Synchronicity
One of Synchronicity Theater’s original founders, Rachel May has directed more than 15 productions for it, including In the Next Room or The Vibrator Play, Exit Pursued by a Bear, Women + War, 1:23, Language of Angels, Three Sisters and Marisol. Her directing work has been seen in and around Atlanta at Actor’s Express, Aurora Theatre, Theatre Gael, Dad’s Garage and the University of Georgia. Creative Loafing named her best director of 2002 for her work on One Flea Spare and Kia Corthron’s Breath, Boom, the production that led to the creation of Playmaking for Girls program. In June 2004 she was chosen for the highly competitive NEA/TCG Career Development Program for Directors and was named a Bank of America “Local Hero.” In addition to her executive role at Synchronicity, she actively teaches and leads workshops across Atlanta, and spent eight summers as director of the First Center’s Drama Camp at Georgia Tech.
Synchronicity Theatre began in the late 1990s, when a collection of recent college grads, keenly interested in collaborative work, began meeting to discuss how to shape their young careers.
Participation in that group began to dwindle and, by the third meeting, only four women showed up — Rachel May, Hope Mirlis, Julie Oshins, and Michele Pearce. Michele held aloft a sign with a large word on it: “Synchronicity.” The quartet agreed to proceed and a theater company was born.
Synchronicity,” defined as “a meaningful coincidence,” stuck.
“Performance Group,” which spoke to our collaborative natures, was added.
Later on, our tagline, and mantra, became “Smart. Gutsy. Bold. Theatre.”
Rachel May
Synchronicity was founded officially in 1997. We became a 501(c)(3) nonprofit in 2000, and swapped “Performance Group” for “Theatre” in 2011.
Synchronicity’s first project, entitled The Crime and Punishment Project, was presented on April 1, 1996 at 7 Stages Theatre. A rag-tag group of artists – actors, designers, visual artists, a photographer and a sculptor – adapted the mammoth novel into a workshop performance. Our mission on the one-page show flyer was “Synchronicity Performance Group is an ensemble devoted to creating and interpreting new and exciting performance through the collaboration of artists working in different mediums.”
Their first full production they tackled another classic with a fresh adaptation of The Feigned Courtesans, a 1679 comedy by English playwright Aphra Behn, in which young women outwit their male guardians. Staged in the fall of 1997 at Emory University, in the Black Rose, their reconstructed restored theater. Out of this their mission grew, and they produced on show per year for the first three years. In March 2000 they received a nonprofit status and began to produce full seasons.