We met at various stages of life, from childhood friends, to high school classmates, or college peers. While most of these relationships started in school, Shelby doesn't limit its membership. We are always looking to stretch and grow with artists all around the world. Ultimately, we created this company and this play series to highlight work that is outside the mainstream and is vital to the future of theater.

Shelby Company's goal is to produce complex and dynamic works for the stage. We want to focus on plays that come alive in performance, with stunning visuals that push the boundaries of theater. Being playwright-centric, we want to avoid the pitfalls of endless staged readings and to see plays fully realized. We see plays as living vital things that must grow. Having actors reading scripts behind music stands will not achieve visuals like underwater ballet in The Luck of the Ibis, or quirky character moments in You May Be Splendid Now.

While we are based in New York City, Shelby Company has many members in California also. We are dedicated to bringing our aesthetic to the whole country. We feel that the widest range of audiences should see good theater; an audience shouldn't have to come out to LA or NYC to see great theater. We hope to tour nationally, and eventually internationally, with our Shelby Company productions.

The Internet has really made communication much easier between the fellow artists. Raphael [Bob-Waksberg, playwright of The Mike and Morgan Show] was in California for much of the pre-production, but was able to stay connected to his NYC-based director. John Balicanta, an LA native, was able to compose and send original music for Luck of the Ibis without leaving his city. Many of the designers for the series were found online. The Internet has made the world smaller and allowed artists from across the country to connect in new and exciting ways. It is a great tool for keeping in touch and keeping people abreast of our work.

In creating Great ScoT, we didn't want to give our playwrights a topic or assignment. We wanted our writers to express their imagination any way they could. What was surprising and exciting was that once the scripts were set we found a connection between all the pieces. While they are each full and complete evenings of theater on their own, together they form a unique portrait about what people must give up and what we hold on to in a cruel and petty world. All of them deal with the seemingly silly personal things that the characters believe are vital to their survival. Skip Carter, the protagonist of You May Be Splendid Now, is dedicated to his low-rated UHF television show. The play that Mike creates about Morgan is full of the complex issues of letting go of the past. The Jones sisters' very survival in Ibis is predicated on their imagined world of detectives, shrimp, and a magical squeezebox. Ultimately, they are stories of our world told in funny, touching, zany, and fantastical ways. We hope people see all three; they form a wonderful package of the sad and beautiful world in which we live and where we think theater is heading.