New Play Blog

Notes from Rehearsal: Other Desert Cities

by Maria Edmundson, Directing Fellow on Other Desert Cities

One of the first things I thought of when I heard about the Boston Marathon Bombing was a line from Other Desert Cities: “What if there is another attack?”  That Monday was our day off, and I knew that the next day we were going to return to a very different rehearsal room than the one we had left. 

Other Desert Cities is a play about many things.  One of the central stories is that of Henry Wyeth, a long gone son and brother who was implicated as a young man in an act of terror committed to protest the Vietnam War.  His family does not talk about him or anything that happened.  They move on.  Thirty years later, the Wyeths are still dealing with this event and its aftermath, which is what we see in Other Desert Cities.

After the Boston bombing, we could not do in the rehearsal room what the Wyeths did in their home.  We – the director, the stage managers, the actors, and I, as an assistant and student of the process – had to talk about what had happened, first as human beings and then as artists. “What happened?  What do we know?  What are the details?” we asked, because the answers to these questions might help us understand the huge underlying “Why?” of it all.  We talked about the family and friends we had in Boston.  We talked about other attacks.  We talked about who was behind this one.

Eventually, our conversation turned to the play.  How would we feel if one of our loved ones was implicated in an act of terror?  What would we do or not do to help and protect him?  What would come first if national security was at risk: family or nation; mercy or justice?  How would the audience relate to the events of the play and these characters in light of recent events? 

I’ve realized that how we answered the questions Boston raised is ultimately less important than posing the questions.  Our job is to engage the audience and tell the story.  The job of the audience is to open themselves to the story.  Jon Robin Baitz, the playwright, has begun a conversation.  The final word on whether the Wyeths are right or wrong or somewhere in between belongs to the audience.

When the bombing happened, we were at the moment of the rehearsal process that Helen Carey (who plays Polly Wyeth) described in a post-show discussion as the transformation of the cast from a group of actors into a family.  The actors were getting off-book, the broad strokes of blocking had been plotted out, and this is when the real fun begins.  In theatre, the slogging comes first and then the director and actors can play, explore, and experiment.  It was incredible to watch this remarkable group of artists work and begin to soar.  I watched as Kyle Donnelly, the director, and the actors found layer after layer together: the funny, dry, harsh, ugly, strong, vulnerable, beautiful, and heartbreaking.  The events in Boston were just one more layer that Kyle and the cast let settle within themselves and within their rich, rich performances.

Notes from Rehearsal: Mary T. & Lizzy K.

By Addie Mahmassani, Artistic Development Fellow

As an American history lover, I came to Arena Stage with a cast of characters from our country’s history that—rightly or wrongly so—I think of as my own. Ranging from obscure to iconic and hailing all the way from pre-1607 to yesterday, these people have, for one reason or another, captured my imagination and taken leading roles in the version of the American story that I am slowly but surely weaving for myself. Before I reached Arena, these figures lived only in the confines of my various historical texts. Onstage however, they spring to life in a way I never imagined they could. They have dinner in my presence; they fall in love before my eyes; in the case of Tazewell Thompson’s Mary T. & Lizzy K., they sew dresses in real time as I look on from the seats of the Kogod Cradle.

After spending about six weeks as the directing fellow on Mary T. & Lizzy K., I am still asking the question I had in mind on the first day of rehearsal: when focusing on real events and people from the past, how do we navigate the line between fact and fiction to tell a compelling story? The stakes are even higher when the person is one of those historical figures to whom we feel a particular connection—as Lincoln is for Tazewell Thompson, the playwright and director. What a privilege, responsibility, and thrill it is to use the life of someone we admire to tell a tale.

