We Were Friends: a 12-part play series

Firelight’s Signature 12-part play series.

We Were Friends, a 12-part episodic play series, is Firelight's creative reimagining of Margaret Fuller and Ralph Waldo Emerson's profound friendship -- set in today’s world. Fuller, an activist and journalist, and Emerson, a Transcendentalist essayist and poet, shared an enigmatic + platonic friendship for fourteen years. Installments moved non-chronologically and were experienced site-specifically with humor, tension, intimacy, and big ideas.

The 12-part live series was written + performed over six years (2018-2024) in non-traditional, site-specific environments. Audiences have peeked in on Margaret and Ralph’s encounters at their birthday picnic, when they're hard at work, on a late night phone call, searching for a lost metal treasure in a pile of snow, during a power outage, in a waiting room after Margaret’s untimely death. They’ve even wrestled each other late at night in Ralph’s garage. During the pandemic, Firelight continued to share the story of Margaret and Ralph using storytelling modes that didn’t require live gathering: by car radio, snail mail, and video.

Since the completion of the cycle, We Were Friends has toured to The Concord Museum in Concord, MA, where we have performed episodes in Ralph Waldo Emerson’s historic barn and on his orchard lawn.

The live episodic experience is co-written by Henry Walters, Jason Lambert (Ralph), and Nora Fiffer (Margaret).

For publication + licensing inquiries, please reach out to Firelight.

How + Why We Make This.

Live theatre is ephemeral. But let us try to give you a sense of We Were Friends. We want to share the hows + whats + whys of each episode with you, Reader! We’ll share one:

Audience takes a seat inside the local bagel shop -- rarely open at night. They face a table-for-two by the window.

Ralph enters from the restroom behind the audience and heads outside into the winter night. A quiet employee finishes cleaning, hits the lights, locks up, and leaves. The audience, seated alone in the dark, can see nothing but the illuminated parking lot through an oversized picture window. They see Ralph bumping into his dear friend Margaret, who waves a metal detector over a snowbank. She’s looking for something she lost. They’re both bundled -- and mic'd, with their sound piping right into the bagel shop. This encounter, the audience discovers, will not take place at that two-top. The show will happen outdoors, through the frame of the window. An overheard conversation of the most intimate, private, and playful nature. Margaret, they learn, is moving away and hadn’t told Ralph. (Why?!) A stranger pulls up in a car, tells a big story and asks for money. Margaret and Ralph butt heads on chance, charity, and goodbyes.

As we devise our work at Firelight, we always ask: how will the audience experience this? What will they be expecting? How can we surprise + delight them?

It’s this love for audience, character, collaboration, and process that keep our engines humming.

  • WWF 1 | Two Years In: Birthdays

  • WWF 2: Help a Brother, Help a Sister: Industry

  • WWF 3 | After Waldo: Broken Hearts

  • WWF 4 | Middle of the Dial: Partners

  • WWF 5 | I Heard: Spontaneous Encounter

  • WWF 6 | New Vistas: Goodbye

  • WWF 7 | To Bed: Eggs/Bed

  • WWF 8 | Commitment: Big Hearts

  • WWF 9 | Fire Island: When You Died

  • WWF 10 | Assurances: The Beginnings of Things Only Happen Once

  • WWF 11 | And Then: Late Night

  • WWF 12 | Perfect: First Meeting

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