About Us
Mission
Goals
- Energizing the lives of our audiences, artists, and students
- Raising the quality and accessibility of arts, arts education, and arts services in Central and Western Maryland
- Amplifying other mission-aligned organizations and businesses in our community
- Positively impacting community discourse
Values
- Grounds itself in storytelling, empathy, and humanizing each other
- Nurtures a culture of inclusivity and connectedness by: cultivating curiosity, collaboration, and communication; seeking out diversity of thought, culture, background, and perspective; and reducing barriers to participation
- Integrates best practices and professionalism at all levels of participation, with a lifelong learning approach to questioning and improving those practices
- Prioritizes full spectrum programming, practices color conscious casting, honors all gender identities, and chooses material that allows for a range of expression
- Actively engages in conversations on community needs and respects students’ personal and religious boundaries
- Includes historical context as a vital part of programming for all disciplines
Venues
The Field Performing Arts Center is a new venue coming in late 2023 that will provide a focal point for creative collaboration in Frederick County, serve as a home for select Free Range Humans productions and programs, hosts several resident nonprofit arts organizations and provide a low barrier venue for independent artists and media makers.
Free Range Humans and The Field Performing Arts Center is a project in partnership with The Fredericktowne Players, the oldest theatrical organization in Frederick. FtP will be an integral part of getting The Field up and running, and will use The Field as their home base for both production and performance.
The Free Range Kids Venue, being rebranded as The Treehouse Studio, hosts many of our Free Range Kids & Teens educational programs, presents performances for young audiences, serves as a platform for arts outreach to new audiences and provides a low-barrier space for other artists to offer classes and events. The Treehouse also offers a unique selection of performing arts tools, tricks, and toys, including a wide selection of quality creative play items for kids.
Programs
Free Range Humans redefines the limits of theatrical experience by immersing audiences and participants in stories that fire the imagination, celebrate the human search for meaning, and awaken our sense of communal storytelling through exhilarating Theatrical Productions, Space Activations, and Experiential Media.
Free Range Kids & Teens enables Young Artists, Creative Thinkers, and Leaders to find and elevate their unique voices and skills through creator-based performing arts education.
Our Performance Programs inspire students to explore creativity and self-expression while learning stage presence, vocal strength, physical confidence, and emotional intelligence in an environment that emphasizes professionalism, collaboration, and joy.
Our Pre-K and Early Elementary programs focus on teaching basic theatre, music, and movement concepts through storytelling and play, encouraging students to find and value their voices, thoughts, and feelings, and exposing students to quality age-appropriate artists.
Our Upper Elementary and Middle School programs explore a wide variety of storytelling tools and disciplines to encourage creativity, technical ability, and collaboration, and spark deeper interest in personal expression.
Free Range Teens programs give students a platform where they can refine skills, initiate projects, and work as part of a team in a social, supportive, and creative environment.
High School programs explore content and technical skills that are outside the scope of public school programming and provide highly interested high school students with student-led creative and performing leadership opportunities.
Our Pre-Professional program offers high-level individual coaching and enables teens to work alongside professional artists doing Free Range Humans shows.
People
Elizabeth Lucas, Producing Artistic Director
Elizabeth Lucas (she/her) is a stage and screen director, producer, and creative entrepreneur and the Founder of Free Range Humans. At heart a storyteller, Elizabeth crosses media boundaries to let story lead form, whether a story wants to be told live or on screen, in a theatre or in an abandoned building, with a fourth wall or entirely immersive. She is a Founding Producer of the New York Musical Theatre Festival and the first Producing Artistic Director of New Spire Arts. Elizabeth has nurtured countless new works at every stage of development, including her own original movie musical. She has been warmly reviewed by the New York Times for her musical theatre directing and original narratives, working with Tony-winning talent and Broadway writers from NYC to Alaska.
Gena, Mark, Grace, & Grant Lohr
Circus Arts Partners, Teachers, & Performers + Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Masters
Our earliest mission-aligned partner, Theatricks, created by the multitalented Lohr family, leads all Circus Arts programs. Theatricks is a performance and educational company that recognizes the values of art and culture as powerful agents in the education of all young people, producing knowledge, self-awareness and promoting the interchange of ideas and experiences.
Marci Shegogue
Music Director
Marci Shegogue [Bio to Come]
Jake Young
Theatre Teacher
Jake Young [Bio to Come]