I can’t say I have unlocked the secrets of historical drama, but observing the development process for Mary T. & Lizzy K. did convince me that the truest, most powerful historical pieces use facts not as constraints, but rather, as springboards for storytelling. I think this attitude towards the facts began to take root for me on our second day of rehearsal when, based on a feeling that it was just the right thing to do to kick off the process, Taz had us work on the scene in which Lizzy and Ivy create a mock-up of Mary’s final dress. There we were in the rehearsal hall with the costume designer Merrily Murray-Walsh, our costume shop director Joe Salasovich, our costume shop manager Ted Stumpf, and the production dramaturg Amrita Ramanan—a whole force of experts piecing together the dress for the first time, trying to follow the motions Elizabeth Keckly would have used in 1865. As we progressed, various inquiries came up regarding terminology and practice. What specific tasks would Lizzy’s assistant have performed in creating this mock-up? What did they call a mock-up in the 19^th century? How would they have hoisted the crinoline cage up and over Mary’s head? In what order would they have assembled the layers of the skirt? How would they have attached the bodice to the sleeves? We took to our books and mental catalogues to answer these questions. By the end of the day, Taz was inspired to rewrite the fitting scene based on all the historical details we had uncovered in the act of dressing Mary up. 

Taz knew he wanted Mary to be resisting something in this scene and making it difficult for Lizzy to do her job. What he did not realize until seeing it all in action was that she could be resisting the dress itself—the “new style” from Europe, and by extension, the constant forward march of time and history. In reality, skirt shapes were changing in 1865; fashion terminology was shifting, and Elizabeth Keckly was keeping herself ever-informed of the latest trends. Taz used these facts as the raw material for a beautifully rewritten scene about fighting and ultimately embracing change. Of course we do not know specifically what Mary said when confronted with the new “crinoline cage” shaped skirt, but now I almost believe that she exclaimed Taz’s words, “Get me off this floor! Strap me up! In any contraption. You need to! The world is changing. And turning! And I wanna be: On that carousel. Right now!”

This is the thrill of creating art with the facts of history; when it is done well, we start to believe everything we see onstage actually happened in the past. When we ask where Lincoln sat before he left for Ford’s Theatre on April 14^th, we find ourselves answering, “Well, in the play, he sits on the decorative armchair...” When we wonder what the rain sounded like that evening, all we have to do is take to the soundboard and listen. I almost believe Mary Todd Lincoln once stood on a trunk in her asylum gown and bemoaned the “frigid salt water baths” she endured at Bellevue Place, as she does in the play.   

Some may say it’s dangerous, this merge between fact and fiction that happens in my mind each time I watch Taz’s play. I don’t completely disagree, but for now, I prefer to think of it as magic.

 

 

A Playwright's Perspective - Karen Zacarias

In my mind, the power and potential of my residency at Arena Stage is that your entire body of work and
your entire process is being supported, and encouraged.  A commissioned play is about the life of that one play-that one product, but the residencies are about the playwright as an artist-in-motion.  It's a long-term platform that should be seen as a long -term investment in the growth and experimentation of theater generators. 

Lately, at Arena, my residency has focused on adapting THE AGE OF INNOCENCE. It's a test of putting "process" on stage...building a 3-dimensional dramaturgical idea around a fabulous book that seems "unadaptable."  The test was simply, can I capture 1870's New York with a  cast of eleven actors, eleven chairs, one table, and one prop?  Can I theatricalize Edith Wharton's lush language and in the process sculpt  as a playwright a theatrical piece of art?  What happens if we re-think of the audience more like spectators? And after 7 days of playmaking...and opening up the rehearsal to people....the answer is: yes.  Was what we did perfect?  No. But there was also much gold and glimmer...and people calling me a day or two later saying that the dense play had light that had lingered with them.  

My residency has supported many other projects with other theaters. This week, the Denver Theater Center announced the will be doing a world premiere of my play JUST LIKE US in their largest space. This play has 15 actors, 40 characters, and tackles the issue of immigration by following the life of four Latino high school students (2 who are here without papers) and how immigration policies and opinions affect their lives personally. The play  is based on the non-fiction book by Helen Thorpe (who is married to John Hickenlooper, Governor of Colorado). To say this is a charged subject is an understatement...and the delicate nature of transforming facts about real living people and politicians into a dramatic piece with characters has been exciting and challenging.  My Arena residency has afforded me the possibility to work with dramaturg Jocelyn Clarke on this piece and has been essential to the success of the piece. 

