New Play Blog

#NEWPLAY CONVENING: REPORT NOW AVAILABLE!

We've just published the full report from our mega convening in January 2011, From Scarcity to Abundance - Capturing the Moment for the New Play Sector, written by Ben Pesner. If you're interested in finding out what happened during the convening, read on! Download the full convening report here!

Join "The Weekly Howl", a Twitter conversation moderated by @HowlRound - Wed at 3pm EST

Wednesday, Sept 7 from 12pm-1pm Pacific (3pm-4pm Eastern) - join HowlRound.com for "The Weekly Howl" an open Twitter conversation moderated by the @HowlRound / Institute staff.  

All topics are open for discussion, so go ahead and howl a few @HowlRound

Remember, add #newplay in your tweets to participate.

 

Making a "Mesh" in the #NewPlay Sector @TCG for the #TCG2011 Conference

by David Dower

Some of you may already know that Polly Carl and I are leading a session at the TCG Conference in LA on the 18th. If you can't be there with us in person, perhaps you'll join us online?

Here's the breakdown:
"What if we adopted a radically new culture of sharing, open participation and collective contribution for the advancement of the new works sector - focusing on outward advancement as opposed to inward or individual progress? How do we aggregate and amplify our current knowledge and information resources? How do we break out of our limited knowledge and geographic silos? What if we were to adopt the ethos and culture of the open-source technological communities in order to problem-solve collectively? Or the innovative practices of "mesh" businesses? Or the behavior of collective contributions found in Community Supported Agriculture? What are the implications for the theatre and its relevance in American culture? What are the current bright spots that demonstrate this new culture? How can we build on these current bright spots?" 

 The "mesh" concept is borrowed from this work. Lisa Gansky's book "The Mesh" is subtitled "The Future of Business is Sharing".  We're also reading Clay Shirky's Cognitive Surplus and "Common as Air: Revolution, Art, and Ownership" by Lewis Hyde.

This notion of a mesh, and of the cultural commons, are so linked to my perception of this as an era of abundance for new work that feels like scarcity. The scarcity scramble derives directly from our failure to figure out how best to leverage our abudance through the sharing of resources.

It's our hope that this session will be an injection of energy and imagination into the effort to align the current energies and resources in the #newplay sector. Can you join us in this effort? You see the pieces of the puzzle we're developing here at the Institute, from the blog to the journal to the map to the livestream channel. All of these tools are developed to be shared across the sector. How do we connect these resources to other resources, how do we mesh these resources with things like the Playwrights' Center's data sets and the learning of the NEFA pilot for touring theater, and how does this evolving and expanding #newplay mesh advance the role of theater in our culture or take us in the direction of a dignified life for the people making this work?

Beyond what can be done with these tools, what other resources are out there that need to be woven into this effort? And what are the barriers to making this sort of a mesh? Are they access? Awareness? Ego? Perhaps we're just lacking a focused, coordinated effort led by an effective champion?

Or maybe it's just a terrible idea to try to mesh the #newplay sector. Maybe we're better off left to our own devices and reinventing wheels. Maybe each new wheel is in itself a unique contribution to the ecology. 

If you're moved to contribute, the comments are open here. If you want to write from your own spot, drop us a link. If you've got questions for the panel or the room when we're gathered next week, tweet them with the #newplay hashtag and we'll do our best to bring them into the discussion.

Somehow, with all these brainiac big thinkers in the meshmix, it is Tim Gunn that's stuck in my head: "Make it work!"

On Abundance and Demand in the #Newplay Sector

by David Dower

There's so much swirling around the internets these days about the #SupplyDemand discussion that was touched off by Rocco Landesman in his appearance here the week of From Scarcity to Abundance: Capturing the Moment in the New Play Sector that it's hard to keep up. A quick blog roll, before I wade in:

Read the #SupplyDemand thread at ArtWorks.
Read the TCG response.
A great blog roll on it is here.  
It's brought out other thoughtful, informed commentators on both sides as well.

There's also this stark reminder that the subject is not in the least abstract.
And ample evidence that the discussion is taking place in an already overheated environment around arts funding. 

With all this activity, the high emotions, high stakes, and gnashing of teeth, it seems almost as though we spent the four days of the convening in an alternate universe. How could 125 people be gathered in snowbound DC talking about "abundance" in such an environment? And how, if that was the topic, would it kick off with something that turned into this #supplydemand debate?

From Scarcity to Abundance: The #NewPlay Convening's Next Action Steps

By Travis LeMont Ballenger, Senior New Play Producing Fellow

Below are the next steps from the participants of the From Scarcity to Abundance convening. The DC particpants were asked to write next steps on individual sticky notes. We then grouped the sticky notes under different headings--Alignment, Money, etc. To vote on importance and relevence, each person was given a number of small stickers. They gave the next step that they were most excited about a sticker.

Here are the top ten action items:

• A meaningful conversation about the work itself-
          How are we doing?
          How do we evaluate?
          How do we ensure rigor, craft, resonance, etc.?
          How are audiences connecting? 
• Obsessive discussion of new audience recruitment
• New Play Funder Convening
          How do we fund best practices and convince more to fund? Mellon can’t do it all alone! 
• Mentoring on an institutional level
• Lose the value in “who’s most victimized/powerful” move beyond labels
• Transparency of data, some non-jackbooted way to concretely measure in the field diversity on all levels (So that the authenticity of delivering on mission can be measured)
• Figure out a solution to the health insurance issue.
• Canvas/provide for mommy and daddy playwrights childcare.
• Identify methods of illuminating intersections between artist, work and civic engagement.
• Gather a summit of arts administrators of color under 35 to discuss/address the challenges/paths to artistic leadership

For the full list of next steps, please look here: Download From Scarcity to Abundance Next Steps. What are the next steps for you? Please send them to us or comment on this blog post. The Institute will be locking these steps in a time capsule that will sit in the Molly Smith Study at Arena Stage. Should anything happen to the Institute, the capsule will be given to TCG or a TCG-like Institution. This institution then becomes responsible for convening delegates of the new work field together. The capsule will not be opened until year 2036.

We were planning to lock the box next week, but we're pushing back that date to give people more time to get their next steps in. We'll let you know when we plan on locking it. It'll all be livestreamed on #NewPlay TV!

I'll be exactly 50 years old when the box is opened. We have work to do, and I'm excited to see it done.

*All images by Flordelino Lagundino

Here's the #NewPlay Sector's Feedback on version 1 of the New Play Map!

posted by Vijay Mathew, Co-Director, American Voices New Play Institute

On January 28 during the New Play Institute's national convening: "From Scarcity to Abundance: Capturing the Moment for the New Work Sector", nearly 100 participants gathered in discussion groups to generate feedback and ideas for designing the next version of the New Play Map. The guiding questions were: What features does it need now to become a useful tool for our sector? How do we need to shape and build on this project so that it has value for advancing the infrastructure for new work?  

All the ideas and feedback were written out on sticky notes, posted to the windows in the Molly Smith Study, and then were arranged and converged into broad categories by the ten national steering committee members for this Convening. The participants then voted for ideas that they thought promising by putting star stickers on the notes.  Additionally, participants chose to sketch and draw ideas that couldn't be explained verbally on a sticky note. View a PDF of the sketches here. 

Below you'll see an unedited transcription of the sticky note arrangement. The starred ones are an indication of popular ideas; however, they are not the only ones. There were several similar ideas on separate notes that people had not starred -- so it is likely that there are ideas that didn't get a vote but are very popular among this group of participants.  In the next few weeks, we will be working through these ideas here and through the other feedback that we have received on the New Play Map's website with the developers Quilted to narrow down priority features and a schedule for the next releases of the Map.  

