There’s a theater-in-progress coming to life inside an old historic church in Farmersburg, Indiana — and its mission is to produce only original works.
Farmersburg Theater, which is a woman- and queer-owned theater, officially opened in 2025. Artistic Director Victoria Goring bought the building in 2024 and has been renovating it alongside marketing and outreach coordinator Chrysalis Goring, while producing shows and hosting community workshops ever since.
“We’re very excited to have this beautiful theater space … It is in a state of ongoing renovations, so it’s not finished per se, but enough of it is finished, so we can have a show,” Victoria Goring said. “For example, we have our portable lights, we don’t have our permanent grid yet, and then we have a Haunted House Theater tour that this year will be our second year running.”
Farmersburg Theater is technically only a little over a year old, but the Gorings are no strangers to producing, writing, directing and well, everything else it takes to put a show together. Chrysalis Goring, a published poet and recent graduate of Cornell University, said the company’s mission to produce original work, whether scripted, unscripted or interactive, comes from a place of championing new art.
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Victoria Goring, an award-winning playwright herself, said the emphasis on original works comes at a time when community theaters are doing fewer new works in favor of more traditional productions or “tried and true” musicals. Farmersburg Theater puts on two productions a year in addition to “Out of Your Senses,” an interactive, theatrical haunted house/escape room experience.
“Improvsburg,” which runs Thursday through Sunday, June 18-28, is an improvisational, comedy game show with a revolving cast and audience volunteers.
“If you’ve ever seen Dropout TV, if you’ve seen Game Changer, it’s a little bit like that,” Victoria Goring said. “We have the theater set up like a lounge, so it’s not set up like a traditional theater, so you have sofas and a mocktail bar, because we don’t have alcohol here on purpose. It’s set up as a really fun, little comedy lounge/TV studio where you get to be the live audience.”
Even the host changes from night to night, so audiences could attend several performances and get a completely different show depending on the prompts, contestants and improvised ideas.
After “Improvsburg” closes in Farmersburg, Victoria and Chrysalis Goring will tour with the show, presenting it at the BorderLight Festival in Cleveland, Ohio, and St. Louis Fringe Fest. Later in the summer, “Last Ride” will take the stage.
While there is value in shows that have already been workshopped or produced, Chrysalis Goring said there are so many “future wonderful shows” currently being written that struggle to get produced, especially in the age of TikTok and streaming.
“I find personally what really connects with people and brings new audiences of different ages, backgrounds, especially in rural places and small towns, is new and original theater, and having an opportunity for people to bring art that hasn’t been seen yet,” Chrysalis Goring said. “So, I think that that is just as valid.”
Farmersburg Theater isn’t just a home for original art in the form of live theater; Victoria and Chrysalis said they go so far as to create all their costumes, props and sets themselves. They even use recycled materials for “Out of Your Senses.”
Outside of the theater, the Gorings also teach all-ages playwriting, poetry, improv and stage combat workshops in schools and libraries. The stage combat workshop is the most popular because “everybody loves to wield the sword,” Victoria Goring said. However, because they’re both women, the Gorings designed the workshop with no winners, where “everybody dies at the end” to avoid glorifying violence.
Running a women- and queer- centered theater has not been an easy road, Chrysalis Goring said. In fact, the one thing that they get the most attention for is the rainbow that the Gorings painted on the private sidewalk outside the theater.
“We’re the only rainbow sidewalk in Sullivan County,” Victoria Goring said. “I won’t lie, we get a lot of hate speech, there’s a lot of terrible things that people write about us online. …Our rainbow is here to stay. Pride Day is every day, that doesn’t go away.”
However, the Gorings also receive comments from people who are supportive of their work and of what the theater and the rainbow represent for their small community and beyond.
“We also get people reaching out every now and again, being like, ‘we’re so happy that you’re doing this. It’s great to see, this is something we don’t normally see here, or in small towns, and it’s lovely to have the space,’” Chrysalis Goring added.
Because at the end of the day, theater should unite people, Victoria Goring said. People of all political, religious or racial backgrounds should be able to walk into a theater or creative space, sit and enjoy a dramatic or funny story for a few hours.
“I feel like theater is very unified because you’re all here for a common goal, and if everybody’s laughing at us, we are fine with that,” Victoria Goring said. “So, theater is a very unifying universal joy, I mean, that’s what it should be. So, if everybody is walking through the door just to have a fun experience, it’s not about politics or religion or sex or anything.”
Theater also creates a space for empathy, especially through comedy, Chrysalis Goring said. One of the biggest things about the theater is its ability to create gateways for people to explore and empathize with characters and stories that are “different from you.”
“I think it automatically makes people more open-minded and more kind or empathetic,” Chrysalis Goring said. “It’s a way to put yourself in the shoes of a story that you might not have any experience with yourself, and that’s wonderful … and I think that’s really important right now.”
“Improvsburg” is onstage June 18-28. The show is approximately one hour long, and features “anything goes” performances on Thursdays and Fridays, and “clean comedy” nights on Saturdays and Sundays. Tickets are $20.
For more information, visit farmersburgtheater.org.
Contact Arts & Culture Reporter Chloe McGowan at 317-762-7848. Follow her on X @chloe_mcgowanxx.
Chloe McGowan is the Arts & Culture Reporter for the Indianapolis Recorder Newspaper. Originally from Columbus, OH, Chloe has a bachelor's in journalism from The Ohio State University. She is a former IndyStar Pulliam Fellow, and has previously worked for Indy Maven, The Lantern, and CityScene Media Group. In her free time, Chloe enjoys live theatre, reading, baking and keeping her plants alive.
