Nicu's Spoon Theater Company

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Nicu's Spoon is an Inclusion Off-Off-Broadway theater company in New York City. Its artistic director is Stephanie Barton-Farcas.

The company's unusual name stems from a young boy the artistic director met in Romania in the 1990s when working with abandoned children there. "...[T]he most amazing one was Nicu, who was 5...in diapers and did not walk, talk or feed himself. They told me he was deaf and retarded. Nicu had spent 5 years on his back in a crib. I got angry and said "I'll take him." Six months later he did all those things. He and I fought some big, bad battles together to get him there - to get him to choose life. And in the process he changed my life. Though he was mentally and physically challenged Nicu viewed the world with wonder; he spent hours bouncing sunlight off of a spoon. When he began to eat solid food ... his spoon was everything to him. Nicu’s spoon became the symbol for all the impossible things that were suddenly possible -- things like walking, talking, thinking, and living. He was and we lost him 5 years later, in 1996. Nicu’s life was about quality, not quantity — about life’s impossibles becoming possible."

The company is based on inclusion, so it works with actors that might otherwise be considered 'marginalized', whether by age, ability [1], gender, or ethnicity. The company became known from the outset for productions which challenged stereotypes and expectations[2]; it was the recipient of the 2006 Thom Fluellen Award given by the New York University Community Fund for excellence in programming for the diverse city of New York.

Their productions thus far, from their first to the most recent, have been the original work Displaced; To Kill a Mockingbird; Eric Overmyer's In Perpetuity Throughout the Universe; Nineteen Eighty-Four; Mac Wellman's Murder of Crows; Eric Bogosian's SubUrbia; a play adaptation of Ordinary People by Nancy Gilsenan (from the book by Judith Guest); Elizabeth Egloff's The Swan; a play adaptation of Le Petit Prince by Ric Cummins and John Scoullar; Mark Medoff's Stumps; Gary Henderson's Skin Tight; Ken Duncum's Cherish; Buried Child; and Constance Congdon's Tales of the Lost Formicans.

[edit] References

Denton, Rochelle. "Darren Fudenske, Buried Child", NYTheater Voices Interview, September 25, 2006, retrieved October 6, 2006
Barton-Farcas, Stephanie. "Why Aren't you Working with Disabled Artists?", Backstage Magazine" reprinted on ADA site, May, 2006, retrieved October 6, 2006.
Marmor, Jessica. "Not So Ordinary People", Columbia School of Journalism, November 1, 2004, retrieved October 6, 2006