In many if not all the moves made by Double Edge Theatre, the land is a central character. The artist-run theatre in Ashfield, Mass.—co-founded in 1982 as a feminist ensemble collective by Stacy Klein, among others—is committed to “art, living culture, and art justice” through theatremaking, land stewardship, sustainability efforts, community partnerships, and convenings. Those aren’t just words: They are grounded, literally, in the place where Double Edge lives and works.
“The farm is set in a rural area within 105 acres of land,” said Melina Dabova, a company member. “Ensemble members don’t just live and perform there—there’s a real striving to collaborate with the land.”
What that looks like varies depending on the project (their newest, Leonora, la maga y la maestra, is now showing through Nov. 13). The theatre, best known for its roving, sold-out avant-garde summer spectacles (featured in Annie Baker’s debut feature film Janet Planet) considers land logistics whenever they envision and plan their outdoor productions or the work of visiting artists.
That means that the grounds and what’s happening to and on them (including the effects of climate change) dictate what they can stage, and also inform strategic efforts. Theatrical processions like the summer spectacle, immersion into on-site bodies of water (last spring’s The Hidden Territories of the Bacchae), and the climbing of structures in trees are some of the ways the outdoors are used in productions. Careful planning and respect for what the land can handle is the top priority. Weather, accessibility for showgoers, and the animals that dwell at Double Edge’s farm center are also part of the process.
Dabova and Travis Coe, whose April show Suga explored the Afro-Caribbean/Latinx history of his family and their native lands (Belize, Nicaragua, and Puerto Rico), talked about how the presence of a family of beavers has changed their interactions with the stream on-site. Coe pointed out that the stream is now more of a pond, which, Dabova noted, “affected how we think of the order of performance and the path of the show” for the summer spectacle.
That kind of nimbleness hopefully allows Double Edge’s work to feel immersive and impactful.
“We respond to the environment,” said Cariel Klein, artist, ensemble member, and daughter of Stacy Klein and Carlos Uriona, lead actor and creator at the theatre.
For the The Heron’s Flight, staged in August (and set to return in summer 2025), showtimes had to be adjusted as sunsets grew earlier “so that we can still get the right light,” said Cariel. “It’s a new performance which travels through the farm, like most of our work.”
The Heron’s Flight focuses on a heron that lives on the grounds. Coe and director Jennifer Johnson worked on the production, which explores landmark figures, animals, and mythical creatures.
The theatre’s farm center anchors other efforts too. Last year’s Art & Survival Festival, curated by Ebony Noelle Golden—company partner, artist, and founder of Betty’s Daughter Artist Collaborative and Jupiter Performance Studio, as well as of a forthcoming eco-womanism institute—evinced the company’s commitment to land-centered living culture and art justice. The festival was a multi-day convening centering the voices, stories, and work of people of color, focusing on their connections to the land, stewardship, world-building, climate change, food, and more. Said Golden, “The idea is to have us thinking about and reflecting on our relationship to land and to water and to each other.”
Golden tapped folks for the festival who were “doing work at the intersection of art culture, community, and climate or environmental justice,” she explained. The festival included a resonant “Earth Altars” experience from Viktor le. Givens, a riveting “Invisible Rivers” from Mondo Bizarro, Golden’s Jupiter Performance Studio’s impactful Quickening: Ceremonies from in the Name of the M/other Tree, and Double Edge’s beautiful, eerie offering The Hidden Territories of the Bacchae. Mississippi Center for Cultural Production founders Carlton and Brandi Turner led a “Farm to Freedom” discussion, Golden facilitated a “Conjure a World: Community Strategy Session” with Art and Survival Fellows, and there was a visit from the 12-foot puppet Little Amal.
This kind of convening is fully aligned with the Double Edge ethos. Since then, Golden has been in a research and deep listening phase to hear what shape her eco-womanism institute might take, she said. Until its tentative launch in 2027, Golden and Double Edge will host a series of events leading up to it. Partnering with Golden for this forthcoming institute, will be “one of the next emanations of this work,” said Stacy. “One of the things that’s most important to me about this…is the Black and Indigenous solidarity that was able to come forth out of this last festival and convening, which was something that we, in partnership with Ohketeau and Jupiter Performance Studio, have been working on for several years.”
In addition to Double Edge’s performances and the soon-to-come institute (more of a practice- than a space-based thing, Golden noted), there’s another kind of growth happening, from the vegetables that feed the ensemble to the harnessing of solar power and planting trees to replenish the landscape, as well as the company’s work with the Indigenous Nipmuc community to help build the Ohketeau Cultural Center, according to its website “the only-Native founded and run cultural center in all of Central and Western Massachusetts.” The center focuses on “uplifting the voices of Native peoples and dismantling unjust frameworks, replacing them with accessibility, equity, dignity, and wellness for our Native communities.”
“We’re partners in every sense,” Cariel said. “We land-share with them. We are their fiscal sponsor, but they’re an autonomous organization.” Cariel and the ensemble always seek to further the theatre’s work, talking of a partnership with Ohketeau and the Conway School Graduate Program in Sustainable Landscape Planning & Design to do a replanting of indigenous plants in a ceremony.
“It’s all extra-theatrical,” she said, but “that’s what Double Edge is. We are not just the theatre.” Indeed, Double Edge functions, as much as is possible, as a self-sustaining hub that contributes to, engages with, and amplifies the work of partners and surrounding communities, with a clear dedication to, even a reverence for, the land.
Everything the company does, programming or otherwise, Cariel said, “is infused with reparations work, our justice work, land work, it’s all intertwined. We don’t have one without the other.”
