WE WILL NOT DESCRIBE THE CONVERSATION
BY EUGENIE CARABATSOS

FEBRUARY 2024

Inspired by a missing scene in Crime and Punishment, We Will Not Describe the Conversation follows a massage therapist whose latest client has come with the news that her estranged brother has committed a heinous crime and is nowhere to be found. While trying to piece together how this happened, Dani and Sonya come to terms with their pasts, their fears, and their own dark desires.

Featuring Lainey Martin, Margaret Brophy, and Sheridan Singer.

Show program


GILGAMESH
TRANSLATED BY H. MASON

OCTOBER 2023

The Epic of Gilgamesh is the oldest-known piece of literature, and Counterweight breathes new life into it with a handful of actors and a jaw-dropping translation from poet Herbert Mason. In this tale, King Gilgamesh discovers joy and loss which send him on a journey outside of the world itself to find the answer to the ultimate question: why do we die?

With characteristic fearlessness and creativity, these storytellers share Gilgamesh's incredible impact with modern audiences, unearthing the forever-relevant joys, fears, and questions that pull us through millennia to connect us with everyone who came before.

Performed in collaboration with True North Art Gallery.

Featuring Lisa Siebert, Stephen Alan Carver, Rain Gray, and Andrew Ziegler.

Show program


THE NIGHT OCEAN
by A. Rhodes and G. COGSWELL

JANUARY 2023

After his mother’s death, a man returns to the community where he grew up to execute her estate. While reconnecting with old friends, learning more about his father’s bizarre religious beliefs, and wrestling with his complicated feelings about coming home, he discovers a web of disappearances and murders that hint at a secret that could destroy more than one isolated seaside town. Much more.

Featuring Andrew Ziegler, Lainey Martin, Stephen Alan Carver, Danielle Sanchez, Christopher Dong, Chelsea Mitchell, Ethan Everhart, Joanne Koehler, Allyson Hackworth, Jeremiah Walter, Merry Dankanich, and Soren Narnia.

Show program


A COLLECTION OF THINGS WE FORGOT TO SAY
BY MAGGIE GOSCINSKI

FEBRUARY 2022

Presented in collaboration with Springs Ensemble Theatre.

A Collection of Things We Forgot to Say is a short play where four pairs of people at different points in their relationships explore the unspoken desires, tensions, and memories between them. Thoughtful, heartbreaking, and heartwarming, A Collection is a look into a few of the complicated and powerful ways that humans share love with each other.

A Collection is paired with SET’s production of Robert R. Lehan’s Lovesong, a dark comedy about memory and marriage.

Featuring Rain Grey, Sabrina Mendoza, Jacob Hacker, Andrew Ziegler, E. Amber Singleton, Lisa Siebert, Allyson Hackworth, and Lainey Martin.


BRIDE, GROOM, SUNDAY, FOREVER
BY SOREN NARNIA
ADAPTED BY E. EVERHART

JULY - AUGUST 2021

Presented in collaboration with the Smokebrush Foundation for the Arts at SunMountain Center in Manitou Springs.

You are invited to the wedding of Muriel and Stanley, a couple that has decided that instead of anything traditional, they will have a ceremony of speeches, honest and often hilarious confessions from their friends revealing the couple's secrets and fears, and play-acted depictions of key points in their relationship. In presenting themselves to us as honestly as they can before confronting married life together, Muriel and Stanley hope simply to emerge at the end of the ceremony cleansed enough and determined enough to face the uncertain but boundless future.

Featuring Joanne Koehler, Andrew Ziegler, Tim Riley, Dylan Mosley, Allyson Hackworth, Ethan Everhart, Barbara Summerville, Melissa Emig, Richard Sebastian-Coleman, and Jeremiah Walter.

Soren’s podcasts, Knifepoint Horror and Those Snowy Nights You Read to Me, They’ll Never Be Forgotten

Show program


DREAM BY DAY
BY SOREN NARNIA & A. RHODES

APRIL 2021

An adaptation of three works by storyteller Soren Narnia, audiences walk through downtown Colorado Springs with someone they hardly know who shares a life story: a young woman with a difficult past, an intense local with a chilling urban legend, and a professional courier with endless humor about his situation. They share stories of loneliness and hope, trying to connect with another human being. Dream By Day is kinetic, intimate, and interactive; each audience member is not only part of the scene but also inhabits the space along with each actor.

Featuring Shelby Evanoika, Joanne Koehler, and Ethan Everhart.

