The Constellation Theatre Company’s promotional team has officially outdone its 2013 Gilgamesh bar crawl. On Sunday, it will be hosting two real-life ponies outside of its 14th street location to advertise its run of the play Equus, which started previews on Wednesday.
“It’s a play about horses as well as religion and families and psychology and romance,” says Constellation’s Artistic Director Allison Stockman.
Stockman predicts that Sunday’s “pony pop up,” which is free and open to the public, will be “a great event for families and kids of all ages.” The play, however, is way less innocuous. Peter Shaffer’s Equus, which won a Tony award in 1975, is a dark drama about a teenager driven to violence by his twisted equine obsession. “It’s definitely a 16-and-up kind of play,” says Stockman.
The ponies in Sunday’s pop up are not the first live animals to take part in a Constellation Theatre event. Last year, the company adopted a cat from the Washington Humane Society for use in the production of Martin McDonagh’s The Lieutenant of Inishmore. However, unlike that production, the animals you’ll see on Sunday are strictly for advertising (and petting) purposes.
“We thought it would be nice if we could let the neighborhood meet some horses,” says Stockman.
The Pony Pop Up will be held from 12-3PM on Sunday, January 17 at Source. Equus opens that night and runs through February 14.
