From 1986-1992 Quinapalus Theatre Company presented primarily Shakespeare productions in various theater spaces in Manhattan. I founded the company, served as Artistic Director, acted in many of the productions, Directed several, designed some, and built all of them (luckily not all my myself).
We appropriated our name from that of the imaginary philosopher cited by Feste in Shakespear's TWELFTH NIGHT. He quotes "Better a Witty fool, than a foolish wit" and we took that as our unofficial motto, hoping always to try to be entertaining and insightful doing classics without being bookish or snobby.
Please click on the show's logo to see production photos and more info.
Our first production, directed by Eric Hoffman at the Pearl Theatre's old space on 22nd street was set in the Jazz age
The next year had David Jones directing Richard III 
running in rep with BROTHERS KEEPER choreographed by Janet Rust (actually still Thorstenson, then)
After a brief hiatus to get married we first workshopped and worked on as a staged reading my adaption of
MOBY DICK, which I also directed at the Broadway Playhouse (the same space Janet and I got married in)
After that successful production we again workshoped and did a reading before bringing to full production my Reversed Gender production of...
The following year we engaged the Walker Street Theater for a full season of three shows:
Three Men On A Horse
directed by Joel Friedman 
MACBETH
which I directed 
and TARTUFFE directed by
Tim Zay 
Our Final Season : I directed THE
TEMPEST 
and Joe Garen directed The ROVER
During the next couple of years we continued doing workshops and classes, and a series of readings at Pace University. Tim Zay and myself wrote book and lyrics for THE DREAD PIRATE QUEEN, a musical we were unable to stage as our composer never finished his end... if you know of a good musical composer, please put them in touch with us, as we'd love to get that project back in the works!
Finally, after a fruitless search for our own space, we closed the doors on Quinapalus, though it will always live dearly in our hearts (We still have tshirts with that lovely logo designed by Doug Hout if anyone wants a piece of American Theatre History)
PHOTOS FOR QUINAPALUS THEATRE COMPANY BY BONNIE KALISHER AND ANTHONY FERRER
