FSU School of Communication Professor, Donna Marie Nudd, co-founded one of Tallahassee’s most unique groups of performers: the Mickee Faust Club. Priding itself on being supportive of people with disabilities and of the queer community, the Mickee Faust Club is a rabble-rousing community theater that has been staging original cabarets in the Deep South since 1987.
The Club has received much recognition for its creative work and inclusivity for over three decades, and early this month, the Club earned a prestigious national award. The Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE) honored the Mickee Faust Club with the award for “Leadership in Community Based Theatre and Civic Engagement.”
“For over thirty years, I’ve lived in two worlds; there’s my day job–teaching in the School of Communication and my nighttime volunteer job– directing/performing/grantwriting/producing for the Mickee Faust Club,” Dr. Nudd shared. Having ATHE, a prestigious organization associated with higher education, acknowledge the Mickee Faust Club for its ‘Leadership in Community Based Theatre and Civic Engagement’ honors and reconciles both my worlds.”
Read on to learn more about the Mickee Faust Club and their recent place in the spotlight.
Contact: Terry Galloway TLGalloway@aol.com
850-524-0768
August 3, 2018
THE MICKEE FAUST CLUB WINS PRESTIGIOUS NATIONAL AWARD
We are pleased to announce that the Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE) has presented the Mickee Faust Club with one of its most prestigious awards.
The Award for “Leadership in Community Based Theatre and Civic Engagement” honors community theaters that do important work but are less well known. Part of the criteria for this award is artistic excellence, innovation of approach, regional impact and depth of civic dialogue.
Faust is proud to receive this exceptionally competitive national award. Faust found itself in the distinguished company of 10 other ATHE awardees ranging from a Yale Professor Emerita to two Pulitzer Prize winners in playwriting.
Accepting on behalf of the company were the co-founders: Professor of Communication at FSU, Dr. Donna Marie Nudd, and writer and performance artist, Terry Galloway.
During the public ceremony in Boston, Massachusetts, the Mickee Faust Club, Tallahassee’s own 31-year old “community theater for the weird & queer community” was hailed as ” a trail blazer that is still trail blazing.”
The Mickee Faust Club, which makes its home at the Railroad Square Art Park on the Southside, has been staging rabble-rousing original cabarets in the Deep South since 1987. Its mission is to provide a non-traditional performance venue that allows many different kinds of people to develop their own creative voices through theater, radio, film and performance events.
Faust was nominated for the award by Dr. Leah Lowe, Chair of Theater at Vanderbilt University. She gathered letters of support from a range of people, including critics, academics, board members, audiences, and participants.
Faust, an all-volunteer, non-profit collective, has been especially supportive of people from the LGBTQ community and people with disabilities. However, as one supporter wrote, “Faust is not an organization whose mission is to provide support and service for the disabled. It is a group of inspiring, innovative people who want to create great theater and recognize that everyone can contribute. “
This Faustian ethic of accommodation has been recognized by two other major awards in as many years—Equality Florida’s Lifetime Achievement Award; and the Florida Division of Culture Affairs’ Diversity and Inclusion Award. Faust has also received invaluable support over the years from Tallahassee’s Council on Culture & Arts (COCA). Other long term supporters of Faust are the Florida State University’s School of Communication, the North Florida Community Foundation (supported by Janet Hinkle), The Goody Two Shoes Foundation and the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation.
The name Mickee Faust derives from a certain unctuous rodent living in its own magic kingdom in Orlando and Goethe’s good German doctor whose struggles with the devil are said to mirror the group’s own. Mickee Faust, the figurehead, is the illegitimate, foul-mouth, gender-fluid rat sibling of the better-roomed Disney creation.
“Orlando,” wrote another supporter, “may have its mouse. But Tallahassee is lucky to have its very own rat.”
The next Mickee Faust production will be its Murderous Movable Macbeth, An indoor/outdoor, site specific Faustian take on one of Shakespeare’s bloodiest, shortest plays. Murderous Moveable Macbeth will put the “er” in Dinn-er Theater, offering a delicious Medieval-themed banquet accompanied by 11th century Scottish musical entertainment. Join us in November and see for yourself why the company has been honored for its theatrical innovation and its sense of fun.