And then my residency has supported many other projects with other theaters...this month I flew to Geva Theater in  Rochester and Cincinnati Playhouse to be part of  a new version of my contemporary comedy THE BOOK CLUB PLAY ...which I re-wrote under my residency, re-premiered at Arena Stage with Molly Smith as director in 2011 and then re-wrote again. THE BOOK CLUB PLAY has extended at GEVA Theatre...and will premiere at Cincinnati Playhouse March 23, 2013.   I wrote two TYA musicals (with composed Deborah Wicks La Puma): FRIDA LIBRE premiered at La Jolla Playhouse in 2011 and JANE OF THE JUNGLE premiered at South Coast Rep in 2012. I re-wrote MARIELA IN THE DESERT in 2010 for a Denver Theater Center Premiere and translated that version into Spanish for a world premiere at Repertorio Espanol in 2012. My residency afforded me the ability to work long term with Irish-Dramaturg Jocelyn Clarke on all these projects

And the residency has afforded me time to think (and act ) on themes that are affecting the field on
the whole.  I was able to get support to gather a small group of independent Latino artists together to start thinking and working on how to connect and amplify the conversations Latino artists are having regionally...into a national convening.  We have, with the help of the Theater Commons at Arts Emerson, received support from the Mellon Arts Foundation and the Doris Duke Foundation to make this idea into a reality. And I am key speaker at the International One World Festival for TYA plays talking about the power of theater in the lives of young people. The residency has allowed me to think of my role as a playwright for many areas and audiences.

I realize that the effect and outcome of the residency will shimmer for the next many years.  To have
refined an American comedy...and Mexican drama...and begun a viable adaptation of a Pulitzer-Winning American book by a female author...and write a piece that might really trigger a thoughtful debate about Immigration with audience members ...plus begin a Latino themed musical and two works for young people...I hope can be considered a solid return on a less-risky-than-you-think investment. 

 

A Playwright's Perspective - Amy Freed

We hear all the time from our Resident Playwrights and how the residency has enriched their lives, both personally and professionally.  Resident Playwright Amy Freed sent this in just this week - enjoy! 

David Snider, Director of Artistic Programming

Dear David,

I wanted to share my perspective...I thought it might be valuable to hear from one of the writers.  This is how the residency has worked for ME.

I've just completed a full-length play as of this FALL that began life as a field-trip with an Arena intern in the first year of my residency,  a play that took its first baby step at the Arena last summer -- and walked across the room for the first time in San Francisco in November. (with your help and support in expediting) The residency has allowed me to fund research additionally for a one-act I'm completing this MONTH about a serious national topic for another major theater.  I'm laying groundwork for another play that I'm ambitious to work on and your artistic staff has been writing for me on behalf of ITS development for next year!

Top in my mind is also the recognition and appreciation of Molly Smith who intervened on behalf of a playwright and production on the ropes, and demonstrated first rate artistry as well as producing advocacy. For this she will live in legend for me and in the hearts of a our acting company as well.  You at Arena have welcomed my students, and furthered them in their careers.  

Your creative department has continued to support me with unqualified advocacy where I've needed it. The trips to Arena put me back in touch with people who have been huge influences and paved my early years as a playwright, Howard Shalwitz, Jim Nicola,  and allowed me through unprecedented freedom (for a playwright) to develop new connections and projects with emerging artists and bring them into DC to work with me. . . Like Ed Iskandar, who just delivered a wonderful production in NY of Restoration Comedy, and is working on my Oneida Play courtesy of the designs afforded me by the Playwriting Fellowship.

This certainly is not negligible in my life, nor is the fact that for the first time in 20 years, I've been able to keep my credit card bills down. (well, somewhat.)

Love to you all, and I'm happy for my thoughts to be made public.

AMY.    