We are still collecting feedback, so please leave them either here: http://getsatisfaction.com/newplaymap or in the comments section of this blog post.  Many people who were participating in the #NewPlay Convening online and weren't in DC have a bunch of feedback to give -- so if you were one of them, please let us know -- we need your input!  

Feedback transcription below: 

Rocco Landesman Responds

Here's a link to National Endowment for the Arts Chairman Rocco Landesman's response to the dust kicked up this weekend around his remarks at the #newplay convening opening panel.

Here's a link to the video of the original speech.

Day 4 in the #NewPlay Convening: Final Thoughts, Acts and Wishes

posted by J. Holtham, reporting from the "From Scarcity to Abundance" Convening. Read his (aka 99seats) follow-up pieces about the convening and #NewPlay sector's conversations on the culture blog Parabasis.

When we arrived, we came in the middle of a storm. We came in from the cold winds of the world, trudged through freezing sludge and muck, came looking for a little shelter from the storm, like the man sang. We came separately, isolated, not sure who else would actually be there, what they would have to say. Were their lives better? Were their fortunes brighter and shinier than ours? Maybe these dark clouds were just over our own heads, following us around, while everyone else was bathed in sunlight.

For four days, though, we all found that we weren't alone in the storm, not by a long shot. We'd all soldiered through to come here, to come to the Mead Center and dry off, warm up and get out of the storm for a moment. We found that, yes, some people had been weathering the storm pretty well, but others were floundering. Others were struggling. For some, the storms never seemed to pass. Some who'd survived the storm knew it was just going to come again. We talked about ways to survive, new ideas and possibilities, partnerships to share resources, to make whatever rations we had last longer. And as we talked, the storm outside passed and we were indeed bathed in light, sometimes blinding, sometimes showing us truths we didn't expect (and maybe didn't want to see), sometimes showing new paths out of the dark. Sometimes the light just brought a smile to our faces (and made us put on our sunglasses).

On the last day, we dared to go back outside, out of the safe, warm spot we'd been in, back into the winter day. Another storm was coming, we all knew, but for right now, the sky was clear. We stood together, holding our fears, frustrations, worries and concerns in our hands, all written out on little slips of paper. David Dower had asked us to write down our dreams for the future on one slip of paper and our greatest frustrations on another. We put our dreams and hopes in a box, for future generations to read and judge how well we achieved them. We took our frustrations out onto the patio, placed them in a bowl and burned them. We burned up all the roadblocks, potholes, pitfalls, and traps we'd hit and fallen into. We burned up the hard words and thoughts we'd suffered. We took our angers and hurts and turned them into heat and light, into energy. We stood, in the cold, knowing that the long winter was far from over, but maybe with a little warmth to take with us. A little bit of our exhaustion exchanged for passion.

And so we left, in bunches and gangs, groups of two or three, still talking, still figuring out new ways of working, still sharing our thoughts and ideas. There's still a storm coming. Now, though, it feels like it will be easier to weather until the spring. Because now it's a little easier to believe that spring is coming.

Day 4 in the #NewPlay Convening: Next Steps: Dare We BE the Change We are Looking For?

posted by Trisha Mead, reporting from the "From Scarcity to Abundance" Convening

"Until we can then talk about ourselves in ways that animate class, geography, gender, age, we are confining ourselves in the box of race." - Neil Barclay

"There's a tension between acknowledging that this is an idiosyncratic art and we have idiosyncratic processes, and how that aligns with a “model” and how we define what we do." - Ed Sobel

"The challenge is where theater sits in our culture. Only a very very small percentage of our culture has an understanding or appreciation of what we do. Every conversation about new models has to account for that fact." - Ed Sobel

"Dare we be the change we are looking for?" - Todd London

 

Saturday. Last day of the convening. A scant few hours for some participants after they left the drinking and the dancing of the previous evening's party. So the conversation about next steps launched with hoarse voices, winking references to hangovers and sore dancing feet. Still, we were in our seats and ready for this most critical session: the moment when we translate ideas and issues into templates for action.

Todd London refused to apologize for the previous evening's festivities (and its impact on the morning). "Every time we get together as theater people, we MUST dance."

What are we energized about this morning, here, at the end of all things?

We talked about tackling the conversation about diversity in new and innovative ways.

About balancing the tension between the vital idiosyncracies of our art (and the processes with which we make it) against the need to avoid duplicating effort and create useful "models" that can be cloned.

And finally, we talked about bringing the audience back into the conversation; recommitting to transparency across all our spectrums of communication- with the audience, with the artists we work with (or would like to), with our boards and communities.

On process, and the tension between celebrating idiosyncracy and developing replicatible models, a series of questions:

How can we be, not only pro-active about developing co-producing relationships, but reactive- responding to a magic moment as it occurs and seeking ways to give it a longer life through touring, presenting, etc?

How we can use resources to create longer rehearsal periods, deeper collaborations, to get outside the box of how we operate and target money to places that are exploratory… rather than perfecting what we’re doing in the box we’re already in?

How can we create space... metaphorical and physical... for the conversations that need to happen? Particularly that most critical conversation that happens in the moment when art meets audience.

Sandra Gibson from Arts Presenters quotes Pete Miller that we should be "interrogating the rough magic of theater," changing the conversation from one about perfection to one about possibility.  Which ties into the issues of diversity- she asks, "How can we get beyond issues of race and just put up things that are unusual in some way?"

Speaking of diversity:

Sandra from Arts Presenters reminds us that we are not separate from the country we are critiquing: "This is a struggle we’re having as a country. We like to separate ourselves out from the country and look at it and talk about it, but we are part of it."

We were enjoined, when we thought about the relative abundance in the room, to remember the people who are NOT at the table in this conversation.

Diane Ragsdale remarks, "Being self congratulatory- we do that so beautifully in our field." She contines by expressing a desire for a more "genuine kind of inclusivity- you can’t be open to otherness if you don’t change who’s at the table."

Neil Barclay reminds us: "There is so much abundance. But if we had a different group at the table we’d get a very different answer- about scarcity, who’s allowed to play and who isn’t allowed to play." At the same time, he exhorts us to look within our specific communities to find the more subtle imbedded issues of class, age, geography, gender. Is it time for artists of color to frame their work in terms other than race?

It's an idiosyncratic art form, and we have spent much of the weekend talking about ways to get beyond the boxes... to make space for unique artists, unique processes, unique journeys to production.

Celebrating idiosyncracy can be a challenge, however, when you are working in a field where, as Lydia Diamond explains, "only one story gets told, and... the stories are located with a very homogenous audience."

The audience (or more specifically, the absence of the role of the audience from our conversations at this convening) was another "hot thread" (to use David Dower's term) that many conveners were wrestling with.

On the audience:

Barclay again: "It's not often that we are able to just do work because we love the artist… it has to resonate with our particular community."

Eric Ting concurs, "Missing from this conversation has been the question of audience- I didn’t hear it the way its become part of my life... What is the relevance of the work?... For example, how do we acknowledge what’s happening in Egypt right now?"

The audience is particularly critical to the conversation about the way a work moves across the country.

"The scary thing about networks has been this assumption that a work responds in a similar fashion across the country," Eric continues. For a new play to have a "life" beyond first production, it must confront the very real differences between the way an audience in New York reacts to a work vs. an audience in, say, Portland,Oregon or Austin, Texas.

