SHADOWBOX: NOT YOUR MAMMA’S THEATRE

By Kevin Carr
Contributing Writer
Columbus Post

Shadowbox Cabaret is not what you’d expect from a traditional theatre. Using sketch comedy, one-act plays and contemporary music, the shows are more like an in-person version of “Saturday Night Live” than Shakespeare in the park.
While some of the cast members have classical training, Shadowbox is anything but stuffy and pretentious. “We definitely don’t try to edit ourselves,” said Brandon Anderson, the company’s public relations coordinator. “You either know somebody like that on stage, or you are somebody on stage. They see that truth. They see that familiarity.”
This attitude has allowed Shadowbox to become a fully self-sufficient entity. The company does not receive any grant or government funding. They rely completely rely on their audience to pay their bills.
Shadowbox not only attracts a diverse audience, but also offers opportunities for a diverse cast. “Minorities have had a really, really strong presence on stage and behind the scenes,” Anderson told Urban Edition. “In order to make things happen, we have to be involved in all aspects.”
Theater has long displayed more casting flexibility than television and movies. Performers as far back as Paul Robeson to current performers such as Audra McDonald, Brian Stokes Mitchell and Heather Headley have portrayed non-traditional roles to great acclaim. At Shadowbox, because everyone is involved in different ways, there are no boundaries for cast members.
“When you come to Shadowbox, everything’s that’s been done has been done 100% by the performers,” Anderson said. “When the doors open you have the same guys who ran cables making pizza and nachos, then doing a two-hour show for you.”
Thirty years ago, it was not unusual for performers such as Sammy Davis, Jr. Ben Vereen and Liza Minnelli to do it all on stage. Today’s performers wish to experience that same versatility.
Noelle Grandison, a Shadowbox cast member since 2001, was born in Columbus and attended Independence High School. She wears many hats at Shadowbox, managing the box office for all three theatres, including the sister cabaret called 2Co’s in the Short North and another in Newport, Kentucky. She’s also the head sound engineer for the Shadowbox Wired television show.
“I was intrigued to sing and dance and do all those things in a single venue,” said Grandison, who trained as a flute player at Capital University. During her training, she had encountered an attitude that tends to permeate theatre and the arts. “If you’re a singer, you sing, and if you’re an actor, you act,” Grandison explained. Shadowbox gave her an opportunity to do it all.
Primarily featured as a vocalist in the band, Grandison has recently had a chance to perform in comedic roles as well.
“I am actually starting now to get involved more in acting,” she said. “It’s taken a while to break out of the ‘I’m only this kind of performer’ mentality. That’s me starting to adapt part of the honest-to-goodness Shadowbox mentality.”
Michelle Daniels took a different route, starting with acting rather than singing. She started at Shadowbox in 1995 when it was still run out of a warehouse in downtown Columbus.
“I decided to audition for the company then, and here I am ten years later,” said Daniels. “It turned out to be really what I was looking for.”
Prior to her Shadowbox experience, Daniels worked with a Shakespearean company. She saw the theater as an opportunity to broaden her horizons.
“I wanted to do plays written this century,” she says. “If you don’t continue to have new plays and playwrights, theatre is going to die.”
“I wanted to be in a place where dancers and musicians and players work together,” Daniels continued. Her experience had also dictated that performers keep to their separate talents. “That’s what drew me to the company, and that’s also what made me stay.”
Diversity in the cast extends to diversity in the audience which can be rare in most theater venues in central Ohio.
“I feel we do an extremely good job at pulling in a very diverse crowd,” Grandison said.
“A lot of our crowds are the crowds that normally attend movies, so we really don’t have a traditional theatre-going crowd,” Daniels added. “We don’t fit that category, and that helps attract the different types of people that we do.”
Daniels continues to be excited with her Shadowbox experience and hopes it spreads to the audience.
“It’s great working with people whose heart is really into what they do. You can really feel it,” Daniels said. “I’m into people bringing all their heart and soul and energy into what they do.”
For more information about Shadow- box Cabaret and its performances, go to www.shadowboxcabaret.com.