Show program


KING LEAR
BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

MARCH 2020

A king rejects those who care about him, unleashes a storm of ambition and treachery, and descends into madness. This production continues the style of Shakespeare that Counterweight started developing with Julius Caesar and continued with Macbeth: a handful of actors trade roles at the drop of a hat and retell a classic story in a way that’s powerfully intimate, unexpectedly tender, and newly relevant.

Featuring E. Amber Singleton, Roxanne Rankin, Madalyn Rilling, Joe O’Rear, and Ethan Everhart.


THE TEMPEST
BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

AUGUST 2019

Prospero lives in exile on a remote island after being stripped of a royal title by his traitorous brother. The island's only other inhabitants are his daughter Miranda, the island's native spirits, and the magic books that he uses to lure his enemies to the island to exact revenge. The plot could destroy Miranda's chance at happiness, though, so Prospero is forced to choose between revenge and Miranda's future. Counterweight brings this story to a new level by turning it into a lively yet intimate multimedia experience with live music, puppetry, and special effects, all while finding the human core at the heart of Shakespeare's words.

Featuring Madalyn Rilling, Shelby Evanoika, Joseph Hurford-Reynolds, Jamie Foster, Roxanne Rankin, Jeremiah Walter, Joe O’Rear, Ethan Everhart, and Delaney Watson.

Directed by Megan Michelle


RED
BY JOHN LOGAN

MAY 2019

In 1958, abstract painter Mark Rothko has just received an enormous commission to create a set of paintings for the fanciest, most expensive new restaurant in Manhattan. The assistant he hires to help him, however, has very different ideas about art.

Red is about what it takes to make art, what art even is, and the fear that all people have of leaving behind a legacy. Two actors, a record player, and some paintbrushes tell an intimate story that will leave you laughing, gasping, and thinking.

Featuring Steve Emily and Joe O'Rear.

“Counterweight Theatre Lab presents intimate look at Mark Rothko in Red”, Colorado Springs Independent

Director Ethan Everhart talks to Keith Simon on the KCME Culture Zone about RED


ANTIGONE
BY SOPHOCLES & ANNE CARSON

NOVEMBER 2018

Antigone’s brothers have just killed each other, ending a brutal civil war. The new king, Kreon, has forbidden Antigone from burying one of her brothers, which violates tradition, culture, and the laws of the gods. This is a story about honor, about fate, about family, and about the nick of time.

Carson hasn't just updated Sophokles' classic into modern English; she has rewritten the play to mine its subtlety, absurdity, and comedy to make a new story out of one of the great classics of the global theatre tradition.

Featuring Lisa Siebert, Madalyn Rilling, Charlotte Burton, Joe O’Rear, David Brown, Richard Sebastian-Coleman, Ethan Everhart, Joanne Koehler, and Allyson Hackworth.


IRREVERSIBLE
by Jack Karp

MAY 2018

The year is 1945. In the remote New Mexico desert, J. Robert Oppenheimer and a growing army of colleagues develop a weapon that could end all life on Earth. In this hard-hitting and intimate play, Oppenheimer struggles to control the titanic forces he would unleash and balance the threat of the Nazis, his own emotional needs, and his seesaw relationships with his wife Kitty, his brother Frank, and his lover Jean. Intimate and lightning fast, Irreversible reminds us of the cost of genius, the threat of extinction, and the inexorable human thirst for knowledge.

Featuring Jude Bishop, Joe O'Rear, Brianna G. Pilon, David Brown, Beth Clements Mosley, and Mallory Everhart.


MACBETH
by William Shakespeare

OCTOBER 2017

The audience enters into a lamplit space and is greeted by a traveling storyteller troupe that prepares the performance space: a rug, a chest with a handful of props and costumes, a few instruments, and some lanterns. The ensemble explains the rules to the audience:

1. Only four actors can be onstage at any time.
2. Actors will trade, take, and give roles after every scene.
3. No actor may play the same character two scenes in a row.
4. The audience chooses who will start the rotation.
5. The audience might be pulled into a scene at a moment’s notice.

Once the rules have been explained, the show begins, and it will be different every single night.

After being promised the throne by a group of mysterious figures on the battlefield, Macbeth plots with his wife to murder King Duncan and take the Scottish throne. The plotting, the deed, and the aftermath demonstrate the lasting power of Shakespeare’s insight into betrayal, madness, and the psychic cost of ambition. Told in this fashion, Counterweight explores and dismantles both the play as well as the entire experience of theatre.

Featuring Amber Carlton, Ethan Everhart, Joanne Koehler, Joe O’Rear, and Sophie Thunberg.