How do the idiosyncracies of our stories create access for more people to feel represented by our art form? And where does it create barriers for understanding, particularly in environments where the audience you encounter may not have a context for understanding the work?

"The challenge," our moderator reminds us, "is where theater sits in our culture. Only a very very small percentage of our culture has an understanding or appreciation of what we do. Every conversation about new models has to account for that fact."

Which suggests that perhaps our next convening, should focus on connecting our artists and processes to the communities who will find them of most value...

Day 3 in the #NewPlay Convening: New Technology in the New Play Sector: The New Play Map

posted by Trisha Mead, reporting from the "From Scarcity to Abundance" Convening

One of the key challenges facing any new play is its invisibility. In our currently balkanized theater community, the disparate spheres of presenters, producers, regional houses, retreats, workshops, festivals, and funders rarely connect the dots between what they are doing and what the rest of the country is up to. Things drop through the cracks, and the journey that a single project takes from seed idea to fully staged production to national exposure is rarely clear.

To address this issue, the New Play Institute has created a new piece of technology- an open source virtual map that will show the relationships between projects and institutions, as well as the path a given project traces (geographically, temporally) on its way to world premiere (and after). Depending on the view you choose, it will show you where new play work is concentrated geographically, the trajectory of a single project over space and time and the relationships between institutions that work together again and again.

Any artist or institution can place themselves on the map, locating projects, timelines and points of intersection. Data entered into the map is then fact-checked with the institutions, administrators and artists, creating a robust “wikipedia” for new play development that has the added strength of accountability to the organizations and artists it references.

It’s an extraordinary database (or it will be once a critical mass of organizations have acclimated themselves to routinely updating and revising the map), and the potential uses are only just being explored.

Here are some of the obvious potential uses so far:

• An easy visual snapshot of the new play work happening nationally, helping playwrights, funders (and possibly journalists) identify hot spots as they emerge

• A research resource for literary managers and artistic directors to discover new projects in development and join the group of institutions helping to bring them to fruition.

• Built in documentation for funders of a given project, creating a public and verifiable reference for each step in a play’s development.

For the next version, there have been requests for the data to be exportable, allowing students, researchers and funding institutions to do more in-depth analysis of the field along various metrics.

There are plans to make it more media rich, allowing people to upload video, photos, podcasts, blogs and other forms of documentation of each step along the path.

There’s a request for a space to identify what the play needs next- a workshop? A retreat? Co-producers or collaborators?

The #newplay conveners were asked to brainstorm other useful features and filters for the map- the results of which will be forthcoming I'm sure.

Of course, the most valuable use of the tool, and the data it generates, as one convener has pointed out, “will be something that can’t be envisioned at present.”

And like any tool, it will only be as good as the craftsmen who use it.

And David Dower points out that the map has the potential to serve a larger purpose as well: to help make the case for more new works funding by visually illustrating the time, resources and geographic reach required for any given play to be born.

Right now, the data on the map is riddled with single point entries, with an over-emphasis on world premieres rather than a snapshot of the overall development process. If this continues, David explains, the map will be telling the wrong story.

So if you have a stake in the long term health and success of the new American New Play, and if you have projects and relationships in progress that are not currently documented there, now is the time to get online and make your mark… on the map

Day 4 in the #NewPlay Convening: Your Marching Orders

posted by Trisha Mead, reporting from the "From Scarcity to Abundance" Convening 

A week after the #newplay convening has wrapped, the conversations have continued at all of our institutions as we've all had the opportunity to let the intense ideas and feelings of the convening percolate. Conversations are happening across institutions, as the national #supplydemand conversation with Rocco Landesman has exploded on Twitter, in the blogs and even in traditional print media... if you haven't checked out Todd London's rock 'em sock 'em response to The New York Times' Charles Isherwood's glib reaction to the debate, I highly recommend it.

So what emerges as the essential next steps? Here's some thoughts from our final day, filtered through the lens of a week back in the real world.

In brief, it's time to:

• Create space for interesting failure
• Inspire the decision-makers
• Diversify the king-makers
• Get this show on the road!

Creating Space for Interesting Failure

If we are to be the research and development arm of modern culture, we must develop new ways to champion failure and experimentation. The fate of the American theater cannot ride on each new play project. It's too much pressure, and pressure produces hothouse results that are not robust enough to thrive in the real world. Instead, we need more of that rough magic. And rough magic needs ambition, incompleteness and possibility (rather than perfection) to thrive.

But don't worry, perfection will emerge, like gold sifted from a river silt. The more robust the river the richer the silt.

Inspire the Decision-makers

We need to acknowledge the humanity and potential creativity of our institutions. There's no snidely whiplash in a suit twirling his fingers behind the curtain of American new play development. But there are institutions who, in their attempts to live up to the metrics and measurements required by boards and pundits, have suppressed some of the creativity from their day to day work environments. Let's find ways to weave the way artists work into how our institutions are run. Let's create space for play, time for failure and recovery and reinvest in the core humanity of all arts workers, artists and administrators alike.

It became abundantly clear at the convening that the robustness and diversity of our offerings was directly manifested through the robustness and diversity of the team at the table. We each have a core group of decision-makers in our world who filter reality, set priorities and decide who gets invited to the table next. Let's call that our fraternity. Does our fraternity match (by race, age, gender, geography) the artists we are trying to attract? The audience we are trying to reach? And if not, why not? Its time to identify the walls and barriers to more diverse decision-making in our institutions and, if not dismantle them (after all, a building without walls does not stand), at least make them more porous. 

To twist that metaphor a bit more, it is time we were more transparent about who we are really serving and what kind of work you are truly committed to presenting. Our relationships with artists need more honesty, and a constant recognition of the intrinsic power imbalance across the artist/institution divide. How can we level the playing field within our development processes, decision-making and communication strategies? And where we cannot level can we at least own up to our inherent privilege and the blind spots it creates?

Inverting that problem, a new play can often be perceived by boards and non-artistic staff as a bomb waiting to explode all their carefully laid strategies for making audiences and funders comfortable with an institutions. We need better systems to prepare, educate and invite our boards and non-artistic staff into the process of new play development so that they can be effective advocates (rather than roadblocks) for the work.

Diversify the King-makers

Speaking of roadblocks and inherited privilege, it is time that we re-framed our relationship to the king-makers within the national critical community. In a world of increasingly diverse perspectives, is it still appropriate to make one or two key bylines at our national papers the sole arbiters of the theatrical taste of a nation? And if that is no longer a useful model for us to find the gold in the river silt of new play production, then what new structures need to be created to allow for more diverse, informed and useful public reactions to the work?

Get this Show on the Road!

For a new play to have national impact, it must travel, encountering new audiences with different cultural needs and concerns.

How a new work travels from its home of origin was a question that recurred again and again throughout the convening. There is no touring infrastructure for theater, except for the Broadway model. Can we develop a flexible, right sized mechanism for original productions to travel throughout the country? Is there a way to collaborate with regional theater institutions so that rolling world premieres, co-productions and presentations become a more regular part of the season planning process? Can we connect up the robust university and dance presenting networks with the resident theaters and small venues to get more new work into and out of geographically diverse communities?

As we get new work on the road, we also need to recognize that a new work often gets plunked into a community that has little context to understand the whys and hows of its creation. How does this limit the impact of the work we create? How can we use new media and other structures to allow a touring work of art (which is an intrinsically ephemeral thing) to leave behind structures, in each community it touches, that will carry the impact of that work forward?

