Three Stories High Theatre Festival: Downtown Lafayette

This is all your fault.

Let me explain. We’re always looking for fascinating artists to bring into our community. Each time we’ve thrown the range of possible experiences even wider, you’ve rushed right in and made it a success. We hosted a brilliant, surreal outdoor spectacle with Australia’s Strange Fruit, and you clamored for more. We’ve ventured into both new and non-traditional spaces with two productions from the National Theatre of Scotland (Long Gone Lonesome and The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart), and you were deliriously enthralled. We delved into non-verbal physical theatre with LEO, and you were mesmerized. We launched into comically low-tech, devised theatre with Oxford Playhouse’s One Small Step, and you were over (and on) the moon. Truth be told, we’re all hooked.

This year, let’s venture further into this realm by examining a key quality of the world’s great festivals—immersion. Regardless of genre, festivals are places to push back everyday life’s boundaries and concerns to dive into a new, alternate world. Ultimately, time is one of our most precious commodities—a true luxury through which you can encounter more than one artist in a day and that you can fill time between performances with friends, lively discussion, food, and drink. In other words, it’s a conscious choice to merge so many of your favorite pastimes into one experience. It’s the freedom of giving yourself permission to leave other things behind and the fraternity of others who have joined you.

With 3 Stories High, we’re adding to the already-growing energy of downtown Lafayette. This collection of festival-length shows have shorter running times (60 to 90 minutes), so put on your coat, come on down, and see the shows all on one night, or see them on successive nights. Hit your favorite restaurants and pubs. Bring your friends. Join the scene. Because, after all, this really is all your fault.

—Todd Wetzel, Director