OUR MISSION
BOLD. INTIMATE. NOW.
Silverthorne Theater Company’s mission is to engage Valley artists and audiences in the conversations of our time with bold, intimate, professional theater.
Our core values include:
- Our firm belief in the power of live theater to reach across the barriers to empathy and open up channels of communication in our community
- Our commitment to achieving artistic excellence in our productions
- Loyalty to our core community of audience and artistic talent
- Dedication to broadening our community’s outlook through informed and audacious choices of production and through a variety of outreach activities
We prioritize hiring from our diverse and talented pool of local theater artists. Our performers, technicians & administrators are people who live in the Valley & value both the life style & the cultural richness of the region.
As a community-based professional non-profit, we rely primarily on local residents and businesses for support. A rising tide lifts all ships — as the Valley thrives, so will we, & we are proud to be part of this vibrant arts ecosystem.
Silverthorne is a small professional theater company engaging artists and audiences in the conversations of our time with bold, intimate theater. We serve the culturally vibrant and ecologically beautiful Connecticut River Valley region of Western Massachusetts.
We produce five shows a year: a February cabaret, two spring Theater Thursday play readings focused on the work of Valley playwrights, and two mainstage summer productions presented in Hampshire College’s black box theater in Amherst. Recent productions have included the professional premiere of Liz Duffy Adams’ The Broken Machine, the New England premiere of Eisa Davis’s Bulrusher, as well as plays by Tanya Barfield, Lydia Diamond, Jordan Harrison, and Branden Jacobs-Jenkins.
Silverthorne is collectively administered by an active board of artist-producers who are involved in all aspects of our season. We regularly hire actors, directors, designers, and technicians to work with us.
We were founded in 2014 by David Rowland and Lucinda Kidder. Under Lucinda’s leadership, we quickly won acclaim as one of the top companies in Western Massachusetts. Lucinda’s involvement in the board continued right up until her passing in 2024. From our original home base of the Greenfield area, we have expanded outward to perform throughout the Valley – a region of about 700,000 people.
We continue to lovingly honor the spirit of Lucinda by bringing daring, relevant, and inclusive theater to Western Massachusetts.
The primary mission of Silverthorne Theater Company’s Theater Thursdays Play Reading Series is to support playwrights in the development of new theatrical work. Theater Thursdays often highlight full-length scripts by playwrights local to Western Massachusetts and the greater New England region, with a focus on writers whose voices have been underrepresented in theatrical production. Theater Thursdays provide playwrights with an opportunity to experience their work embodied by skilled actors in a semi-staged reading.
Playwrights also have the opportunity to receive audience feedback through a guided post-show discussion, designed to center the playwright’s questions and needs. We also aim to utilize Theater Thursdays to bring new work to audiences in Western Massachusetts, and to allow them the opportunity to engage constructively and thoughtfully in the process of helping to develop new plays.
Theater Thursdays are offered free of charge before live audiences followed by discussions with the playwrights. Theater Thursdays are supported in part by our local Cultural Councils, local agencies which are supported by the Mass Cultural Council, a state agency.