We have already created a model for that process- the online discussion and in person meet ups that have happened as a result of this convening provide us with a useful road map to how we could generate points of collection and dissemination for ideas, reactions, context and creativity around each of the new play projects we generate. We just need to start using our tools and sharing the wealth of resources we each generate with each other, spreading the work forward one relationship, one conversation, one creative spark at a time.

Now. Go Do It.

Day 1 of the #NewPlay Convening: NEA-NPDP Artists on Process

posted by J. Holtham, reporting from the "From Scarcity to Abundance" Convening

When we gather to talk about the issues facing the field and the new play sector, the ideas pop off, flying through the air, across the room. We all have opinions and passions about the way work happens, the market for plays, the care and feeding of playwrights. But sometimes, in all the passion, we forget about why we're all gathered in the room in the first place: the work. At the end of a busy first day, we gathered to hear from several artists supported by the NEA's NPDP grants.

First, documentary filmmaker Robert Levi and producer Rebecca Halbower gave us a sneak peek at the documentary they're making about these plays. They were provided unprecedented access and latitude to film productions and rehearsals. We don't normally get to see any of this work, to see a project develop from rehearsal through workshop to production and making it happen took a lot of support from a lot of people. Mara Isaacs was singled out as being helpful in making it happen. And we should all be glad. The footage is amazing and given the access Robert had to the artists and the process, the final project will be even better. They've recently received support from PBS to finish and were able to get approval to screen the unfinished, raw footage we saw.

From there, we heard from several artists who had worked on projects under the auspices of the NEA NPDP: Aditi Brennan Kapil, Rajiv Joseph, Lana Lesley, Claudia Rankine, Lloyd Suh and JoAnne Winter. Self-proclaimed "professional moderator" Polly Carl led the discussion and it was a lively and enlightening discussion.

The five artists present had worked on a variety of projects at theatres and institutions literally around the world: from Bulgaria to the University of Texas. A few names cropped up more than once: Center Theatre Group in L.A. and the Lark Playwrights Center in New York, in particular, touched the lives of multiples projects. The artists told stories of being pushed out of their comfort zones and into new ways of working, new forms, sometimes into unexpected situations. One, Claudia Rankine, is a poet, brought in to write a site-specific piece to take place on a bus. Imagine adding the problem of NYC traffic to the normal stress of making a new play.

One theme that came up over and over was the openness of the process. Each project was different, different goals and different collaborators, but the support given by the grant was essential to each, giving them the room to develop their pieces as they needed. Each piece seemed to take a life of its own, growing organically and naturally and finding themselves heading to places they never expected. Rajiv spoke about how, when he started his play, he imagined in the kind of development settings he was used: bare bones workshops and small-scale productions. But as the play moved on its journey and the vision grew, the play grew along with it. Every time he thought he was done with rewrites, there was a new challenge, a new push for me to grow and each push brought the play more and more into focus. That was a journey several of the other artists seemed to share.

When the audience was able to ask questions, most of them were about the logistics of it all. Aditi Kapil had collaborated with a consortium of organizations, but still felt like her vision remained focused. Working with that many organizations, there would normally be a concern that each organization's priorities would affect the development, but all reported that the organizations they worked with were all helpful and supportive and got out of their way.

So, it was quite the love fest...but there was one point of, well, dissatisfaction. With the digital/social media expectation of the grant, some of the artists felt a bit overwhelmed, trying to manage the livestreaming, while creating the work. If that's the main problem, and we got the results that we did...that's pretty good.

DAY 3 IN THE #NEWPLAY CONVENING: CONNECTIVITY AT WORK: NETWORKS & PARTNERSHIPS

by J. Holtham, reporting from the "From Scarcity to Abundance" Convening

Over the last couple of years, one of the big ideas floating around the world of new play development has been partnerships: organizations working together, not just to produce a new play, but to support the development. The term that David Dower has thrown out was "alignment" and today, he wondered aloud if the current resources of the field are aligned in the best way, to the greatest effect. This roundtable was largely made up of people from presenting organizations and established networks and the conversation circled around that world, asking the question of how the resources are allotted and what the issues are.

The first thing that came leaping off the table was the vast number of partnerships, networks and consortia that already exist, criss-crossing the country, cutting across cultural and racial lines, all of these pipelines to send work and artists from institution to institution, community to community. Early on, though, one stumbling block became apparent: not all presenters are created equal. There are presenters interested in daring, edgy work, who seek out the cutting edge companies and artists. Others...not so much. For those communities, "theatre" means the big Broadway shows that get programmed. We may not ever be able to anything about that, but it's worth remembering the depth and width of that sector of the field.

For the new play sector, there is an ecology at work, calling us back to the rainforest metaphor from yesterday, groups and collectives sharing resources and ideas. The feel around the table was particularly collegial. Most of the folks had worked together or worked with similar artists, faced similar struggles and were happy to offer advice.

One of the questions that arises for networking is the question of the role of the organizations and balancing each organizations' needs and priorities. Some approach things from a dramaturgical standpoint (as one participant called it "being an artistic chiropractor"). Others are more hands off. One piece of advice offered to any one planning to get into presenting was to know where you land in the ecosystem, what role you want to play.

All of the questions around money weren't shied away from. One participant said you couldn't avoid talking about it. How resources are shared and by whom was a significant question. The question of transparency was a big one. Some organizations like transparency, and seeing the full budget of the piece, but others didn't want to know what other groups were putting into it. But most of the folks agreed that you needed to be honest about your resources with your artists and clear about what you could do and what you couldn't. You also needed to be aware of how priorities change. There was a distinction made between partnerships and relationships, different depths of connection between organizations. Those distinctions can easily get lost in the talking.

Another way of looking at alignment, one participant put forward, was looking at vertical alignment, working with larger organizations, which has its own inherent issues. Another remarked, keeping up the chiropractic theme, that sometimes you think it's a problem with your neck, when it's a problem with your back. Working with large organizations (or being one) can be problematic because you have to make harder choices about resources. Maybe when you were smaller, you didn't pay artists and now you want to, but to do that, you have to take resources away from something else. These are the dangers that lurk in alignment and growth.

Overall, though, the table didn't have much in the way of danger zones. From one of the artist/administrators at the table, though, came a question that went to the heart of the idea of networking: why? A live theatrical event is an ephemeral thing, a sand painting, made for one place at one time. Why try to move it to another place, out of its context and away from its community? One of the major themes of this convening has been connecting with a community. Doesn't this effort run counter to that?

Not even mentioning the unexpected outcomes that come from moving work. One black theatre company is invited to partner with a white theatre company in another city, working together on a new play. What does that tell the black theatre company in that city? There can be unseen risks in partnering with another organization and it's up to you to enter with your eyes open and make sure you understand what you're getting into.

Others pushed back again the idea that sharing work and moving productions was antithetical to building community and connection. Cornerstone, which has commissioned several plays and produced all of its commissions, and had several move, didn't move EVERY play. Some, tied intimately to a particular place, were only performed there. Other plays, and other kind of plays, could easily play anywhere. Not all artists have a desire to explore place and that will open things up for the field.

The conversations had been so potent and so focused that David decided to change up the format of the day to keep people at the table talking. And talk, they did. People seemed excited about the possibilities of networking with universities, who had, particularly in times when class wasn't in session, lots of space and some resources to devote. Of course, this also had some unseen complications for artists, since the professional theatre pushes writers toward smaller casts and simpler sets while the universities, hoping to satisfy large classes, want larger casts and bigger visions. Again, there's a balancing act involved in it.

Kind words were thrown at some funders, in particular the Mellon Foundation, for their support of these partnerships. Groups like the National New Play Network and APAP were also talked about regularly.