Happy New Year from the American Voices New Play Institute

As we enter 2013 it’s a great time to reflect on all the activities at the Institute and look forward to those to come in the next few months. As always our Resident Playwrights—Amy Freed, Katori Hall, Lisa Kron, Charles Randolph-Wright, Karen Zacarías and welcoming this month Samuel D. Hunter—gain the time and resources to write without worry about where their next paycheck is coming from. As we continually hear from our residents, this gift of the freedom to write whatever and however they want has allowed them to create work they otherwise might never have attempted—and to dive back into their entire body of work as playwrights, giving them fresh perspective on their own writing and a golden opportunity to rewrite work they might otherwise have never touched again.

Arena remains excited by our continued and ongoing relationship with each of our playwrights in residence. As outlined originally, each playwright receives a salary, benefits, housing, work space, access to Arena Stage meetings, an annual budget of $15,000 to cover artist fees and development expenses and collaboration with Institute Dramaturg Jocelyn Clarke.

Arena has also committed to producing at least one play by each resident. Some have been curious as to why the productions we have produced to date have not been world premieres. By design, from the start, we outlined that work created while in residency is not encumbered by Arena Stage in any way—where and when these works are produced is at the sole discretion of the playwrights. This in part is what makes this program unique. We place the needs and desires of the playwright first. Residents are encouraged to work on new projects or revisit work they believed to be unfinished, as was the case with Arena Stage’s production of Amy’s You, Nero and Karen’s The Book Club Play. This spring brings Katori’s The Mountaintop to the Kreeger Theater, something that Katori highlighted as a dream in her residency application. We cannot wait for our audiences to engage with her brilliant play, and at the same time are ecstatic that we could make this particular wish a reality for Katori. While we are immensely privileged and honored to produce our residents’ plays at Arena Stage, we are equally excited for their work to be staged across the country due to the efforts the residency has afforded them. To say that we are proud of our residents is an understatement!

Back in September, we highlighted some of the significant developments for each of the writers during their time in residence, which can be viewed here. We’d now like to take a moment to share some additional updates on what has transpired since and what the future holds.

Following her workshop at the Sundance Institute with composer Jeanine Tresori, we visited Lisa in October in New York to see their workshop production run of her new musical Fun Home at the Public Theater. As Lisa told us during our visit, this new work would not have happened if not for the time and space she’s gained via her residency. We’re so proud of this new project and of its continued development and eventual premiere in New York.

The following month, we held a hugely successful series of in-depth and active workshops, hosting Karen and Charles to build and activate new work by both of them over several days each, specifically on Karen’s new adaptation of The Age of Innocence and Charles’ untitled piece set in both Washington, D.C. and Kabul. Both processes actively involved Jocelyn, who traveled from Ireland to help advance both pieces. Charles is currently working on writing an end to that play before heading into his directorial project Motown: The Musical, which opens on Broadway this April. Further workshops on his soon-to-be-titled play will be scheduled later on this year.

At the same time, we held our first Kogod Cradle Series, hosting local companies banished? productions and dog & pony dc for a series of performances of projects they were each creating and testing. That week we also hosted the African Continuum Theatre Company as they performed two readings of new work by two up-and-coming playwrights.

Simultaneously in November on the West Coast, Amy conducted a week-long workshop of her new play about the Oneida community at Z Space in San Francisco. Amy has shared with us that this week, made possible by her residency funds, really cracked open the play for her, and it took a big step forward. 

In the last three months, Katori has seen the U.S. premiere of Children of Killers in New York and the opening of WHADDABLOODCLOT!!! at Williamstown Theater Festival. She has also spent much of the time working with Jocelyn to examine and explore her entire canon of work as a playwright so far, to better inform the new work she’s creating now. Though her official residency with Arena ended last month, she’ll be continuing work with Jocelyn in preparation for an upcoming workshop at the Mead Center focused on a trilogy of new plays in April—right after our opening of her play The Mountaintop—and is currently working on her play Pussy Valley. We look forward to seeing more of Katori's work at Arena in the future.

Following a successful run of his play The Whale directed by Davis McCallum at Playwrights Horizons this fall, Samuel begins his residency this month, and already is slated to be with us at the Mead Center for development work in the coming weeks.  

