History of Wild Hare Productions

Bess Park
Bess Park

This story is really sweet! I was driving home one day from a yoga retreat in Asheville, NC, and was in the slow- poke lane pondering my love of the performing arts and trying to envision what the next steps might be for my arts administration and performance career. OK, I admit, I was a tad depressed; fearful that I was not being authentic to my real dreams and my artistic calling when I was passed by a beat-up, dirty, old jeep. Inside was a family that was so happy. It appeared as though they might be coming home from a hiking trip.
Wild-Hare-Box-Logo

They were singing together, laughing, and absolutely filled with incredible love for life and each other. A big smile came over my face and as I glanced over to give them a thumbs up, I saw in their back window four little bunny stickers that were clearly mom, dad, and the two kids. Underneath were the words, “we just had a wild hare!” It took maybe one second and I said out loud to no one in particular, “THAT’S IT! That is the name of my company!” That family was filled with love and joy and everything that makes life worth living. That is what theatre, dance, and music do for me; they bring me incredible joy and express my love of and for life.

At that moment I recognized that the tenderness that I feel when creating a new work or interpreting an established work was at the heart of everything I had committed my life learning to be about. What I had lost was a little bit of my joy and passion. I had to reclaim this and from there Wild Hare Productions was born. Wild Hare came into being to re-establish the joy and passion back into art; into work that I adore sharing with and developing in others. Theatre, dance, art, music, film, and performance are such powerful and wonderful modalities by which we come into relationship with each other. They remind us about what is important in life! As a society we need to love, laugh, cry, weep, and rejoice together. This is the stuff that Wild Hare’s dreams are made on!

It occurred to me that I needed to find the perfect inaugural piece of theatre. I got home and immediately contacted friends and associates. Eventually, I decided to reach out to my amazing women friends and restage the wonderful play that I had produced some 7 years earlier entitled, Women on Fire, by Irene O’Garden. I approached my friend and colleague Debbie Harvley at Matworks Yoga Studio and she agreed to let us have our first performance there. Melissa Bane, Mary Lynn Polk, Fran McClain, Patricia deVroomen, Mariska Young, Jill Lawrence, Monique Sacay-Bagwell, Laura Walenceus, Lee Wyndam, Louise Robinson, Joyce Nickles and I made up this extraordinary cast. We sold out every night and Wild Hare was born!!!!

Since then, Wild Hare has continued to create work “hopping” all over Greenwood. Here is our history:

  • Women on Fire, January, 2014, Matworks-
  • Laundry and Bourbon and Lone Star, April, 2014, Matworks
  • A Midsummer Night’s Dream, with Youth Shakespeare Company, July, 2014, Matworks
  • Sorrow’s End, August, 2014, Matworks
  • Laundry and Bourbon and Lone Star revival, October, 2014, Greenwood Veteran’s Center
  • Macbeth, October, 2014, Greenwood County Library
  • The Learned Ladies, February, 2015, Greenwood County Library
  • Quilters, February, 2015, First Presbyterian Church
  • Much Ado About Nothing, July, 2015, Greenwood County Library
  • The Complete Works of Shakespeare, Abridged, October 2015, Greenwood Community Theatre
  • Lone Star (3rd Revival) November, 2015, SC Theatre Association, Centrestage, Greenville, SC
  • Lone Star (4th Revival) March, 2016, Southeaster Theatre Conference, Greensboro, NC. We won outstanding play in the southeast (7 state) region as well as many other awards!
  • I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change, in collaboration with Greenwood Community Theatre, May, 2016, at GCT.
  • Taming of the Shrew, June, 2016 at Wyatt Farms, Greenwood’s Shakespeare in the Park.
  • The Tempest, Nov, 2016 at Wyatt Farms, Greenwood’s Shakespeare in the Park.

Awards

  • Wild Hare wins State American Association of Community Theatres Competition!
  • Wild Hare performs in Greensboro, NC at the Southeastern Theatre Conference in March of 2016 and wins Best Play for the 10 state region, Best Director, Best Set Design and Best Ensemble.  Wally and Chris both took home outstanding actor recognitions!

Mission

Wild Hare Productions, Inc., is a non-profit 501 3 (c) charitable organization. Wild Hare is a company committed to producing and presenting innovative theatre/dance performance and training. Please ask how you can help support us with a tax deductible donation!

Associations