In the end, though, through the connections and camaraderie, there were warnings. Making connections about money seemed like a foolhardy and dangerous idea. One participant compared it to be a weak swimmer reaching out desperately and linking arms with another weak swimmer. There were other ways to connect, support and help each other. One administrator talked about letting local theatres use his theatre's scene shop, not as money-making venture, but as a support system. The whole circle responded well to that idea, that there were other things than money for each other.

The final piece of advice: you won't want to partner with everybody. And somebody won't want to partner with you. Figure that out early and move on to someone who does. That was advice any artist could use.

Day 2 in the #NewPlay Convening: Critical Alchemy: What's Working in the Devised Work Sector

posted by Trisha Mead, reporting from the "From Scarcity to Abundance" Convening

"Here's the thing," David Dower explains, " The hashtag is #newplay. Its call #newplayTV. It's called the #newplay map. What’s devised work got to do with it?"

He continues, "It’s a big tent- the inquiry is broad, but is there room for the ways in which work gets made? Does the movement towards supporting devised work take something away from the focus on plays and playwriting?"

Echoes of the previous day's concerns about the potential shift away from the private writer's process bubble up again as we begin to discuss the devised work spectrum. But there's been time for the conveners to sift through their feelings about this area of tension, and a perspective that melds the two worldviews comes forward... from a relatively unlikely source.

"I'm Richard Montoya, bitter playwright," he says. "I thought I was going to be on the diversity panel."

Richard is a member of Culture Clash, a company commissioned by the Oregon Shakespeare Festival as part of their American Revolutions play cycle. He is a playwright, but much of what Culture Clash creates lives in a world that may more accurately described as devised work. He is uncomfortable with the label.

But he's had experience on both sides of the playwright/deviser divide.

David asks  him: What have you learned as a  playwright who also creates devised work? Can the same infrastructure serve your devised work and your playwrighting work?

The answer is illuminating. He explains that his company never saw itself as devised work, though their work is often interview based, and developed with multiple artistic voices in play. They began by simply asking themselves, "How can we come together in a nimble and fast way?" "Devised work,"he explains,"is a way in. As an ensemble that's what we've done."

Because Culture Clash does a combination of more traditional playwrighting and community engaged work that could be described with the label "devised," Richard says, "we’re working to be more clear at the beginning of a process about whether it’s more playwright driven or devised. We are learning to allow our ensemble members to go do their individual things and then come back energized."

Adrien-Alice Hansel, literary director at Studio Theatre DC, shares Richard's perspective about the potential lessons to be learned from engaging in both devised and traditional processes. From Adrien-Alice:

"Working on devised work helped us learn to work smarter with playwrights and vice versa. You figure out what of your history you should bring to this project. You only get more nimble as you have more information."

The developing consensus seemed to be that the conversation could go both ways- lessons learned from the traditional play development world could help devised work be more effective, and lessons from the devised world could feed back into the traditional new play structure as well, because writers have different processes as well.

"I think it’s a both/and not an either/or," one convener asserted, "If we get to an either/or place we’re in crisis."

At the same time, there are challenges that are unique to devised work.

"Sometimes institutions are dismayed to learn that our process can take place around a bottle of Knob Creek late at night." This again from Richard Montoya, talking about the challenges ensembles can face in trying to fit their "process" into institutional structures.

Michael Rohd, from Sojourn Theatre, mentions that when they began work on On the Table (a site specific work recently featured in American Theatre Magazine), "We couldn’t make sense of it in an institutional context, so we just did it."

Steven Sapp from Universes adds "We had to work really hard to be considered a theater company. We’ve learned how to create work outside of institutional structures." He continues, " We often say, 'Lets' deal with our stuff before we let any theater people touch it. We take our work to a poetry or jazz house first to hear how it sounds in the room before we bring it into an institutional context.'"

This discomfort with their place in the institutional structure proved common among the "devisers" in the conversation. I use the quotation marks because they are also almost universally uncomfortable with the labels. Devised? Ensemble driven? Movement-based? They are boxes. And these artists don't like boxes.

Which leads into another distinction- most are itinerant, creating their work in other people's spaces. Other people's "homes." Not being confined by a box also means not having a box to rest in, to store stuff, to accumulate resources. So it should be no surprise that when the conversation turned to resources needed to support their work, many in the discussion cited spaces and stuff, rather than money.

Steven talks about his conversation with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. "They asked, 'What do you guys need to do the work that you guys do?' I said, 'We need a room where we can all get together to kinda... work." OSF's solution? A house in South Carolina that was available through a relationship the festival had. An elegant solution, and one that provided a resource many theater companies take for granted and most devised theatermakers have in short supply. Space to work. And time to do it.

David identifies the issue, "This is what we can learn: resources come in all knds of shapes and sizes. We can’t always write a paychecks but it may be that there’s something else we have that has real value. Access to a prop room. Or a house. Or a space."

As the discussion continued, a list of non-monetary resources that were necessary emerged. The highlights:

• Space to work. Joe Haj from Playmakers is called out for his commitment to creating residencies for devised companies, saying, "I have space. I have a house. I have the summer." His season doesn’t let him present it. But it's his passion, so he creates the space.
• Access to basic office systems. A Xerox machine can be transformative to a company who's usual mode of work happens in spoken word. "For us, it was," Steven grins, "if we didn't memorize it, it wasn't in the show."
• Access to a prop shop. Katie Pearl explains that just being able to pluck a variety of props from storage and bring them into the rehearsal room can be hugely inspiring.
• Mentorships. Much of what devised ensembles said they needed was access to information. Kirk Lynn, from the Rude Mechanicals, said he found a mentorship with SITI Company was transformative when they experienced growing pains. "It was helpful to have someone who could say, 'Oh yeah, your having that fight. Cool. Here’s how you deal with that.'" Megan from SITI Company takes the request further. "I would love to have a mentorship with someone in a bigger theater- go learn from Steppenwolf or something. There’s a whole learning and an ecology that can happen from interaction with larger institutions."
• A manager.  Megan shared the leap SITI company was able to make when a grant allowed them to create a managerial position to focus on the logistics of pulling the project together. "There are so many collaborators," she said. "Funders, producers, presenters...space, rehearsal time. I juggle so many balls. Its a minor miracle when a project comes together."
• A clearer model for royalties. Work generated collaboratively often has muddy lines of authorship, making it difficult to figure out how to compensate individual members of a collaboration fairly. A template for royalty sharing that could be adjusted to suit the needs of an individual project would be hugely helpful to presenters and ensembles alike.
• Deeper access to tech. This mode of working needs access to the technology (projectors, sound, lights) from the beginning of the process. Not dropped in a few days before tech.
• Retreats, like the Voices and Visions summer retreat. Sabrina from the Network of Ensemble Theaters explains, "Six days in the country plus childcare is worth a month of rehearsal time in daily life." Retreats are also helpful when they can happen alongside other companies working on their own projects. " There's an alchemy that happens when people are working on different projects in the same space- it can be very fertile ground."
• A touring system. The dance world has a close knit network of presenters. Other than the big Broadway tours, there is no equivalent system for touring ensemble generated work. Sabrina from NET points out that some companies are developing consortiums for peer-to-peer presenting, where 3 companies agree to present each other's work to their own audiences. This could be a productive model.
• Festivals. Meiyin Wang from the Under the Radar Festival shares, "the emergence of festivals as a structure creates a space for risk, for collisions of styles, for artists to come up against each other. This allows for the redistribution of this work. Producers can come to one place and see multiple shows, do research." Which leads to the final resource  (and the emerging theme of the convening as a  whole)...
• Relationships. Devised work needs better access to presenters, funders, regional theaters, fellow artists and new potential audiences. How does that happen? Kirk shares a lunch he had with Chuck from the Wexler Center, where he asked  how a company like the Rude Mechs could get access to decision makers at organizations they would like to have relationships with. Chuck said, "This is how you do it- you call me, we have dinner, we talk a relationship is born."

