Mission:
To enhance the lives of those in New Hampshire and the wider community by fostering and furthering the art, craft, and appreciation of theatre through training and performance of true and genuine currency.
Name:
The name truepenny arts draws from two sources:
Hamlet’s question to the ghost of his father following their first meeting, “Art thou there, truepenny?”, “truepenny” meaning a trustworthy, honest, or reliable person (as in a coin of genuine metal)
En Garde Arts, the visionary and, from 1985-99, first exclusively site-specific theatre in New York City, reinitiated in 2014 to develop “theatre that has social change as its core.”
This combination reflects the high priority truepenny places on individual, institutional, and aesthetic integrity.
truepenny is committed to:
Putting people before things, both institutionally and aesthetically.
Prioritizing quality over quantity, in relation to production as well as institutional development.
The importance of craft in the fostering and furthering of artistic creation.
The value of the artist’s sensibility, in aesthetic as well as institutional choices.
Statement of Antiracist Position and Action: Informed and moved by the activism of We See You White American Theater, Stop AAPI Hate, the writing of Ibram X. Kendi, and others, truepenny arts actively seeks to attract and engage — and welcomes the interests and concerns of — artists and audiences of color; and is committed to further educating itself regarding — and to prioritizing antiracist policies and actions that respond to and address — the historical and ongoing untenable state of affairs for people of color in the United States and other countries around the world.
People:
Education
MASTER OF FINE ARTS
American Repertory Theatre/Moscow Art Theatre School Institute for Advanced Theatre Training at Harvard University
MASTER OF ARTS, THEATRE STUDIES
Brown University
TRINITY REP CONSERVATORY, Certificate, Acting/Directing
CERTIFICATIONS:
Certified Lessac Trainer
Associate Teacher of Fitzmaurice Voicework®
Michael Cobb
Educational and Artistic Director
Michael has appeared in leading and featured roles at Tony Award-winning Trinity Rep, where he was a member of the resident acting company under both Adrian Hall and Anne Bogart, at the Dallas Theatre Center, and on PBS, among many others. He has been directed by and acted opposite Academy Award and Tony alumni in large and small cast shows, and directed, produced, and performed in theatre and dance/theatre works both independently and for others, including a stint as Director/Executive Producer of the (now) Gamm Theatre in Rhode Island, where he helped re-establish a resident company.
He has served as production vocal coach at the Guthrie Theater, the American Repertory Theatre, and Denver Center for the Performing Arts, and for directors Robert Woodruff, Libby Appel, Mark Wing-Davey, Valerie Curtis-Newton, Martha Clarke, Dominique Serrand, and Ethan McSweeney. He served for seven years as the Head of Voice, Speech, and Text at the National Theatre Conservatory in Denver until its closing, and has also taught all levels of acting and voice full-time for the University of Minnesota/Guthrie Theater B.F.A. Actor’s Training Program, the B.F.A. Actor and Musical Theatre Training Programs at the University of Utah, the M.F.A and B.A. programs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and at Saint Lawrence University, the State University of New York at Potsdam, and Rhode Island College.
In New Hampshire, Michael’s producing/directing credits for truepenny include How It Works at Hatbox Theatre and The Good Thief (also performed) through Broadway On Demand. He has appeared in Tongue Mountain Productions’ Home Burial (Best Short, Denver Movie Awards), Lord Burghley in New World Theater’s world premiere of Holy and Unruly at Hatbox, as Andy Warhol in Lend Me A Theater’s world premiere of The World Was Yours, and directed Murder On The Nile at the Winnepesaukee Playhouse, and taught workshops on Acting, Acting Shakespeare, Voice, Speech, Text, Poetry Out Loud, and Presentation Skills/Oral Advocacy for the Lessac Research and Training Institute, New Hampshire Theatre Project, Hatbox, UNH School of Law, and area high schools. Michael is a Teaching Artist on the Arts Education Roster for the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts.
Press:
