Long Live Dead Canary, St. Pete’s New Theatre Company

Around the turn of the 20th century, miners began using canaries to warn them of toxic gas buildup in the mines. Canaries, and birds in general, take in oxygen on both the inhale and the exhale – so if there is poison in the air, they are getting a double-dose of it with every breath. This susceptibility to unseen but imminent death made canaries in the coal mines a ubiquitous industry practice that lasted nearly 100 years. So ubiquitous, in fact, canary in the coal mine” remains a common English-language idiom for an early warning of danger. Depending on the severity of the situation, a canary might stop singing or fall unconscious… but a dead canary? Time’s up. Pay attention.  

That’s the ethos behind St. Petersburg’s newest theater company, Dead Canary Theatre Company. “What I was dreaming of was plays that were smaller and had a little more of a niche audience or a niche story,” says co-founder and Artistic Director Stephen Riordan. “There’s an urgent message to these plays that I am drawn to when I go see theater.”  

Dead Canary Theatre Company intends to “be a catalyst for important conversations, a safe space for challenging topics, and always a place to be entertained and find joy,” according to its website. Their efficacy will be inextricably linked to the shows they pick, and the team is clear on the criteria. “At its core: it’s gotta be good, it’s gotta be quality, and it’s gotta be worth seeing, worth spending the money for,” co-founder Travis Moore believes, adding, “but we also know there’re a lot of stories out there that are not being told from marginalized voices.”     

If you think this is a bold time to form a new theater company, you’d be right. And the DCTC team, Riordan and Moore alongside third co-founder Rand Smith, is up to the task. They each have decades of wide-ranging experience: all three have been actors and directors, producers and board members. They have connections in the entertainment, finance, and policy sectors, and the response to their new venture has been universally encouraging. “It’s a hard thing to start a theater company,” admits Riordan, “but I’m not getting anything but love.” 

Additionally, they have a well-defined “why” rooted in six core values: curiosity, creativity, empathy, equality, entertainment, and wit. But the key may be support from an invaluable partner: Erica Sutherlin, who welcomed the trio to establish Dead Canary as the resident theater company at Studio@620.   

“I’ve always loved Erica and her work,” Riordan says, “so I started talking to her about what we wanted to do as a theatre company and I just sort of said, like, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool to have a resident theater company at the studio?’ – thinking: let’s put the seed in her brain – and her answer was, ‘Yes, let’s do that.’ And that gave us enough petrol to fuel this car.”

Their inaugural production, Venus in Fur, took place in May at Studio@620 with Riordan directing. Moore starred in the two-hander alongside St. Pete native and Broadway star Rachel Prather. It was a smart first choice, artistically and practically. Two actors, crackling dialogue, one set, modern day, and a very meta locale: a studio where an audition for a play is taking place.

Rehearsals for Venus in Fur took place in the Studio@620 upstairs loft and were refreshingly modest. The two actors put in the work without pretention, which translated to the stage. The trust, the exploration, and the commitment established in the rehearsal room resulted in a riveting, balanced, deeply provocative, and hilariously funny production. Audiences were treated to a world-class theater offering in a hyper-local setting with this formidable DCTC debut.  

Written by David Ives, Venus in Fur opened on Broadway in 2011 and has been a regional theater staple ever since. As the play begins, we meet playwright Thomas Novachek at the end of a long and fruitless day auditioning women for his adaptation of Leopold von Sacher-Masoch’s erotic novella. In bursts Vanda, an enigmatic actress with a stunning acumen for the text, and what follows is a richly symbolic exploration on gender-based power dynamics.  

“What I want to talk about this season is power,” says Riordan. “The shifting of power, and why power is often the thing that divides us as much as it unites us.” The inaugural season will consist of two shows, with the second coming this fall, title to be announced. Whatever the second show, the second season, and beyond, Dead Canary Theatre Company is poised to be a vital conduit for artistry and ideas in the community, just as their name implies.    

Before they are omens in death, in life, canaries sing. They sing to communicate and to express joy, even when they are caged. These songbirds are symbols of fearlessness, happiness, and hope. Dead Canary Theatre Company may be evoking one canary idiom, but in practice, they are invoking the other. St. Pete’s newest theatre company is ready to “sing like a canary,” or in other words, to speak the truth.   

Learn more about Dead Canary Theatre Company at deadcanary.org.