Ursa Major was founded in 1993 in London, soon after its artistic director, John Longebaugh, graduated from the Central School of Speech and Drama’s directing course. Here’s our mission statement:

The Company aims to provide professional theatre in an exciting and original manner, with an emphasis on new plays (performed as playreadings and full-scale productions) and reinterpretations of the classics, particularly the plays of the Ancient Greeks and those of Shakespeare. The Company will promote cross-cultural exchange between the best of new British writing and the best of new American writing.

Ursa Major is dragged out of the theatrical trunk every once in a while when the artistic director feels like producing a new show. Here’s a list of past productions, all directed, unless otherwise noted, by John.

These productions won a number of critical awards, including Critic’s Choice from London’s Time Out Magazine (Titus Andronicus), weekly theatre pick from the Seattle Times (Scotch and Donuts), and semi-finalist for Artistic Pick at Seattle’s Fringe Festival (Lilac Winter). We are proud of producing original works that respond directly to our local community, as well as original adaptations of classical texts that focus on the piece’s current social and political relevance. Our productions have been well-attended, well-respected, and at times have even made something approaching a profit.

In addition, we co-sponsored with the Northwest Playwrights Guild a long-running bi-weekly playreading workshop, which ran from mid-1996 to late 1999. Playwrights whose works went on to full productions with Ursa Major or other theatre companies included Patrick Scott, Vince Delaney, Ted Dace, Brent Hartinger, and Jusef El Guindi.