GroundLinks

GroundLinks: HISTORY

GroundLinks was born of a common desire to create opportunity for a core group of dedicated actors that have roots in New York’s prestigious American Academy of Dramatic Arts, the oldest acting conservatory in the English-speaking world. The intensive and holistic training at the Academy and the bonds that resulted between the actors and their teachers led Jonathan Vaughn & Amanda White to entertain the idea of a professional, modern Shakespearean company, as envisioned by Sir Peter Hall in his 1999 essay, The Necessary Theatre.

Seminal in the evolution of the idea for a company was a visit by Jonathan Vaughn & Amanda White to Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London, England, and the introduction to the groundbreaking endeavors of the American actor Sam Wanamaker and the reconstruction of the Globe Theatre, Shakespeare’s own playhouse. Finally, the dearth of inexpensive and quality productions, the absence of entry-level opportunities, and the near-extinct presence of professional Shakespearean companies led the Initial Directors to seek out opportunities that they could create for themselves and their peers.

Thus, GroundLinks, Inc., was incorporated in towards this aim. An immediate goal became a long-term theatrical home, with the aim of securing public funding towards the achievement of the company's artistic endeavors. Thus, GroundLinks intends to begin production in 2008 with a unique alternating repertory of Shakespearean and new works.

GroundLinks: MISSION STATEMENT

Rejecting isolation and prejudice, GroundLinks seeks to be a community of storytellers, in every available medium, which is inclusive of new voices and engages dialogue across boundaries, perpetually involved in a grand conversation of transcendental themes regarding human nature and existence. We intend to honor traditions of the past and to ground ourselves in an ever-evolving awareness of the world around us, each other, and ourselves. Particularly we pay homage to the masterwork of Shakespeare, who has provided us with the most rich and complete exploration of humanity in the English language and whom we establish as the foundation of our dramatic canon. We seek to educate our fellow humanity on the relevance of his work and to promote the idea that conversation can continue through the forum of the arts. We promise to create an environment that is a refuge for honest work and to provide for our public the commitment of the highest production experience.

GroundLinks: THE NAME

GroundLinks is, of course, a play on words. The "groundlings" (with a 'g') were the audience members in Shakespeare's day who stood for hours in the pit of the Globe Theatre to watch the works we love today (and so many more). They were the everyman, the common woman and man of London in the 16th and 17th centuries. We seek to bring Shakespeare back to the groundlings of today: hence our homage to them.

GroundLinks is both a reference to our audience and a mantra of our beliefs in the art of storytelling. "Ground" is a reference to the Globe itself — a sort of spiritual home for us as actors and storytellers. We seek to be grounded as actors in our work. We seek to be rooted in the earth. We seek to reach for the stars. And, most importantly, we seek to use our rootedness to link ourselves to our pasts and to our future, for ourselves and for our audience, the world-at-large. We seek to link ourselves to the masterwork of the Bard and to the audiences of today, most of whom have never had exposure to Shakespeare's works in performance. This is who we are.