PLANKSgiving 2023

No, we’re not trying to bring back that most painful of 2011 fads and no, there’s no exercise involved….We’re closing out 2023 with our own twist on the most thankful of holidays!

In keeping with our most wide-reaching production to date (Reclaimed Timber), we’re honoring the humble yet mighty plank of wood. Our goal is to give th planks this year and raise $1,500 for all of our optimistic and starry-eyed endeavors which take live performance into the Beyond.

And we have perks!

Your donation can get you sweet sweet swag that we know you’ll cherish forever:

$25 - Birch

For your generosity, we’ll send you a custom-made matchbox cuica (one of our favorite “instruments” used in Juliana Hodkinson’s piece Lightness), along with an instructional video showing you how to master the artful technique of playing it.

$50 - Maple

We will send you a signed poster from our most recent performance, Black Box Music. We’ll also include a matchbox cuica.

$100 - Oak

For your contribution, we will send you your very own mini-plank of reclaimed timber! We will carefully slice off a cross section from one of the original 6 planks of wood we used in our first performances of Reclaimed Timber in Baltimore from 2019. Each plank was quite literally pulled by hand from a vacant house in Baltimore, and they carry the history of decades of inadequate housing policies that are so prevalent in our cities. Each mini-plank will be cut to order and emblazoned with the BTP logo. We’ll also send you a matchbox cuica.

$250 - Mahogany (limited to 10)

For your support, we will send you one of the custom-made “luminaries” (paper lanterns) from our Reclaimed Timber project. These were designed and made by Baltimore-based visual artists Jenn Figg and Matthew McCormack, and were used in our very first performances of Reclaimed Timber back in 2019. Each luminary is designed to look like a Baltimore row house, and features a collage of images of Baltimore housing, trees, street maps, and tree-maps (yes, it’s a thing!). We’ll also send you a matchbox cuica and mini-plank.

$500 - Rosewood (limited to 3)

For your tremendous support, we will invite you to our studio for a little tour, chat, and a sneak peek of “Hypochondriac,” a new work for us from composer David Bird that’s currently in development! We’ll also send you a Reclaimed Timber luminary, mini-plank, poster, and matchbox cuica.

2023 reminded us that we really have come so far from our humble beginnings nearly a decade ago– What started with some performances of Mauricio Kagel’s Dressur has turned into mounting 360-degree productions that involve anything from live video, to surround sound, to 5000 LEDs, to amplified matchsticks.

Since emerging from the pandemic, BTP has premiered 3 original productions in Chicago (LIT, Dreams…and why not?, Black Box Music), and we’ve taken our work from coast to coast– all while keeping the majority of our programming either completely free to access, or under $10 per person.

2023 also reminded us that there’s still so much we have yet to do! In the pipeline for 2024 and onward we have more performances of Reclaimed Timber, many thousands more matches to strike, and the beginnings of more original productions that continue to find the unexplored territories between music, theater, gesture, performance, and installation. We’re immensely excited and grateful to continue bringing you the most compelling, inventive, and engaging experiences we can!

Your donation to BTP not only supports the nitty gritty details of the work we do (buying gear, renting venues, paying ourselves and our collaborators a living wage, etc). Your support inevitably ends up expanding the world of live performance and what it can mean, create, and achieve for our society.

When asked why we do what we do, we’re partial to James Baldwin’s idea that the purpose of art is to lay bare the questions which have been hidden by the answers.

We humbly ask you to join us in our ongoing quest to uncover these hidden questions.

Beyond grateful,

John and Adam