Next week, Karen returns for more work on The Age of Innocence, culminating with public performances January 14-16 as the next installment of the ongoing Kogod Cradle Series.  Karen is also working on another adaptation as well as a new musical. Next month, she will travel to Denver Stage for a two-week workshop of her adaptation of Just Like Us, based on Helen Thorpe’s book about immigration.

This month also welcomes a new class of Institute playwrights with the official launch of the locally focused Playwrights’ Arena. The collaborative group includes Norman Allen, Randy Baker, Jacqueline E. Lawton, Heather McDonald, Danielle Mohlman and Shawn Northrip and will be dedicated to the support and development of each other’s work and practice through the course of the coming year. 

As you can see, there’s a ton of activity here at the American Voices New Play Institute, all focused on the artist, their needs and process.  We thank you for your ongoing support and hope you can join us for some of our upcoming events, especially the Kogod Cradle Series January 14-16 at 7 p.m.  From all of us at the Institute and Arena Stage, Happy New Year!

Sincerely,

Molly Smith,
Artistic Director

&

David Snider,

Director of Artistic Programming

Playwrights' Progress

Have you ever wondered what our Resident Playwrights are up to? Shortly after I began at Arena this summer, I asked all of the Resident Playwrights to share some of the highlights of their residencies so far - and the results were beautiful. I'm delighted to share with you some of their feedback, as a window into the work of the AVNPI. 

And you can always learn more about their residencies here:  http://www.arenastage.org/artistic-development/new-play-institute/residencies/

Enjoy!

David Snider

Director of Artistic Programming

Karen Zacarías

“The ability to be able to work without having to constantly scramble and hustle has allowed me to deepen and expand my skills as a writer. “

During her residency, Karen Zacarías has been afforded the time and resources to write, research, travel, imagine and aspire. Through the residency salary and benefits, she was more able to attend rehearsals for her plays in development and production - both locally and nationally. Through her residency development budget, Karen was able to prioritize and design her own artistic development process. “Readings” has always been the most ubiquitous symbol of support for a playwright; but when Karen started her residency, she had no need for a reading. In order to open a path for a strong new play, she needed to re-visit her existing body of work and prepare these plays for important second and third productions. As a result, she hired Dramaturg Jocelyn Clarke, and spent many months discussing and re-tooling a wide array of scripts that were slated for production at Arena Stage, The Goodman Theatre, The Denver Center, South Coast Repertory Theater and La Jolla Playhouse. She was the first resident playwright to be produced at Arena Stage with her production of The Book Club Play in Fall 2011.

In addition, Karen was able to organize a convening with Latino Artists to talk about their geographic and artistic isolation and the possibility of creating a national festival, as well as engage with the Arena staff, board, interns, and students through meetings, gatherings, and programs such as Arena Stage’s Student Playwright’s Project. When reflecting on her residency, she said, “Arena Stage has become my artistic home.  It is a place of work and possibility. My residency has afforded me the time to grow and deepen as an artist.”

Amy Freed

“The residency's loose parameters and generosity have enabled a connectivity for me that I treasure.”

During her residency, Amy Freed has worked on a variety of projects and utilized her time and resources to work on these projects in unique, supportive ways. In the first year of her residency, Amy began working on a new play focused on the Oneida community in upstate New York. Her residency afforded her the funds to research the community in its original landscape, visiting an old brick community house built by John Noyes and his acolytes in the 1870's, meeting with some of the local residents of the area to collect their stories, and perusing through the Oneida archives in the University of Syracuse. Following her research visit, Amy held a reading of her Oneida project at Arena Stage with Director Ed Iskandar and dramaturgical support from American Voices New Play Institute Director Polly Carl and a subsequent reading in New York followed by a conversation with the audience that went for several hours. In tandem with her work on the Oneida project, Amy was able to tackle an opportunity she was really hungering for with another new play in development, The Monster-Builder. The play deals with the state of architectural design today, so in order to fully realize the piece, Amy worked with set designer Erik Flatmo to create a mock-up of the scenic environment during a two-week workshop. For Amy, it was a chance to get out of her thoughts about the play and tackle its nature physically - push against the issues of staging and transition, see how fluidly she could conceive it. The play was recently read at New York Theater Workshop and feels “complete” to Amy. 