But lest our conveners inadvertently convince you that all the resources devised work needs is non-monetary, let's be clear. Devised work needs money. Of a very specific kind.

Devised and ensemble work has a long development cycle. As the Tectonic Theater Project explains, "The Laramie Project took 5 years. How do you sustain yourself during that time? Like a phama company you have to invest in R&D for many things, some of which won’t pay off."

Kirk from the Rude Mechanicals has praise for the Creative Capital model. "They support the whole collective rather than just one project. You apply with a project. They provide company infrastructure, add money to help presenters see your premiere, coaches to work with you on life issues- health insurance, buying a house. Most other grants, we write what we’re doing in terms of their mission. Creative Capital wanted to serve our mission."

The takeaways? Money must be aimed at process, at serving the mission. Critical resources can come in all guises: space and time and relationship.

And a last thought.  Remember that the borders between one kind of work and another are porous, the most robust hybrids often start with the most diverse collaborators, and that the critical alchemy of art requires truth-telling, flexibility and many minds hearts and bodies to bring to fruition.

DAY 2 IN THE #NEWPLAY CONVENING: WHAT'S DIVERSITY GOT TO DO WITH IT?

by J. Holtham, reporting from the "From Scarcity to Abundance" Convening

It should be no surprise that the roundtable on diversity in our theatre would be lively, passionate, a little dark and a little bright. What was a surprise was the breadth of the conversation and the depth. But that's what you get when you gather some of the smartest people in the American theatre around a table and let them talk.

As Trisha described, the format is a little different for today's session: we have a central table, surrounded by concentric circles. The folks at the table do the talking, but the folks in the circles are still participating by listening. There was a lot to listen to for the Diversity Panel. At the table, we had playwright Kristoffer Diaz, Emilya Cachapero of TCG, Bay Area Playwrights Festival Artistic Director Amy Mueller, Mixed Blood Artistic Director Jack Reuler, Victory Gardens lit manager Aaron Carter, Orlando Shakespeare Theater director of new play development Patrick Flick, Shay Wafer, playwright Katori Hall, Shishir Kurup from Cornerstone Theater Company, CRADLE founder and director Scott Walters, among others, in two back-to-back roundtables, breaking down the idea of diversity in theatre along every possible axis.

David kicked off the conversation by calling back an image from last year's Convening on Diversity, the metaphor of rainforest vs. orchard. That was just the beginning. Immediately the roundtable started kicking around not just the value of diversity and what comes along with creating diversity, but what "diversity" even means in our field. Some folks reject even the word as not enough. "It was handed to us," said one participant, a person of color, "We didn't pick that word." He noted that sometimes, theatres and organizations use that word to check something off their list. "'We've achieved diversity,' and then the blinders go back on." Rather than telling the story of separate, individual communities (the Black community, the Latino community), shouldn't we be telling the story of America? The story of the life of America now?

For other panelists, addressing diversity has a social responsibility aspect to it, a responsibility to reach out beyond the "traditional" audiences for theatre in this country. We heard a story we all hear all too often: an unnamed Artistic Director was asked why, even though his theatre was in a diverse, urban setting, the work didn't reflect that and the A.D. responded, "I don't think my audience wants that kind of work." After a little probing, it became clear that, by "audience," the A.D. meant only the subscribers and the Board and said it was a marketing issue. The table (and the room) seemed to feel that wasn't enough. As has been noted, the resident theatre movement was started to connect theatres to their communities. It seems to be falling well short of that goal.

One thing that happens, another panelist noted, was that, under the rubric of diversity, outside-the-mainstream artists are invited in, but expected to do work only for and with their own group, but the majority needs to see it, to see themselves reflected by an outside perspective. The only problem is that they may not like what they see.

We heard about a production in Minneapolis by an Asian-American theatre featuring Hmong characters that was called on the carpet for not having enough Hmong actors. The irony, of course, is that the theatre's leader had done the same to several white theatres in the past and had founded his theatre to address the lack of work for Asian actors. This leader used the controversy to have a community conversation about casting and reflecting his community's internal diversity.

We heard a lot about what stories get told by which community and what is acceptable and what is not. One artist talked about a play of his that was a riff on The Merchant of Venice, using Hindus and Muslims in the place of Christians and Jews (he himself is Hindu). The responses he got ranged from "Why are you slamming your own people?" to "Why are being so hard on the Muslim character?" Another writer talked about how hard it was to get a play set in a housing project done now, after being told "we're trying to keep representations out of the projects. And besides, we just did a play set in the projects." Let's just ignore the obvious whiplash in that statement. There seems to be extreme discomfort with sharing stories a community might not want to hear, showing it in a light it might not like.

But, as one participant stated, we should be leading the audience, not following it. We should be following brilliance.

Not only cultural/racial diversity, but geographic diversity was up for discussion. Using the metaphor of the rainforest vs. the orchard, if we're thinking the rainforest is what we want, one participant said we should be thinking about rural America as a desert and then importing a rainforest from a urban area into it. Rainforests have roots and belong in one place. We're moving in the direction of homogenizing story. The regional theatres used to represent the region they were in, but are moving away from that.

From there, the table tried to pivot into bright spots, but there were still some dark spots to be talked about. In particular, the lack of people of color in posititions of power and influence at major theatres. It's a crucial issue because, as we look for diverse stories, we need people who can understand and interpret them correctly. Another participant talked about his play, which he saw as an intense look at the cost of dual consciousness and one character's struggle for respect and dignity and that white theatres saw as a light-hearted sports comedy. Without a visionary producer who paired him up with the right director, that play wouldn't have lived up to its potential, because there was nobody in the theatres who got it.

But there are people getting it, and getting it right. Once we turned fully to bright spots, the names came pouring out: theatres and festivals of new work by artists of color, awards and grants for artists of color that seem to be proliferating, major organizations that are managing the conversation right, conferences and convenings where artists and administrators can talk out these issues, like this one. Eventually, there was hope in the room. And a challenge. As the paradigms are shifting, there is a groundswell of activity and action coming up. We have to empower the ground.

And right at the end, we heard the words of a board member of a local D.C. organization, talking about the risks that a theatre takes to push the envelope: it's more important to fulfill the mission than to survive. That is a gauntlet thrown. There are plenty of people willing to pick it up.

The idea of changing demographics was a big one. We will need new words, new constructs as this country moves, inexorably it seems, towards being "majority minority." The table really seemed to wrestle with the question of how would theatre respond to that.

Day 2 in the #NewPlay Convening: The Responsibilities of the Kingmaker: Thoughts on Including Artists in the Life of the Institution

posted by Trisha Mead, reporting from the "From Scarcity to Abundance" Convening

"There's an incredible responsibility in being an institution that's a kingmaker... and there's a danger there." - Polly Carl, Steppenwolf Theatre

If it is true that the most effective relationships between an artist and institution are deep... developed over years and conversations and multiple projects, then it is also true that there are physical and emotional limits to how many deep relationships one institution can maintain. How does an institution help artists and playwrights feel included when the number of slots available at the heart of things may be limited?

