on that and not the dance. How are you juxtaposing those visual?

Heather Maloy: There will be a lot of light on the dancer behind it. And the dancers costumes are also Inspired by the painting too, so that they mix in, but it'll be moving slowly. I think that you will see it, but because of the way that the dancers are going to be lit behind it, I just think that it's all going to be one picture. 

Matt Peiken: Now you're talking about vignettes and the pieces, the bigger original productions I've seen from you, they're more story driven. Is there an underlying story that you've conceived for this and are there characters? 

Heather Maloy: Each vignette will have its own storyline and its own characters. 

Matt Peiken: So The model we talked about, you've got shows in winston salem, performances here in Asheville. Do you have an evolution that you're shooting toward? 

Heather Maloy: I would like to have touring every summer. And that's one of the things that we're exploring and trying to figure out. I've never had the time to try to figure that out. But to try to find places that would be willing to bring us in just because to self present in yet another city means visiting that city and fundraising in that city, and it's just, it's not possible for two people to do that for more than two cities.

It doesn't make any sense. So we would have to be presented. They would have to pay us to come. 

Matt Peiken: Yeah, and is that harder now in this era? Are there fewer theaters and performing arts houses that are presenting artists at your [00:28:00] level? 

Heather Maloy: There's just never been many in the summer. Right now we're in talks with Serenbe, outside of Atlanta.

If you ever heard of them, you should look them up. It's a really interesting place. They are a private community. I would say like a gated community. That is, Everyone is there because they love the arts. 

Matt Peiken: What? 

Heather Maloy: Yeah, no, it's 

Matt Peiken: very cool. It's not just seniors. Like it's not a senior living situation.

Heather Maloy: No. It's very beautiful. It's very hot, because it's outside of Atlanta, but all the architecture is really cool. They don't have a theater, I mean they have like a small outdoor theater kind of thing, but what they do is they build a stage for your show.

Matt Peiken: Oh my gosh. Every show that they bring in, they build a stage. 

Heather Maloy: So I had this amazing idea and I'm really excited about it. And I have written every grant known to man to try to make this happen. Not for this year, but it would be for the summer of 2025, an all [00:29:00] male production of Lord of the Flies, with original music, utilizing young men from the community to be a part of the score. So it would be a percussion score. And we would audition, Throughout the communities of both here and in Serenbe and in Winston Salem to bring these young boys on board to add that young savage energy.

And they would stomp and chant and run and be a part of it. So Serenbe is pretty excited about that and it would be outside.

Matt Peiken: Would this be a one off in the sense of you're just looking to do this sort of production of Lord of the Flies, or are you going to try to make Serenbe an annual part of your circuit along with Winston Salem and Asheville?

Heather Maloy: I would love that. I don't know how realistic that is for them. I don't know how much, how diverse they want their programming to be. They wanted to bring Cleopatra [00:30:00] in when we did Cleopatra last year, and I was like, That was a great production. Thank you. I was like, but there's no way that I can bring a two story set and projections to an outdoor.

 I was like, no, this is hard enough for me to do. Don't make me try to figure that out. But I think Lord of the Flies would be perfect. And we've actually started talking about potentially doing some outdoor touring, which would be very cool. 

Matt Peiken: I know you talked about, there were some out, you did outdoor performances once we were in the pandemic and your first performances during the pandemic were outdoors.

Are you looking to try to bring outdoor performances back into what you're doing as a more programmatical choice rather than something you have to do just because of Covid? 

Heather Maloy: It's really awful for dancers. I Lord of the Flies would be different. We would purposely want to make it like at night when we did our Show during COVID because of where we did it, like doing it at night after the sun went down would be dangerous for people walking. We didn't want anyone to sprain their ankle. There was just a lot of things that went [00:31:00] into it, but the dancers had blisters, like big blisters all over their feet through their ballet shoes.

Wow. The Marley floor reflects the sun and it just heats up. It's burning. It's like their shoes melted. There was a, someone's like the soles of their shoes fell off. It's not good for dancers to be outside. It's just not. And there's plenty of companies that do that and do site specific work and I really admire them.

But if you have a repertoire of work, that's ballet work, and you have ballet dancers who are used to sprung floors and beautiful buildings and all the things, they're not going to come back. The year that we did the outdoor rehearsing, like none of those dancers came back. 

Matt Peiken: Oh, they didn't? 

Heather Maloy: No, that was not, they were like, this is horrible. It was really bad. I'd never duplicate that ever.