During Amy’s residency, her play, You, Nero, was produced at Arena Stage, in the Fichandler. Amy got to see the play make a successful transformation from a proscenium comedy to a physical life in the round. As Amy notes, “[The Fichandler] is a dynamic, poetic, poignant space when used well - and I am now feeling like I could quite prefer to work in the round whenever it was a possibility.”

Throughout her residency, Amy has enjoyed many opportunities to interface with the Arena staff and fellows and participate in additional projects through the theater company, such as directing a one-act for the Edward Albee Festival in 2010. “Participation with various aspects of the theater's public face and educational aspects are no burden, but create a sense of purpose and reason to be present at an institution.”

Lisa Kron

“The support of the residency has allowed me to devote myself full-time to playing without worrying I would not be able to pay my rent or health insurance bills.”

During her residency, Lisa Kron has been able to devote her energy full-time to working on a new and ambitious project, a musical adaptation of Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home, in collaboration with composer Jeanine Tesori. As Lisa notes, “It's a bit hard to imagine how I would have been able to devote myself so fully (or even adequately) to the project without the support since it there has been no other subsidy for the writing of the piece and it is a long and painstaking process.” During the first two years of her residency, Lisa and Jeanine visited DC twice early in the process to escape their hectic lives in New York City and burrow into their attempts to find a way into this extremely complicated adaptation. These writing retreats birthed a successful workshop of the musical at the Public Theater last fall, attended by collaborators from Arena Stage, the Public Theater and author Alison Bechdel. As Jeanine said, "Every musical has a moment when it's 'born' and that happened at this workshop."  

For both Lisa and Jeanine, Fun Home remains a profound collaboration. They recently completed another workshop of the piece at the Sundance Institute this summer with Dramaturg Jocelyn Clarke in attendance and both feel it to be some of the deepest and most significant work they’ve ever done.  “It is a delicate, rigorous, all-consuming and time consuming process. I've been able to devote myself to this work because of my residency.”

Katori Hall

“Having a good space to write, a room of one’s own, is the first step to creating work that is emotionally evocative, clear and steady, and I must say having this rock allowed a river to flow from me.“

During the first year of Katori Hall’s residency, she was eager to be in the thick of the action at Arena Stage and relocated from New York to D.C. to live full-time at the playwrights’ house. The physical comfort of being adjacent to her artistic home and not worrying about where she was going to lay her head or how she was going to pay her rent allowed her to focus and do the hard work of learning how to “fall deep inside of herself.”  In addition, the creative collisions she experienced with Lynn Nottage, David Henry Hwang, Marcus Gardley and many others who came in and out of the playwrights’ house were precious moments that helped shape her as an artist - conversations that roamed from the writing process to what was the best business acumen for the current theatre climate.

With the physical proximity to Arena, Katori experienced a deep artistic connection with the Arena staff members and fellows. Throughout her residency, Katori embarked on a diverse range of projects, including an onsite dance workshop and extensive research trip throughout the DC-metro area and in Atlanta for her new play, Pussy Valley, centered around the lives of strippers in a fictional night club in Mississippi; readings of her plays Our Lady of Kibeho and Saturday Night, Sunday Morning, and a research trip to Rwanda and collaboration with an East African theatre artist to continue work on Kibeho and Children of Killers.

Charles Randolph-Wright

“The residency has allotted me the time to write, dream, and eat!”

Charles’ residency kicked off with revisiting Skindiver, a new musical he has been developing for the past ten years in collaboration with Nona Hendryx. The musical, described by Charles as a “sci-fi cat and mouse thriller,” received little response from producers and theater companies when it was first conceived in the early 2000s, but Charles felt our current culture’s interest in technology made the piece more timely and relevant today. He staged a concert reading of the piece at D.C. restaurant Bus Boys and Poets, followed by several readings at Arena Stage and in New York. This development culminated in a late-night presentation of the piece in the Kogod Cradle in May 2011, attended by 200 local artists and patrons. In tandem with his work on Skindiver, Charles began to focus his energy on two new plays in the development – an autobiographical piece titled A Waiter and a new project tentatively titled The Afghanistan Play. His residency development budget afforded him several writing retreats to work on both plays, as well as the support to stage readings of A Waiter in D.C. and New York, featuring Brian Stokes Mitchell and Maurice Hines. Charles plans to continue work on The Afghanistan Play through the culmination of his residency. 

