While the pandemic had abruptly shut the world down in 2020, Jackson Gifford was bringing the idea of a new theatre company to life. Gifford, a graduate of Interlochen Arts Academy and student of Otterbein University in Ohio, returned home to Oklahoma City with plenty of time on his hands and a quest to keep his artistic juices flowing. In a series of conversations and informal interviews with friends he had made from around the world, Gifford started to identify trends and elements young performers felt were lacking in theatre.
“We kept coming back to these ideas of representation, sustainability, belonging and inclusion; who is theatre for and who gets left out,” Gifford said. “The culmination of these conversations led to the beginning of a theatre company. At the time, it was designed to be a creative playground for early career artists.”
And so, Southern Plains Productions was born. Its mission is to reimagine live theatre with innovative artistic experiences that spark conversations and bring the Oklahoma City community together, a process its members have continued to improve upon each season.
“Our first season was just Small Mouth Sounds by Bess Wohl in May of 2021,” Gifford explained. “We figured that we would try our best and see what happened. It was an epic fail, but in the best way possible.”
What may have seemed like a failure at the time has turned into a professional theatre company, with exciting productions of work not typically performed in Oklahoma. “Since our inception we have gone through several transitions,” Gifford said. “We began as a creative playground and then moved into a summer stock company. We have now grown into a year-round, nationally recognized, equity regional theatre.”
This season begins with Dead as a Dodo, written and directed by Gwendolyn Warnock and Kirjan Waage. From Oct. 23 to 25, Southern Plains has brought the off-Broadway production of this musical to the Te Ata Theatre at Oklahoma Contemporary in partnership with Wakka Wakka Theatre Company. Described by Gifford as “a Pixar film brought to life on stage,” Dead as a Dodo tells the story of a young boy and his dodo bird best friend, who are both dead and living in the underworld. The dodo begins to sprout feathers and the duo sets out on a journey to reunite with the world of the living. “It is a beautiful way of explaining death to audience 7 and up. It is visually stunning, with gorgeous projections and award-winning puppetry.”
Next Spring, Southern Plains, in partnership with Arts Council Oklahoma City’s Art Moves initiative, is launching its Storypop program, designed to bring theatre into new spaces and eliminate costs for one show a season. Where Did We Sit on the Bus? by Brian Quijada, going on tour to local middle schools, high schools and community centers next March and April, will be completely free for audiences. Where Did We Sit on the Bus? features one performer who uses audio looping as a tool to tell the real-life story of Quijada and what it means to grow up as a Latinx immigrant in America.
The season closes May 28 to June 6 with Jason Robert Brown’s heartbreaking musical The Last Five Years starring Oklahoma City native and Broadway star Erin Elizabeth Clemons. “It will be a departure from the traditional version, but the elements that fans love about the show will still be there” Gifford said.
“Our shows feature strong storytelling through high-quality performances,” Gifford concluded. “We’re building something new; a fresh kind of theater experience made for this community, with room for more voices and perspectives than ever before.”
