The Catamounts, NFP

A nonprofit organization

$24,355 raised by 93 donors

100% complete

$20,000 Goal

Join The Cats as we wield adventurous theatre to make a more imaginative community. At regional premiere productions of boundary-pushing plays, our singular FEED events, and in empowering educational programs, we're using theatre to increase our connection to one another and celebrate being alive.



Mission

The Catamounts create audacious contemporary theatre, empowering arts education programs, and singular community events. A not-for-profit organization, we believe in the necessity of new work, the power of collaborative creation, the constant innovation of artistic forms, and in the role performance plays in enriching and inspiring our communities and our lives.

Background Statement

The Catamounts were founded in 2011 by Amanda and Ben Berg Wilson in order to bring to Colorado the adventurous, multi-disciplinary aesthetic and arts education methodology they had developed with success over a decade working in Chicago. In the company’s inaugural year, company member Lauren Shepard added a third program in which "farm-style" dinners are accompanied by performances. Known as FEED, this singular program established itself alongside regional premiere productions of bold new plays and education programs in which Catamount professionals lead young artists in creating and performing their own work.

In 2017, The Catamounts expanded to producing immersive works such as 2017’s nine-time Henry-nominated Beowulf: A Thousand Years of Baggage and 2018’s Rausch, Henry-nominated for Best New Play and winner of a 2018 True West award.

At the onset of the pandemic, The Catamounts turned to their mission which states they are “dedicated to the reinvention of artistic forms,” and continued to hone their site-specific, immersive identity in COVID-safe productions such as 2020’s The Rough, a piece staged on a golf course which audiences experienced socially distanced in golf carts, and the 2021 True West award-winning Land of Milk and Honey, a living history of Shoenberg Farm. This evolution has also included developing more world-premiere work by Colorado playwrights: 2021’s One Way-Back Day, an original adaptation of Black American folklore created by a BIPOC team of writers; 2023’s FEED: Après and FEED: Plant, whose short works are by a diverse team of Colorado authors; and Pride of the Farm, an immersive exploration of social and environmental justice on the historic Metzger Farm by Colorado playwright Jeffrey Neuman. The company's 2023-24 season will be entirely authored by Colorado playwrights.

The company’s professional work now focuses on world-premiere works by Colorado authors staged immersively and/or site-specifically, and educational programs on developing original work with young artists.

The Catamounts enter their second decade as a premiere innovator of performance in the state, having produced 29 regional or world-premiere, boundary-pushing productions, 27 FEED events, and serving annually in educational residencies at local elementary schools and summer camps.

Organization Data

Summary

Organization name

The Catamounts, NFP

Year Established

2011

Tax id (EIN)

27-4435878

Category

Arts, Culture & Humanities

Organization Size

Small Organization

Address

3550 Frontier Avenue, Ste A2
Boulder, CO 80301

Mailing

3550 Frontier Avenue Ste A2
Boulder, CO 80301

Service areas

Boulder County, CO, US

Phone

720-468-0487

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