The Alley Cat Players produce what founder Jo Averill-Snell calls "performance events": shows that, for example, feature actors reading poetry and prose, along with video enhancements, digitally displayed artworks and a post-show photograph gallery. Events take place at the auditorium of the St. Petersburg main library, are free, and may be offered just once or several times. "One of the goals of the company is synthesis," says Averill-Snell. "We want to bring different art forms together." What results are shows like the upcoming Mama Makes Up Her Mind, in which actors will read from the folksy short stories of Bailey White and visual art from the Southern Art issue of the Oxford American will be displayed. Just recently, Alley Cat offered Imaginary Gardens with Real Toads, a reading of the work — poetry, letters and interviews — of Marianne Moore that ended with photos of — you guessed it — real toads. One thing that's been true about Alley Cat from the start: It has a sense of humor.
But "performance events" weren't always the organization's intent. When Alley Cat started in 2000, it was a theater-producing company, one that specialized in surrealism (Picasso's play Desire Caught by the Tail, Mac Wellman's Swoop) and in feminism (a mostly female Macbeth). The company has "evolved," Averill-Snell says, but will get back to producing plays once her baby daughter Brigid is a little older. And the company's feminist mission is unchanged: All five Alley Cat events for 2007 focused on women artists and "stories in which women have strong, meaty, challenging roles." Averill-Snell adds that there's a surrealist — or magic realist — throughline in just about everything Alley Cat does. Magritte would understand those toads.
Audience turnout hasn't been huge — 20 to 30 people per show, on average — but "The company is committed to eclectic, off-beat work," so Averill-Snell doesn't really expect a crowd. And that's just fine, because what really matters are words like "impromptu," "experiment," "freedom" and "collage."
"Our hearts are in this," she says. And these events "are really cool."
This article appears in Aug 29 – Sep 4, 2007.