The Roving Peregrine Theatre Company describes itself as a theater space where all are welcome to learn, grow and wander. The company held a ribbon cutting in November 2024 to welcome the community to its new home at the Black Box Arts Center at 113 South Princess Street in Shepherdstown. Since then it’s been a flurry of activity, with youth theater, holiday events, and planning for a full calendar of performances in 2025.
“The Sweet Science of Bruising” will kick off Roving Peregrine’s 2025 season, with shows on March 7, 8, 9, 14, 15, and 16. Joy Wilkinson’s play is set in London, circa 1869. Four very different Victorian women are drawn into the dark underground world of female boxing by the eccentric Professor Sharp. Controlled by men and constrained by corsets, each finds an unexpected freedom in the boxing ring. As their lives begin to intertwine, their journey takes the audience through grand drawing rooms, bustling theatres, and rowdy Southwark pubs, where the women fight inequality as well as each other.
Auditions for “Civil” by Rob Matsushita will be held at 7:00 pm on March 24 and 25. The play is set in an unspecified future, where trials are held in a virtual environment, and can only be 40 minutes long. The audience votes on the outcomes of both trials.
Roving Peregrine also holds regular “No Shame Theater” events on the first Friday of each month. Described as open mic for theater, these events have only three rules: It must be original; No breaking anything including yourself & the Law; and No more than 5 minutes. A special Valentine’s weekend No Shame Theater event will be held on February 15.
Information all of Roving Peregrine’s programming, auditions, workshops, youth programs, and No Shame Theatre is available at RovingPeregrineTheatre.org.
By Staff Contributor