Theater company sets sight on higher goals

Brady Fordin and Emily Anderson, co-founders of Hanged Man Productions, don't plan on retiring with wealth earned from the modest theater production company they founded this past summer in Elko.

Instead, the duo hopes to save enough through teaching theater classes and putting on small-scale productions to create a traveling theater company that plays to other rural Nevada towns and fund their entry into the independent film festival circuit.

Hanged Man Productions kicked off its first play Nov. 15 with "Welcome to Rex's!" The production, written and directed by Anderson, is a slapstick murder mystery set in the 1920s prohibition area. The play was held at the 90-seat theater at Northeastern Nevada Museum, and about 50 theatergoers paid $10 each to see the play on its opening night. Subsequent runs were equally well attended, Fordin says.

The owners also teach youth acting and stage makeup application classes at their studio on 176 S. Fifth St. to supplement their income while they write material for future plays.

The larger goal, Fordin adds, is to fund the creation of a documentary about creative ways people across the nation are supplementing their incomes during difficult economic times.

Fordin and Anderson met attending film school in Los Angeles. Fordin says that after a few years of spinning her wheels doing freelance production work she moved back to Elko to launch the project.

"Most of time when you say you are doing something with the arts, people think you are a non-profit," Fordin says. "It's nice to show that there is money in the arts and that we can make money from a theater production like this."