Dear Friends of Firebird,

What a year… As I write this, my older brother is driving me up the West Coast – I am watching the Grand Canyon pass into the distance and Joshua trees come into view, and doing my best to reckon with the encroaching end of 2024. I hope wholeheartedly that the end of the year finds you well, warm, and in good company.

For our Firebird community, 2024 has been a whirlwind year of firsts: Boy My Greatness was our first touring production, our first show to be streamed on Patreon (bringing in passionate new fans from as far as LA and The Netherlands), and our first show to be nominated for the BroadwayWorld Awards (in six categories, with voting still open until midnight on Dec 31st)! if I live until I be a man was our first international production, debuting at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and triumphantly returning to run at The Tank NYC alongside the beautiful River Phoenix Fugue. The incomparable Ayun Halliday blessed us with another awesome collaboration, making her solo act NURSE! our first revival production of a previously produced show, remixed and refinished from its 2018 iteration and touring offbeat venues throughout NYC. Much Ado was our first official co-production, pairing our theatrical talents with the enchanting sound of the Cantate Chamber Singers, a celebrated arts institution in Maryland. It’s hard for me to believe that this has all been one year. If you haven’t seen our 2024 IN REVIEW video yet, you can check it out here – it kind of blows my mind to watch. In 2024, more and more brilliant trailblazing artists came to call Firebird their artistic home, and more and more inspired audiences came to think of Firebird as their theater. I’ve dedicated my life to this project since I was thirteen years old; to see people embrace it in this way means more than I can put into words. I am looking back on this year with such elation, such pride in the continued growth of our beloved creative community. Thank you for being in community with me.

I cannot gloss over the fact that this year has also been rather frightening. The acts we’ve seen play out on global and national stages have been nothing short of horrific. Persistent and shameless genocidal efforts, vicious imperial and corporate greed, the ever-quickening rise of fascistic and dehumanizing ideologies all around us – witnessing these horrors all year has begged us again and again to confront the darkest and most grotesque sides of human nature. How can it be that we have found ourselves here? What is this evil within humanity? Can it be stopped before it consumes us? Of course many of us feel scared, lost, isolated amid the growing darkness. I know I do. Still, I find a kind of reason and solace in the place I always turn: in human stories, in myths which have been remembered and passed down to us. From the earliest days of recorded tradition, we have been expressing these fears: that our world will end, that something inhuman and unfeeling is coming to take away what we love, that we are alone in the dark with a monster we cannot defeat. I choose to believe that, whether they knew it or not, the people who came before us left these stories behind so that we would know that we were not alone. Through these stories, we remember that others have faced these monsters before us, and somehow humanity is still here. I find that thought comforting – maybe you do too.

The “project” in “The Firebird Project” refers to the ongoing work of unearthing and reigniting the hidden fire within immortal, enduring stories. 2024 was our Year of The Bard: all year, we tangled with the complex and singular legacy of Shakespeare, from the unspoken plights of his supporting characters to the oft-forgotten lives of the players who originated some of his most iconic roles. 2025 is our Year of the Monster, a chance to face our fears and examine our canon’s fascination with the horrible and the uncanny. The season will open with the January premiere of Trouble Feature, a horror game show inspired by my love of campy B-flicks, where a rotating cast of improvisors fight to survive classic scary movie scenarios. A bawdy, boozy, bloody good time, tickets are already on sale for our first two shows at Caveat NYC! Then in March, we’re mounting the world premiere of Zoe Senese-Grossberg’s original adaptation of FRANKENSTEIN, which examines how we fear and run from our own bodies and desires. This lightning-paced, erotically charged retelling strips bare Mary Shelley’s horror opus, powered by a dynamic ensemble of four actors and a live electric guitar. From watching early readings, I can already tell you this will be a grim, sensuous, unmissable experience. In May, our unearthly talented youth ensemble will take on H.G. Wells’s The War of The Worlds, the original alien invasion story. Directed by me and with movement direction by Firebird veteran Izzy Pflanz, this newly devised physical theater adaptation asks how humanity copes with catastrophe, who inherits the world we destroy, and whether we can rebuild an Earth on which we can be human to one another. These exciting productions will be programmed alongside our beloved youth arts education workshops and summer conservatory, special events and readings of new works, multimedia projects, and more performances yet to be announced. It is shaping up to be another unforgettable season, and I so hope you will be able to join us. I can promise that we will continue to work to inspire and engage you, to keep you coming back for more, and to see Firebird as your theater too.

Of course, there’s a part of this letter where I remind you we cannot do this work without your support. As a small, young-artist-run collective with no corporate sponsors and no board of trustees, all our money comes from ticket sales and class fees (which we work hard to keep affordable), from modest grant programs (which continue to shrink as the powers-that-be cut arts funding), and from individual donations from people like you — people who love live arts, who care that we continue to tell these stories, and who want to see our community grow. Every day it feels harder to ask for donations online; this world is only getting more expensive to survive in, and many worthy causes need your support. So I always say, donate if you can, as you can. Even $5, $10, $20, goes a long way toward meeting our goals: we rent industry-grade theater spaces to rehearse and perform in, to ensure the best, safest, friendliest experience for all our artists, audiences, students, families, and community. We also pay all our projects on a profit-share model, meaning the more money we make, the more every artist involved earns. And we are working toward a long-term goal of a permanent home studio for our company. So if you are able, here are some ways you can support us:

1. Make a contribution to our 2025 donation drive. No donation is too small -- if every person on our mailing list gave just 5 dollars, we would meet our goal overnight. This money goes directly toward paying our hardworking artists and covering our production expenses.

2. Make a post about us on social media. Facebook, Instagram, Tiktok -- whatever you use, make a short and personal post in which you share one fond memory of Firebird, and let your friends and followers know how they can follow us (@firebird.nyc on socials, thefirebirdproject.org/connect for our mailing list). Tag us too – we’ll be so happy to see your post!

3. Email us to find out about volunteer opportunities and ways you can help out throughout the year. It takes a village to keep this fire burning, and even an hour of your time can go a long way. We promise to give you a warm welcome, and hope that it will feel less like work, and more like spending time in good company.

4. If you’re reading this before midnight on Dec 31st, you still have time to VOTE FOR US in the BroadwayWorld Off-Broadway Awards! Boy My Greatness is nominated in six off-Off-Broadway categories, and the prestige that comes with awards like this could open doors for a small company like ours. Best of all, voting takes 5 minutes, is totally free, and requires nothing but entering your email to create a free account (no spam!). To help us win, click here to cast your vote.

And of course, whatever ways you are able to support us, the best will always be to attend our events and be in community with us. You are cordially invited to everything we do this year. I hope to see you there.

As always, it's an honor to foster this community. I believe, and have always believed, that we vitally need spaces to share stories in, to remember legends and pass on hidden knowledge, to surprise ourselves and discover what we can be, to look outside of ourselves with love. I hope that in some small way, the stories we've told at Firebird have cast a light on your year. In 2025, I wish you strength and courage to face any dark times, love and good company to weather any storm, inspiration to find new paths through the unknown, and a warm hearth where you can feel at home (if ever you need such a hearth, know that our door is open).

Thank you for this unforgettable year. I wish you a happy 2025.

Warmly,

Leo Lion
Artistic Director – The Firebird Project
leo@firebird.nyc