Companies

The Sublime Theater & Press was founded in 2018 by Steven Samuels and John Crutchfield as an itinerant and flexible collective, based in Asheville, North Carolina, and devoted to the creation, production and publication of new plays, as well as to the re-discovery of neglected works of the past and to the re-imagining of celebrated classics. After a long hiatus due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the company reemerged in 2022 with the world premiere of John Crutchfield’s Robert Returns, a long-awaited sequel to the play that inaugurated the artistic collaboration between Crutchfield and Samuels in 2008: The Songs of Robert. Both works are one-man-shows, composed in verse, with original songs, written and performed by Crutchfield and directed by Samuels. Click here for information on current productions.

MAUS Theater (formerly My Favorite Leg Theatrical Company, formerly Jynormous Theatre Company, formerly...etc.) is a performance group currently based in Berlin, Germany. The company was founded in 2004 by writer and theater artist John Crutchfield with the aim of bringing together multi-talented artists for the creation and promotion of new, interdisciplinary performance. MAUS Theater's aesthetic focus is on the fusion of high-energy poetic language with dynamic choreography, arresting visual imagery, and unconventional sound design. Company members change from project to project, and have included Derek Gagnier, Lara Marshall, Andrea Koch, Julia Horn, Emily Daughtridge, Alex Smith, Joe Sturgeon, Anne-Marie Welty, Julie Gillum, Julian Vorus, Claire Elizabeth Barratt, Laura Tratnik, Erik Moellering and Niels Bohrmann. See the home page of this website for current projects.

The Magnetic Theatre was founded in 2009 in Asheville, North Carolina, by Artistic Director Steve Samuels, Producer Chall Gray, and Playwrights-in-Residence John Crutchfield and Lucia del Vecchio with the mission of producing world premiers of new dramatic works. The company's first production was Crutchfield's award-winning presentation of his one-man show, The Songs of Robert, at the 2009 New York International Fringe Festival. Beyond the core members, the company includes a pool of local actors, writers, directors and technicians who share the company's core values. Since its founding, the company produced seven full-length Crutchfield plays (The Songs of Robert, Ruth, The Labyrinth, Solstice, Landscape With Missing Person, The Strange and Tragical Adventures of Pinocchio and The Jacob Higginbotham Show) as well as two shorter works (Interstice/Larkspur and Portrait). The company has also premiered full-length works by Steve Samuels, Lucia del Vecchio, David Eshelman, Julian Vorus, and Jim Julien. in 2018, John Crutchfield and Steven Samuels left the company to form The Sublime Theater and Press (see above). The Magnetic Theater continues under different leadership and with a different mission. See www.themagnetictheatre.org for more information.

Blue Shift Theatre Ensemble was a group of artists committed to the production of new plays and to expanding the forms of theater through interdisciplinary collaboration. Along with these artistic aims, Blue Shift was founded with the social purpose of making professional theater available at low cost to schools and communities. The company began in 1994 as a collaboration between actor Eric Johnson and writer John Crutchfield. Their first project was Brother John, a full-length one-man show about John Keats, written by Crutchfield, performed by Johnson, and directed by Sarah Miller. Keith Rokoske was technical director. The company went on to produce ur-versions of Crutchfield’s verse plays The Songs of Robert and Ruth, as well as the physical comedy SPORT, and The Fatherhood Project. Other members included designer Chris Todd, actors Brandon Roberts and Chris Chalk, manager Tamara Hubbard, and cinematographer Adam Larsen.