Not everyone can be at the core. And for Steppenwolf's Polly Carl, that became a central issue to address when discussing the subject of artist inclusion in the life of an institution. She explains, "Only so many artists can be at the center- so part of the tension is which artists are in and which are out and how are they chosen. How many deep thorough relationships can we realistically be cultivating at any given time?"

Its a fair question, and it speaks to the larger issue that the new play sector faces- how do we grow the lifelong relationships that foster the best work while still creating access for new artists to begin their own relationship development?

And how do the "kingmaker" institutions handle their responsibility to their current relationships without leaving a generation of artists feeling that there's no room for them? And equally important, how can "kingmaker" institutions acknowledge the inherent power imbalance in their relationships with playwrights, particularly in situations where the artistic director is also the director of the new work?

Transparency is limited by hierarchy. And privilege can be invisible to the people who wield it. Jennifer Nelson from the Ford Theater points out that, just as in conversations about diversity, it is essential to recognize the ways in which the privilege inherent in being an institution can cause you to oversimplify your relationship with a given artist. If you are an artist of color, for example, then you are looked to to constantly represent all "artists of color." Having to speak for an entire race limits your ability to be transparent about the idiosyncracies of your own identity, the stories you'd like to tell, and the way you'd like to tell them.

So how might some of these structural barriers to inclusiveness be addressed? Some solutions that occured in the conversation were:

• Invite artists to opening nights and social events at the institution-it can help an artist feel a part of the social fabric of an organization- whether they are currently working on a project there or not.
• Be transparent in the artist relationship, even when the answer is no. Be willing to say,“We’re not going to produce this piece because its not what we do, but here are the people you should be talking to.”
• Have artist retreats- as Mara Isaacs points out, "Relationships start with facetime. Artist retreats are hugely helpful for creating relationships."
• Constantly seek to own up to your own privilege as an institution and find ways to level the playing field in your relationship with the artist- as one convener pointed out, "remember that you are creating a process WITH the artist. You are not creating a process FOR the artist."
• Include the artist in the decisions about the members of the team- they may know directors, designers and collaborators with whom the institution is unfamiliar- and they are more likely to feel confident in a team that they were given the opportunity to help assemble
• Be a generous connector of artists to other companies and resources that may become fruitful future relationships.  

This last point is especially essential. As Alison Carey from the Oregon Shakespeare Festival pointed out about their own project to commission 37 new works in 10 years (American Revolutions:The United States History Cycle), "We are not going to be able to produce all of these plays in a timely fashion. So part of honoring our commitment to these works is to develop artistic relationships with other institutions, constantly seeking collaborations that will help these commissioned works get out into the world." She adds, "So we might be managing 30 collaborations- and that’s when you think you might go mad."

"But," she insists, "at every moment you think 'THIS IS RIDICULOUS!' ... You have to be audacious."

"This is no time for small, " she maintained, with a quiet intensity that electrified the room. "I would rather die trying to change the world."

#NewPlay TV - additional scheduling this week! NET's Genre-Defying Work in Philly

 #NewPlay TV's running LIVE full-steam today, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday with the entire "From Scarcity to Abundance: Capturing the Moment for the New Work Sector" Convening at Arena Stage AND the Network of Ensemble Theaters' Micro-Fest in Philly entitled: "Genre-Defying Work".  Click here to get their live broadcast schedule for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

Organize a watch-party for NET. Put #newplay in your Tweets.

The #NewPlay TV channel is located here:

http://livestream.com/newplay

Day 1 in the #NewPlay Convening: The Future Gets Weirder: Big Thoughts from 4 Big Thinkers

posted by Trisha Mead, reporting from the "From Scarcity to Abundance" Convening

From what might be wrong the participants of From Scarcity to Abundance leaped into a big juicy exploration of what might be right... if we can dream big enough. Four of the theater world's "big thinkers" were invited to the table to play fortune teller/sci fi novelist and create some plausible predictive fictions for us to chew on as we transitioned into the next phase of the convening.

So its oddly apropo that moderator Deborah Cullinan opens the conversation with a quote from Douglas Adams, author of every theater nerd's first book crush, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:

"Space is big. You just won’t believe how vastly mindbogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's [insert theater here], but that's just peanuts to space."

As we began the visioning process, Deborah requested that we reach for really big space as a theater community. She asked that we commit to creating a future that unsticks itself, revolutionizing the way we produce work in this country.

She then introduced our "thinkers," asking them each to respond to the following question:

What do you see as the future of new play development community in this country?

The ideas came fast and furious. A little too fast and too furious, I have to admit, for my fingers to keep up. So if there's an idea that particularly sparkled for you that I have omitted, feel free to share it in the comments. These are arranged as a series of popcorn responses... think of them as little glints of gold gleaned from the rich fields of four fascinating theater futurists.

The first to respond to the question was Kirk Lynn of the Rude Mechanicals, who informed us that he would be arranging his ideas in "increasing order of incredulity."

Imagine 30 years in the future: 2040.

There will be a return to resident companies, and a rise in ensembles and collectives, as more people discover what he and the Rude Mechanicals know: Collaboration with a steady team of partners helps  regulate success and moderate failure. A community of creative partners can keep your head from swelling too big when you succeed... and help pick you up off the ground when you fail.

As Americans, we are trained to look for iconoclastic visionaries, but we should also honor great relationships (think Rogers and Hammerstein) It’s a healthy way to make art.

Self production. More and more new work will be created by practitioners who have let go of waiting for a company to pluck their work out of obscurity. Instead, they will produce their own work.

As a teacher, he wants to be teaching his students producing skills in addition to the standard technical skills our training programs currently offer. Recently, he took his students to a production of Mary Zimmerman's Metamorphoses and asked them to guess how much it cost to produce. One student guessed $3k.

Imagine an engineering student being asked to guess the cost of a bridge, getting it THAT wrong and still getting a degree.

People who see theater end up re-performing it when they explain it to people. The line between performer and audience will blur.

Every member of the audience carries around all this private history, and their experience of theater is private, informed by their own context and internal life. The line between private and public experience will blur.

The future gets weirder and weirder.


We might be one of the last generations that dies…what would living forever do to performace? If time was infinite, would longer work be more accepted? Would we non longer be able to claim we don't have time to see that performance? To create that complex work?

Is there a danger in unlimited life span when it comes to the creative process? The limitedness of time is a resource that theater uses extremely well.

What if  we could select what race our children were? Or if you could turn these things on and off at will? What race would you be when you came to a panel on diversity?

Next. Meiyin Wang, associate producer of the Under the Radar Festival took the mic.

There will be dances without people, acting without words. Flashmobs, neurobiological experiments, Broadway spectactulars

Theater will be Idyosyncratic, Expansive. It will not be reality. It will turn reality on its head to tell its secret truths.

The definitions and barriers between theater workers will collapse. We will not be playwrights or designers. We will be only theatermakers. Designer/playwrights. Funder/actors. Hybrids of all kind.

The notion of authorship will change completely. You will not be able to see the edges of creation and execution.  It will all be one.

Increasing interactivity-  audiences will expect to create and develop their own content.

Theater will become increasingly about place. Theaters will become community centers.

There will be bars. Real bars in the theater.

Theater will be taken to the audience. We don’t have to wait for them to come. We’ll interrupt their daily rhythms. Theater will be local- we will no longer import NY theatermakers. It is no longer environmentally responsible to do so.

Creating theater where the idea is national, the execution is fiercely local. No more disposable sets. We will have to pay for our carbon footprint.

