Hartbeat Ensemble

HartBeat Ensemble is the capital city’s professional theatre for the community—currently celebrating it’s tenth season. Unlike many of the state’s stage companies, Hartbeat digs into Greater Hartford’s people and its stories, both past and present — using drama, physical theater, comedy, and music to bring audiences together beyond the barriers of gender, class, and race.

Their hope is to inspire individuals toward meaningful social change with work that draws from styles such as hip-hop theater, commedia dell ‘arte, musical theater, realism, and documentary drama. Ed Wierzbicki visits with founding members of the company, and bring us a performance of the company’s recent return engagement of the critically acclaimed “Flipside”—a hip hop musical drama about the war on drugs.