Conceived in 2007 by founding Artistic Director Jon Cohn, Mutineer Theatre Company began as nothing more than a PO Box, a simple web site requesting original play submissions, and a cool logo. After receiving a slow trickle of projects that didn’t resonate, Jon reached out to a handful of playwright friends to see if any of them were working on anything that was ready to be developed through workshop.
One of them, Keith Bridges (Artistic Director of Charter Theater in Washington, DC) was interested and offered to do a commission. After an initial conversation to discuss story ideas and genres, Keith spent several weeks developing three treatments and subsequently came to LA to pitch them. Jon assembled a group of people that he had worked with in various capacities to hear Keith’s pitches. Not all were theatre people…in fact not all were artists. But every person in the room was intelligent, passionate, creative, and articulate with perspectives that they were unafraid to share. In March 2008 the panel listened to the pitches and unanimously leaned towards the most intellectually and emotionally challenging concept that Keith had presented. After a spirited frenzy of collaborative input, Keith returned to DC with the task of composing a dark comedy about a man who falls in love with his own daughter.
In the meantime Jon was so taken by the creative courage and positive vibe of the group that heard Keith’s pitches that he invited them to become the founding members of Mutineer Theatre Company: A group dedicated to creating, developing, and producing original material through experimental collaboration and a unified celebration of the work. Everyone in the room that day became a part of Mutineer and actively worked as a team to develop the play that Keith was writing. The play would eventually become Lie with Me and get its world premiere at Art|Works Theatre in Hollywood in March 2009 as the inaugural production of Mutineer Theatre Company.