PETROGRAD
BY P. GELATT
ADAPTED FOR THE STAGE BY A. RHODES

IN COLLABORATION WITH THEATRE D ART
JULY - AUGUST 2017

While the First World War rages on, a reluctant British spy stationed in the heart of the Russian empire is handed the most difficult assignment of his career: orchestrate the death of Grigori Rasputin, the mad monk, the Tsarina's most trusted adviser and the surrogate ruler of the nation. Petrograd, the seat of Russian power, is a powderkeg ready to explode, and world history is made as various factions including the British crown, the Russian aristocracy, the Bolsheviks, and the Tsar’s secret police engage in a power struggle over the many plots to assassinate Rasputin.

Featuring Colton Pratt, Alexander Risk, Dylan Mosley, Kacie Vance, Joe O'Rear, Carrie Chesney, Bob Morsch, Richard Sebastian-Coleman, Shane Laycock, and Will Atkinson.


THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST
BY NIKOS KAZANTZAKIS AND PAUL SCHRADER
ADAPTED FOR THE STAGE BY A. RHODES

APRIL - MAY 2017

Two thousand years ago in occupied Palestine, a carpenter named Jesus is plagued by visions, voices, and seizures that promise divinity and a chance to save the world from empire. As his revolutionary friend Judas encourages armed uprising, Jesus struggles to find the path forward to freedom. Along the way, he is tempted to abandon his calling and forsake what may be his destiny. This is one of the foundational stories of Western culture told in a way you’ve never experienced, addressing the conflict between human and divine. The Last Temptation of Christ takes away the pious and safe traditional iconography that often accompanies this story and makes it intimate, relevant, and raw.

Featuring Joe O'Rear, Erica Erickson, Joanne Koehler, Shane Laycock, Jessica Lewis, Paul Escobedo, Chelsea Boucher, Colton Cobal, and Richard Sebastian-Coleman.


YOUR FATHERS, WHERE ARE THEY? AND THE PROPHETS, DO THEY LIVE FOREVER?
BY DAVE EGGERS
ADAPTEd FOR THE STAGE BY RACHEL FEY

DECEMBER 2016

What happened to sending people to the moon? Why spend a trillion dollars on war? What happens when the world your generation was raised for no longer exists? Where did America go wrong? To find some answers, a young man named Thomas kidnaps an astronaut and brings him to an abandoned military base on the coast. Then the questioning begins. The answers must be honest. It might get uncomfortable. The back and forth might even hurt. There will be more kidnappings. But eventually the truth will emerge.

Featuring Alexander Risk, Ethan Everhart, Brian Mann, Mark E. Cannon, and Emma Colligan.
 


THE SEVENTH SEAL
BY INGMAR BERGMAN
ADAPTED FOR THE STAGE BY E. RYERSON

JULY - AUGUST 2016

As the tide comes in, a knight challenges Death to a game of chess. The knight and his squire have returned from war to find their home ravished by plague, poverty, and persecution, and as they continue their journey home, they're confronted with the horrors of a collapsing civilization. After meeting friendly performers and violent zealots, their little company ventures into the forest, forgetting that Death lingers in the shadows.

Featuring Quinn Baker, Colton Cobal, Ethan Everhart, Mallory Everhart, Rachel Fey, Talon Sorenson, and Tabitha Storm.


SOLARIS
by Stanisław Lem
adapted for the stage by A. RHODES

April 2016
Solaris is an intimate look at human identity, memory, and meaning in the context of the cosmos. When a psychologist is sent to investigate the silence of a research crew orbiting the strange ocean planet of Solaris, she encounters traumatized scientists whose explanations for their behavior make no sense as well as a ghost from her past that seems to be tied to the ominous world below. This intimate production provides a riveting and atmospheric portrayal of a situation beyond the limits of human experience and understanding.

Featuring Rachel Fey, Alexander Risk, Chelsea Boucher, Ethan Everhart, Felicia Kelly, and Kevin Ashbey.


JULIUS CAESAR
BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

August 2015

Imagine stumbling onto a small group of storytellers while traveling who perform classics for you by lamp light, and the world they create disappears as quickly as it appeared. This sense of impermanence drives the show, and every night of our Caesar is a different experience. Performed in this way, the show is stripped to its most basic elements: betrayal, patriotism, and fate.

At the beginning of the performance, a small ensemble explains the rules: every actor has memorized the entire text, at certain points the audience could be pulled into a scene, no actor will play the same character two scenes in a row, and roles will be traded, taken, or given at the drop of a hat, sometimes literally. It is impossible to see the same performance more than once, and the ephemeral nature of the performance creates a sense of danger and creativity amongst all involved.

This is Julius Caesar at its most intimate and visceral.

Featuring John Parker, Mackenzie Boyer, Ethan Everhart, and Eleanor Sturt.