Samuel D. Hunter and the Playwrights' Arena!

I am so excited this week to announce the addition of Samuel D. Hunter as a Resident Playwright here at the American Voices New Play Institute.  Sam is an amazing playwright already and I cannot wait to see how he grows and what he creates during his residency year here at Arena Stage.

I'm also jazzed about our new Playwrights' Arena, a new process-oriented program of the Institute that'll begin working with six local playwrights in January 2013.  The creation of the Playwrights' Arena brings yet another level to our work here at the Institute and Arena Stage, as we continue to grow and support American playwrights both locally and nationally.

You can read more about Sam and the Playwrights' Arena here: http://www.arenastage.org/news-press/press-room/press-releases/.

Check back here soon for more information on how our original five resident playwrights have been using their residencies to grow and create new work - and what they plan for 2013.

David Snider

Director of Artistic Programming  

What’s next for the American Voices New Play Institute at Arena Stage?

This is my first post as the new Director of Artistic Programming – I’ve been here at Arena Stage for three weeks and I’m so excited by all the great work we’re doing and dreaming about for the next year and beyond.   This moment of transition is also an extraordinary opportunity – not just for me, but for the entire American Voices New Play Institute.  It’s a time to reflect on what’s worked, what’s been challenging and what we could do better or just differently.  It’s a moment to learn from our first draft of the Institute and dream of what’s next.  We’re talking with our Resident Playwrights this summer a lot, to gain a deeper sense of the impact of the residency on their work throughout the field. We’re asking the tough questions about residencies – how do they work best for both artists and institutions? What’s the ideal timeframe and framework for a residency? And is a residency even ideal anymore?  Or do artists need more of a sponsored “mobility,” during which they can follow their bliss and grow their work as they see fit?  What does it mean to be a New Play Institute within a thriving producing organization? How can Arena serve as more of a producing laboratory for new work?  We’re also planning new initiatives, including a new Writers Arena and Cradle Series (more on those later) and we’re looking at some new models of collaborative new play development, with perhaps teams of playwrights, directors, designers and technical artists collaborating on the development of new work at the Institute.     For those of you new to the Institute, here’s the skinny:

American Voices New Play Institute

Launched in July 2009 and expanded in 2011 with the support of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the American Voices New Play Institute is a center for the creation of new work and the development of effective practices, programs, and processes for new-play development for the American theater. 

Arena Stage at the Mead Center is dedicated to producing, presenting, developing and studying the best of American Theater. We deeply believe in playwrights and in the future of American plays. We want to play an active role in the development of writers and in the fostering of new work. Therefore the Institute was created not only to serve Arena but also as a service to the entire field.

Documentation and Dissemination: the New Play Map, #NewPlay TV and Howlround

In its first three years, the Institute focused on programs designed to test and develop promising advances in new play development around the country, with the intention of developing the infrastructure for new plays and new voices nationwide. That work resulted in the successful launch of #NewPlay TV, the blog Howlround and the creation of a national online New Play Map.  These programs of the Institute were so successful that they took on a life and service to the field of their own and earlier in 2012 were successfully moved out of Arena Stage to continue independently at ArtsEmerson in Boston, Massachusetts. Arena Stage’s role in creating these programs will be publicly credited and noted in their history in perpetuity. 

