Shoestring Virtual Theater was founded in the spring 2021. We are dedicated to experimental theater with content that promotes protection of the planet and support for economic justice and the social good. We create films using of a wide range of techniques and technologies in what has come to be known as "virtual theater."
FOUR PLAYS FOR A PLANET IN PERIL was produced entirely during the COVID-19 pandemic. Given the constraints of this period, our production process was new and challenging. Rehearsals took place primarily via Zoom. Several of our actors rehearsed and/or filmed themselves using green screen technology. Filming took place over four months in the spring 2021 in a well-ventilated quasi-outdoor space in our barn, as well as on location. The film creation process was highly complex, utilizing a combination of green screen and outdoor/on-location filming sessions with the actors, self-filming and/or audio recording by the actors themselves, photography and video by our producer or licensed from others, and licensed music and sound effects. More.
Janet Murphy Robertson is the Executive Director and Founder of ArtistsAndMusicians.org, the producer of Shoestring Virtual Theater, as well as documentaries, stage plays, concerts, and other cultural events. We work collaboratively with clients on the whole range of activities vital to a successful production—from marketing, PR, and business planning to photography, videography, sound effects, set design, and the sweeping of floors. A & M’s clients are located primarily in the NorthEast and include writers, actors, musicians, visual artists, architects, and other creative individuals who are exceptionally talented and striving for the social good.
Since landing on the Cape a decade ago, Janet has filmed and produced the documentary Icons of the Civil Rights Movement, helping to put the spotlight on Pamela Chatterton-Purdy’s magnificent art exhibition by this name. She also became the documentarian for Zion Union Heritage Museum in Hyannis, MA and researched, wrote, narrated, filmed, and produced Journeys in the Light, the 400-year history of people of color on Cape Cod. Today Janet and her associates do PR and marketing work for some of the leading artists and musicians on Cape Cod and around the country.
Janet's production credits also include several highly successful runs of A Woman's Heart by Judith Partelow and the musical version by Judith Partelow and Dana McCoy; and Three Viewings by Jeffrey Hatcher, Sorry Wrong Number by Lucille Fletcher, The House of Atreus: From Tantalus through the Trial of Orestes by Elsa Bastone, Mick Ryan's Lament by Robert Emmet Dunlap and Kathi Taylor, and numerous other plays and concerts presented on the beautiful stage of the Jacob Sears Library in East Dennis, MA.
In her prior life, Janet was a senior consultant with Coopers & Lybrand (later PwC), Vice President of two major retail companies, and President of the retail consulting firm Ogden Associates where she learned to juggle massive amounts of work, manage impossibly difficult projects, and routinely handle major responsibilities where she was clearly over her head.
Janet is a graduate of Vassar College where she majored in Philosophy and learned that you can do many things if you think like crazy and work like mad. She did graduate work at Drew University and the University of Paris and is a Green Belt in the world class quality improvement methodology Six Sigma.
Journeys in the Light shows how present-day Cape Codders and their ancestors struggled to bring to reality the promise of America that was set down on a ship in Cape Cod Bay in 1620: “just and equal laws for the general good.” The film’s title takes inspiration from a quote from Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.: "Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.” View the trailer here.
Organized into fifteen short chapters, the film moves from early segments like “Pilgrims and People of the First Light” through “The Road to Freedom” and “Journeys to the North” and on to “Fighting for Civil Rights” and “Moving Communities Forward.” The stories are brought to life by the artwork of Pamela Chatterton-Purdy (see below), Carl Lopes (see cover art), Robin Joyce Miller, and other artists working on Cape Cod. Their spectacular work can be viewed at the Zion Union Heritage Museum in Hyannis, MA.
While addressing frankly such little-known facts as the existence of slavery on Cape Cod during the Colonial Period, the documentary highlights the courageous individuals who led the fight for freedom, strove for education and economic progress, transformed oppression into brilliant forms of creative expression, served the country in every war, and came to excel in sports, entrepreneurship, teaching, the arts, community service, and various other professions on Cape Cod and around the country.
The film was researched, narrated, filmed, and directed by Janet Murphy Robertson and produced in collaboration with John L. Reed, Executive Director of Zion Union Heritage Museum, Hyannis, MA.
Our earlier documentary, Icons of the Civil Rights Movement, is based on the stunning art and historical exhibition by this name. For more about these two documentaries, please click here: More
