Caroline Reck. Baltimore, 2009. Photo by Julia M. Smith
The Orchid Flotilla
Nominated for B. Iden Payne Awards for Outstanding Original Script, Production of a Drama, Lead Actress, Sound Design, Original Score, Scenic Design, Puppetry, and Critic’s Table Awards for Outstanding Theatrical Event and Lead Actress.
The Orchid Flotilla is a tiny floating island of refuse, upon which a solitary woman scrounges for survival in a not-so-distant future. The orchids she tends become a metaphor for her own capacity for resilience and adaptation. Lurking below the water and eventually joining her on the craft are other characters in both human and object form. A visual theatre performance about the human capacity to overcome ecological disaster. Sophisticated contexts. Not for young children.
Written & Directed by Caroline Reck
Featuring Caroline Reck and Gricelda Silva
Original Composition by Adam Sultan, Sound Design by K. Eliot Haynes, Lights by Megan Reilly, Scenic by Caroline Reck and Connor Hopkins, Shadow Puppetry by Erin Meyer, Voical Performance by Chris Gibson.
“A bare foot was all it was, and yet . . . that foot acquired sentience . . . Which, of course, made the illusion of intelligence, of a separate aliveness, all the more wondrous and wondrously comical. And in that moment, any doubts that Caroline Reck, the owner of both foot and leg, was destined to make theatre, were permanently dismissed. ” –Austin Chronicle
“It is best that you just experience it, like the works of Beckett… which the piece very much reminds me of. Allow yourself to be immersed in the evening and I guarantee you days and nights of discussion over what you have experienced to follow… and you won’t miss dialogue at all. “-Broadway World
“It’s a rare gift to be able to tell a story without using words. And it’s even less common for us to get to witness such beauty on Austin stages.” –Austin360
Caroline Reck, crouched in a shopping cart, alone and adrift on unknown seas, proved how much can be done with little. Her grace, her wistfulness, her silence, her sense of play, left both a joyful ache and an admiration for her artistry in my heart. –TopTen2014Chronicle
Performances: Salvage Vanguard Theatre — Austin Texas (2012 & 2014)
International Association for Environmental Philosophy: Geo-Aesthetics in the Anthropocene — Salisbury University, Maryland (2010)
Dreyer Theatre — Towson University, Maryland (2009)
International Association for the Environment, Space, and Place conference (2009)