Now that these documentation and dissemination platforms have been successfully developed and launched by Arena Stage, the New Play Institute will refocus its energies around our Resident Playwrights, the further development of our Theater 101 Audience Enrichment Seminars and the creation of new development opportunities for writers locally and nationally, including the Writers Arena and our new Cradle Series.  We’ll move several existing initiatives, including major commissions, under the umbrella of the Institute to further streamline and underline our commitment to the development of new work.  We’re looking at the possibilities of sponsoring ensembles and visiting companies here at Arena as well, to help the development of new devised work.  In the coming year we will also begin experimenting with involving directors, designers and technical artists in the Institute, as we expand the model to further develop a community of collaborative artists dedicated to new play development within the Institute and throughout Arena Stage. 

The riddle and rhyme of new play development continue to inspire us to do more – and to share with all of you what we’re learning.

More soon…

David Snider

Director of Artistic Programming 

 

Ringing in the #Newplay Year: The news behind the news

by David Dower

So, since you are here, you have likely already heard we end 2011 with some #newplay news about what's to come in 2012.

You may have already read the main headlines. 

You can read Molly Smith's thoughts on this transition at Howlround. 

Depending on when you come into this conversation, you may also find the new Howlround website behind that link. The site reflects the evolving vision of what we've come to call the #newplay initiative.

In this post I am going to take you through the details of the developments which will be unfolding over the coming months.

First, a moment of personal digression. I enter the New Year with a whole range of emotions, but the overriding one is gratitude- for the many important ways Arena Stage has been working to ensure this work thrives, for the folks at Emerson College who have joined the campaign to advance the whole #newplay initiative, and for the many people around the field who have thrown their energies into this quixotic project. What we're experiencing now is the result of the gathering momentum around the drive to create a "commons" approach to the national infrastructure for new works of theater and the people who create them. I am deeply grateful that Polly Carl has jumped behind the wheel of the unwieldy effort, indebted to Molly Smith and Edgar Dobie for their support and commitment to the programs and their evolution, and excited to see what comes next.

Here's the rundown of what is now in motion.

I will begin my new role at ArtsEmerson in April. The timeframe we are all working on has the current staff and #newplay programs remaining in place at Arena through the end of June. 

Then, once underway, the current #newplay program will branch in two directions. 

The first branch focuses directly on new play development and production at Arena Stage. The American Voices New Play Institute will remain an initiative of Arena Stage focused on the development of new plays and effective avenues of support for American playwrights at Arena. In addition to the whole Resident Playwrights program, the AVNPI will evolve to include Arena's commissioning initiatives, the project residencies, the Writers Council, and the new play development activities of the company. These activities will be reported on this blog and connected to the #newplay energies by maintaining a presence on the New Play Map, New Play TV, and on Twitter. This blog will be driven by the Artistic Development team at Arena Stage, focused entirely on the AVNPI.

The second branch focuses on the tools and initiatives designed to advance the national infrastructure for new work and the people who make it. So, where the AVNPI will house Arena's activities, this new entity, The Center for the Theater Commons, will develop and maintain the tools of the #newplay commons and act as stafff to the nationwide effort. The map, the live stream channel, the journal, the research projects, and the activities of Howlround will be housed at the new Center, situated in the  Office of the Arts at Emerson College. The web portal for this platform becomes Howlround.com (link). Polly, Vijay Mathew and Jamie Gahlon will continue to manage and develop this platform and all of its activities. The coverage of national #newplay news that has been regularly reported on this blog will now be found at Howlround.

The Commons will produce the convening activities that have become such a key component of the #newplay movement. Arena Stage will frequently play host to these gatherings, though in the New Year you will start to see them produced in other communities around the country as well. The Center will also manage the #Newplay Producer Fellowships, integrating the program into its campus setting at Emerson.

This transition is, itself, evolving at this writing. We will share the whole process with you as we go. In the coming months there will be many more announcements. Those will continue to be released through the #newplay channels, so stay put, stay tuned, and may you stay forever young.

Happy New Year, everyone!  

#NEWPLAY: Happy Holidays & A Happy New Year

From All Of Us At #NEWPLAY, We Wish You A Happy Holiday and A Beautiful New Year! 

We Toast To Many New Opportunities In This New Year In Creating More Community With

All Of You!

-David, Polly, Vijay, Jamie, Kevin, & Erin