Students ‘Dare’ To Create

Pace University Artists Run Non-Profit Theatre Company

College students have enough on their plate with class, internships, and extra-curricular activities. But a group of students at Pace University aren’t just going to their 9 AM classes; they’re running a theater company from their dorm rooms.

The Dare Tactic, a not-for-profit theatre company based in New York City, just opened their spring season; founders Quentin Madia(20), Vinny Eden Ortega(21), and Giovanni Patrick(22), went from classmates to business partners and have now embarked on two-and-a-half-years of business together. The founders are supported by a staff of 8 other students, with an intern position currently being developed.

Madia, Ortega, and Patrick are students in the B.A. Acting/Directing: International Performance Ensemble Program with Pace Performing Arts. “The B.A. [IPE Program] gives you two years of ground work in devising, story telling, and company structure,” says Ortega. “We’re a random group of 18 people in our ensemble, and it just so happened within that [group], the three of us came together. [In] two years of creating work you see how other people work [and] who you want to collaborate with. People collect to different styles, and the three of us just connected.”

The Dare Tactic is a non-profit arts organization that works to stage innovative productions, and develop outreach programs that explores artistic expression.

The Dare Tactic produces both classics and original work. “‘I have this idea, I don’t know if it’s actually gonna work,’ and then [we say]‘okay, I dare you to do it. You’re gonna create that idea, and if it doesn’t work, oh well,’” Madia explains. “That’s one of the things that will never change about [The Dare Tactic], this positive idea that you have this idea for a show, maybe it’s not even written yet, but the show is in three weeks, go!”

Outreach programming ranges from working with high school students who have never been exposed to theater, to their latest project, developing curriculum for dementia patients and putting on a musical with them. “We’re doing something a lot of people don’t think is possible,” Patrick says. “Bridging together the worlds of academia, medicine, and theater, of which there is no set standard, which is really exciting!”

For more information on The Dare Tactic follow them on Facebook, or email thedaretactic@gmail.com