HIT THE LIGHTS! THEATER CO.

HIT THE LIGHTS! THEATER CO. is an award-winning company created out of an artistic agreement to tell simple stories through unconventional ways. Using handmade puppets, vintage overhead projectors, flashlights, found materials, actors, original live music and immersive techniques. Hit the Lights! also focuses on the interplay between darkness and light, utilizing shadow puppetry as the lifeblood of their storytelling. The company is comprised of five experienced multidisciplinary artists: puppeteers, actors, musicians, and artisans.

Hit the Lights! follows the motto ‘Less Talk, More Rock.’ This motto drives our creative process, which culminates in work that is of a heightened style and hyper-theatrical in nature, with performers multitasking onstage in real time to create the technical, musical, and narrative components of a story simultaneously. Believing that motion, color, sound, and atmosphere are more evocative and experiential than spoken text, a heavy emphasis is placed on dialogue-less, action-oriented storytelling.

Original works include DUNGEON (Audience Pick of the Fringe at the Cincinnati Fringe and Editors Pick at the Minnesota Fringe), WHALES (nominated for three New York Innovative Theater Awards including Outstanding Innovative Design, Outstanding Original Music, and Outstanding Premiere Production of a Play, Artist Pick and Venue Award Minnesota Fringe). An original site-specific immersive theater experience in collaboration with the Know Theatre of Cincinnati (THE OTHER RHINE); a live cinematic puppet adaptation of Gimlet Media’s hit podcast (The Habitat); an original adaptation of Hamlet created in partnership with Portland Stage Company; a collaboration with New York Botanical Garden’s Spooky Pumpkin Nights; a live music video for Grammy Award-nominated Sammy Miller and the Congregation; and Nominated for an Off-Broadway Alliance Award for “Best Family Show” for their theatrical adaptation of the book (TASTE THE CLOUDS) commissioned by New York City Children’s Theater. HTL!’s Off-Broadway credits include performances at Dixon Place, La MaMa ETC, New Victory Theater Lab Works, The Flea Theater, Franklin Stage Company, and Ars Nova in NYC where they were Company in Residence in 2018 and 2019.
Hit the Lights! has taught Masterclasses at New York University (NYU), The University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, Elefante Music School, and CO/LAB Theater Group in NYC. They were company-in-residence at William’s College’s STUDIO62 summer theater program where they taught workshop intensives as guest artist faculty in 2018 and 2019.