Arts & Culture

The Caravan Stage Company, a travelling theatre company that tours on a tall ship called 'Amara Zee', is closing out its final tour at Richmond’s Shelter Island Marina in early September.

Photos courtesy Caravan Stage

Travelling theatre closing final show in Richmond

By Hannah Scott

Published 2:58 PDT, Tue August 30, 2022

Last Updated: 3:23 PDT, Mon September 26, 2022

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To close out 52 years of touring, travelling theatre company The Caravan Stage is performing at Richmond’s Shelter Island Marina in early September.

Founded by Paul Kirby and Adriana Kelder, Caravan started out as a horse-drawn wagon theatre company and now tours on a tall ship called Amara Zee. The company’s farewell show Virtual Rogues focuses on the ethics and ethos of the digital future, and features aerial acrobats and large projections.

“I grew up when the Internet came on the scene,” explains longtime company member and production coordinator Doria Bramante. “Watching more and more as a part of myself becomes so exercised and practiced in a digital world, I can feel a dissonance between my actual life and my virtual life. For me the show is important because it sets organic matter against a virtual world. If we lose sight of what and who we really are, we not only risk completely giving control away of our autonomy, our rights, et cetera, but we also perhaps risk truly (knowing) what it means to be alive.”

Bramante explains that founders Kirby and Kelder have always wanted to mount challenging shows that engage social conversation.

“I’ve been with the company for 12 years, and every show really is right up against what’s happening, even if it’s at an almost intangible, subtle level,” says Bramante.

But given the long history of Caravan, Kirby and Kelder are ready for a shift and plan to tour shadow puppet theatre on a smaller boat in the Mediterranean.

Bramante says presenting a show on a boat is challenging, but “that’s what makes it so special.”

“Even though all of the rigging systems in modern-day theatre come from sailing, the ship isn’t necessarily designed with shows in mind, so we’re already putting something really fantastical into a space that’s new,” she says.

Everything needs to be right for the show to work, from the water depth to the tide schedule, and the company also explores the possibility of turning off surrounding electricity so the projections are visible. As Virtual Rogues has been in development for over two years, some crew members spent most of the pandemic on the boat working on the show together.

“Because it’s a boat, it has a certain relationship to the environment and the natural world so we are a piece of the set (and) the experience,” says Bramante. “Really it’s an opportunity to be outside and to look around and be in these environments that are totally unique to communities, totally unique to ecosystems, and that’s pretty special.”

Shelter Island Marina is also a special location, as that’s where the Amara Zee spent two years dry-docked during renovations. It was built from scratch to be a theatre ship, although each show sees a different deck setup.

Bramante says Richmond and other surrounding communities have been supportive of Caravan over the years.

“I know that (Kirby and Kelder) love the live-aboard community at Shelter Island and the eclectic atmosphere of boat workings that go on there and how real the place is,” she says. “I only lived on the ship right when they were about to set sail from Shelter Island Marina and visited when she was dry-docked, but I’ve never seen the show in the Shelter Island space. It’s a bit of a homecoming.”

For Bramante, who met her husband on the ship years ago, the Amara Zee has also been a home for many years.

“We come back every year in some capacity, whether that’s to live with (Kirby and Kelder) during the off-season or we’ll help with a piece of production, maybe we’ll just come and visit, sometimes we help move the boat,” she says. “During the pandemic we were so fortunate to get to play together and get to work on a thing—as an actor, all of my work went away, so it was wonderful to get to be creative with people you love.”

Given this is Caravan’s last tour, Bramante encourages people to come and see the show.

“This is an iconic historic theatre that is a slice of time and place. That’s the beauty of theatre: it transcends a virtual world once it’s up, and then when it closes it’s gone forever; it just occurs in the moment,” says Bramante.

Virtual Rogues is on at Shelter Island Marina (6911 Graybar Rd.) from Sept. 2 to 5 and 7 to 10, with all shows beginning at 8:30 p.m. For more information, visit caravanstage.org/

The Caravan Stage Company is presenting Virtual Rogues at Richmond’s Shelter Island Marina in early September.