Hatch Arts Collective

Once Removed
by Paul Kruse
In collaboration with Mason Rosenthal and Adil Mansoor
Featuring the voices of Barbara Kruse, Karina Kruse, Lydia Kruse, Seven Sexton, Diana Hershey, Jane Fisk, Jerome Mayne, John Mayne, Jeff Mayne, and Dolores Fairbanks.

Initially for live performance, Once Removed was produced as an audio play by Hatch Arts Collective in 2021, under the direction of Adil Mansoor with sound design, editing, and original music by Aaron Landgraf. This documentary performance follows Paul Kruse’s growing up and coming out, against the story of his mom’s cousin, who passed away due to AIDS related complications in 1993. Once Removed is an official selection for Tribeca Festival’s 2022 Audio Storytelling Program.

On September 20th and 21st, Little Amal, the internationally-celebrated 12-foot-tall puppet of a 10-year-old Syrian refugee girl, visited Pittsburgh as part of her epic 6,000-mile journey across the United States this fall. From all corners of the globe, people have welcomed Walk with Amal with open arms and hearts.

Throughout the two-month trek, which spanned more than 35 U.S. cities and towns for 100+ events, some of the country’s most influential cultural institutions and artists came together to greet Amal and add their unique color to the rich tapestry of America’s story.

A young family sprouts from the hills of Southwestern Pennsylvania. A Catholic priest from Eastern Minnesota embeds himself in a new community. Guided by the science and wisdom of two saints, Driftless unearths the full cost of hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking, and asks us to consider lives, relationships, and heritage as we seek answers for the future of our world. Why must families choose between their health and a viable economic future? Based on interviews with community members, Driftless brings an ongoing debate into the heart of our family kitchens.

Hatch was delighted to remount Chickens in the Yard in November 2015 as part of Quantum Theatre’s 25th season through the Gerri Kay New Voices Program. The program honors Quantum's longtime board member, friend, and supporter. Learn more.

Collaborating with a group of undergraduate students, local artists, and several adjunct faculty members, Hatch generated new performance material over a four-week devised theater intensive. The process involved conversation, reading, and performance exercises related to student debt, college and university governance, and the experience of the adjunct instructor.

What does it mean to write on a wall? What can it tell us about ownership, gender, expression, and value? Saturated with sharp humor and coded references, Walldogs probes a simple action that humans have performed since we learned to draw.

Driftless Phase 2, supported by the Heinz Endowments’ Small Arts Initiative, gathered nine artists from various disciplines to create a second, short performance piece. This group spent two weeks responding to transcripts from a recent trial involving a protest at a frac sand facility in Winona, MN. The culminating 30-minute performance was presented on May 23rd, 2014, at PearlArts Studios.

This site-specific performance lasted about 30 minutes and took the form of a love poem from the Midwest’s Driftless region to the Marcellus Shale of Western Pennsylvania. Written in frack sand and natural gas, Driftless navigates an encounter between the non-profit world of environmental activism and the reality of hydraulic fracturing. Mixing real accounts of this issue with US tax code, a Roman Catholic Mass, the writings of Plutarch, and corporate literature, Driftless enters and fills the complex cracks and fractures of a complicated conversation.

Chickens in the Yard is a new play that tells the story of a family through the eyes of their four chickens. Set in Pittsburgh, Chickens in the Yard explores what a gay identity means for one couple, as they journey from the families that raised them to the family they choose to create together. Amidst the struggle to define partnership and wrestle with individual family ties, Chickens in the Yard invites you to join them in taking one messy step forward.