Opening after opening
Company One celebrates 25 years of inclusive theater
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The average ticket price for a theatergoer in Boston is upwards of $75. But one of the best tickets in town, no matter what, is free. Company One, founded by a team including Shawn LaCount ’09MFA, is a theater company that’s been producing works by and for marginalized communities for the last 25 years.
LaCount spent his childhood in and around Boston, favoring sports as a pastime until he fractured his ankle in basketball tryouts and was forced to find a different path. “I started to understand what the impact of communal storytelling could be,“ he remembers.
When LaCount went to performances as a kid, though, the difference between the community he grew up in and the stories on stage was stark. His community included working-class people of color, and while he was white like the folks on stage, the stories being told had little in common with his life.
We wanted it to be dangerous and disruptive. We wanted it to be exciting and weird.
So, when he graduated with a theater degree years later, he was determined to change the face of the Boston theater scene. “We wanted it to be dangerous and disruptive. We wanted it to be exciting and weird.”
And, crucially, Company One wanted to prove that Boston theater didn‘t have to be a segregated space. They wanted accessible shows—all of which are free with pay-what-you-can tickets—by and for the community LaCount knew.
After a handful of years in operation, larger local theater companies started to beat them to the kinds of scripts that had been neglected a few years prior. The team had a realization: “We’ve paved the way for these theaters to do work by and with folks of color, in particular, that might be a little more disruptive, a little more risky, a little more political.” Basically, Company One had accomplished its mission.
Instead of resting on their laurels, they decided to broaden their scope. Today, Company One is a multipronged engine of community building, art, and social change. They produce shows and mentor young playwrights, but also run educational programs in public schools and host social justice—based community events throughout the city. These programs are “entry points to a community who’s trying to change our city,” LaCount explains.
In 2007, after several years at the helm of Company One, LaCount chose to study directing at UMass. He was drawn to UMass for a lot of reasons. It was near home, and it was miles more affordable than his other options. But UMass also had New WORLD Theater. Founded by UMass Professor Roberta Uno in 1979, it centered people of color and theater as social justice.
“When I went to visit,” LaCount remembers, “something about it told me I‘d be able to kind of grow there, and also be myself there.”
Thanks to the legacy of New WORLD Theater and some good ol’ alumni camaraderie, the staff of Company One is brimming with UMass alums.
One such alum is afrikah selah ’19. A class taught by Theater Assistant Professor Priscilla Page, Playwrights of Color, helped them find their path to a theater degree and a certificate in multicultural theater.
afrikah selah ’19 (right) in a rehearsal for Hoops
Today, selah is the new work producer at Company One, a role that was recommended to them by fellow alum Josh Glenn-Kayden ’21MFA. The company may have expanded from their original mission, but they are still focused on “exciting and weird” performances, and selah is now a driving force in developing these new works.
For example, in the summer of 2024, selah served as dramaturg for the play Hoops, using deep research and knowledge of the play to provide context and support to the actors and production team. Adapted from a series of portraits by photographer Nicole Acosta by writer Eliana Pipes, Hoops is a series of dramatic vignettes focused on the power of hoop earrings. The play, selah says, asks, “What does a pair of hoops represent for queer and trans people of color? For women of color?”
Like LaCount, selah grew up in a multicultural community, and found that attending a predominantly white institution like UMass could be an isolating experience. But it was also their UMass connection that led them to Company One.
“There‘s a welcoming culture,” selah says, “being able to be playful and show up authentically.”
On Allyship and Leadership
With 25 years as one of the leaders of Company One, Shawn LaCount has plenty to say about what it means to be at the helm of an ambitious and diverse organization. Perhaps most critically, he isn’t always sold on the fact that he even should be in his position.
“I am a white guy,” he says. “And sometimes that’s in the way of what we want to do. Frankly, I ask myself every six months if I should continue to do this … I’ve asked that for the institution because as we’ve grown, we’ve become more responsible for more people, and more communities, and more neighborhoods, and more projects. There very well may be a day when I’m the wrong leader for this institution, and if that’s the case, I think it means a certain level of success.”
…part of that is getting out of the way
But the fact that LaCount, one of four leaders of the organization, is white, also aligns with the broader mission of Company One. “We’re not a culturally or ethnically specific theater,” he explains. ”What we’re trying to do is actually bring folks together. We’re trying to be a mosaic of culture and racial experience.” And the Company One team reflects that. “We’re trying to connect a pretty segregated city.”
“It‘s much easier for us in my demographic to ignore racial equity. And right now in my life, I think that my privilege, my skill set, and my opportunities mean that I can help be a problem-solver,” LaCount says. “And part of that is getting out of the way when it’s time to get out of the way.”
Remembering a “New WORLD”
From 1979 to 2010, New WORLD Theater produced dozens of plays and dramatic works centering artists of color. The UMass-based company was a bastion of cutting-edge theater and produced new works alongside traditional multicultural repertory. Just like Company One, New WORLD Theater had initiatives to support community members and students of all ages. Though the company is no longer around, its legacy is preserved in work like that of Company One, and in the UMass Amherst Special Collections & University Archives.
These photos capture moments of New WORLD Theater on and off the stage.
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