Borders will become more porous. Identity, Nationality, Race will become more flexible as artists move through nations to create work. The tax code and the border policies will have to be flexible enough to keep up.

And most crucially, theater can move the body politic one room at a time.

Next. Marc Masterson from Actors Theater Louisville.

The idealism Rocco was talking about in the opening conversation is an essential ingredient to all we do. I fear that we may be going from a time of relative abundance to a time of relative scarcity.

We tend to bemoan our current state.

There is a vast amount of work happening in the US and it is very diverse- this is a reason for hope.

The question: What’s the first thing that pops into your mind when you think of the year 2070?

What we can really imagine as the future is limited by our knowledge of the present, and sometimes the past. All were examples of what already is present now- sometimes on the margins.

It is difficult to imagine what does not exist. What might exist. (see the SF writers who completely failed to predict the transformative effect of the internet).

The future will not look like me. The whole idea of race itself as a divider will melt away. We will think about other forms of identity.

Alliances: Find out who we are through a mutual exploration of creative process (the group theme again)

Mentorships will be key. A mentorship changes the mentee and the mentor. Both generations benefit.

I run a blue dot in a red state. Institutions have to redefine their relationship to the community or they will go away.

So what could the new role be for a large institution? Opening the doors and letting people in. Getting out of the building. Being more porous. Bringing new people into the collaboration- visual artists, technologists, audience members.

Global/international influence on parochial American thinking- how can we welcome that onto our stages?

Closing the conversation was playwright Lydia Diamond:

Some people find it confusing that I work again and again with instiutions which I regularly criticize.

Smaller ones have more generationally and racially diverse audiences. Most African American theaters fit in this category. August would not approve.

The conversation is not about diversity but rather the doling out of resources and  the honoring of commitments.

When I go to an American play written by a black person with black artists, the demographic in the theater doesn’t match the demographic onstage or in the community. This concerns me.

How does the subscription system make room to audience expansion? Is subscription a barrier to diverse audiences?

We need to admit to elitism. I have a complicated relationship to theaters producing the hot playwright of color. I am a hot person of color (the room laughs).

I see my young students and young artists everywhere having a completely different paradigm around race and diversity. This strange lack of racial identity threatens me, my clearly differentiated boundaries are made irrelevant by their kumbyah-ness about race.

Then the room was invited to respond. Here are a few quotes from the responders.

Jim Lasko Redbull Theater "We need to come up with new words for theatermaking."

Jennifer Nelson from Ford Theater, Washington, DC - "People will redefine what performance is as reality. We have people growing up who feel more real in a virtual world than in a physical world."

More immersive experiences- people wanting to live in the physical world as a performance event (think LARPERS- live action role-players. There will soon be more of them than there are of us)

A black theater festival that happened here and did quite well, and none of them had to do with the theater community of Washington- it was generated out of church communities and amateur environments. A lot of people who enjoy performance don’t care about the theater communities. They want to create their own performances to reflect their own communities back to themselves.

What's missing from these visions of the future? Where do you see the theater in the year 2040?

Day 2 in the #NewPlay Convening: Who's at the Wheel: The Pleasures (and Dangers) of the Move towards Devised Work

posted by Trisha Mead, reporting from the "From Scarcity to Abundance" Convening

We begin day two of the #newplay convening with a new structure. A central round table with microphones is circled by an audience of listening chairs. A small group has been selected to speak, debate and discuss at this session. The rest of us are given the following marching orders from our fearless leader David Dower:

Remember that the false belief about dialogue is that if you get the right people in the room the things that must be said, will be said.

Remember the fact of your listening to what’s said helps guide what’s said.

As a listener, your role is to gather what’s said, note what’s not said, and bring that to your breakout sessions to discuss. Delay judgement and reaction to fully hear what the center table is saying.

Don't focus on what's not working with an eye towards fixing it. Focus on what IS working and try to understand it.

Remember the words of the book from Chip and Dan Heath, Switch: Change happens by finding the bright spots and cloning them.

Yes, sir.

Onto the conversation.

The energy in this first conversation about artists and institutions was remarkably free of conversations about the tension between the artist and the institution (perhaps because we were strictly enjoined to focus on bright spots). Instead, an intriguing new tension arose between the recent interest in collaborative processes and devised work vs. the privacy and primacy of the writer’s vision.

There were some areas of commonality- everyone seemed to agree that the most important resources to provide were an abundance of time, and a flexible enough process to allow for the writer to take the lead- not only on what gets worked on, but how and when.

At the same time, there was a new tension brewing between the theatermakers who were interested in work where a writer was just one of an equal group of collaborators vs. the world in which the team assembled was there with the express purpose of fully realizing the writer’s unique vision.

Here are some notable quotes from the folks gathered at the table (which included speakers from Woolly Mammoth, the Public's Under the Radar Festival, Devised Work makers with relationships with Center Theatre Group and the always deliciously frank and eloquent playwright Lydia Diamond as well as playwrights Amy Freed and James Still.)

This conversation was Lydia Diamond's first meeting with Howard from Woolly Mammoth and the results were fascinating. Woolly Mammoth is trying to devise a new play development process that will live somewhere between the traditional institutional process and the devised work of a festival like the Public's Under the Radar.

He noted that some of their most successful projects have been created with young playwrights who "didn't know any better yet" and were therefore willing to give over their work to a director who helped them to learn about their own play, yielding "AHA" artistic moments that were greater than the sum of their parts.

Lydia reacted viscerally to this, clearly struggling between her desire to be positive, constructive and polite and her very real alarm at the implication that the best work comes from a  playwright subsuming the primacy of their private vision to the decentralized control of a more collaborative, devised process where the text is simply a starting point.

"As a writer," she noted, "I find the idea of supplanting the writer's primacy terrifying." She went on to explain that "the writer has a responsibility. Writing is a form of public conscience and private poetics."  She shared the response of the other playwrights at the table that putting the playwright in the driver's seat, of both the process and the end production, was the best thing an institution could do to nurture the playwright's whole vision- both their theatrical vision and their text vision.

These other playwrights, including Amy Freed (The Beard of Avon) and James Still (Iron Kisses) noted the importance of relationships with artistic directors who were willing to take the leap of faith on their work, committing to production before a piece was complete and giving the playwright the freedom and time to get the play to its most complete state before production.

Todd London, author of Outrageous Fortune, the nation's new bible of what's gone wrong in the American new play sector, concluded the discussion with the following thought: Playwrights work best when they are dealt with in a totally artistic fashion, when they are given resources to enrich the process, not produce a product. Production pressure makes time scarce.

He also noted that, "You know when your engaged in something that touches the art, and you know when you’re engaged in some kind of administrative structure." If there is to be structure, he argued, it should touch the art. And it seems that the best predictor of a process that touches the art, in both the devised and traditional playwriting worlds, is the existence of strong relationships- between the institution and the playwright and between the playwright and their collaborators. Which leads tidily into the session that followed. But that's a topic for another post.

Who do you think should be in the driver's seat of a new play development process? A co-equal group of collaborators or a writer with a support staff of people there to tease out the ideal version of the writer's vision?

Day 1 in the #NewPlay Convening: 'Outrageous Fortune': One Year Later

posted by J. Holtham, reporting from the "From Scarcity to Abundance" Convening

We all remember it. I think just about everyone who works in new plays in this country can probably say, down to the second, where they were when they first heard about it, when they first read it. And we've all been talking about it ever since.

Outrageous Fortune hit the theatre scene like a bomb.

It's been a little over a year since it was published and the conversation is still bouncing around the new play sector. So it was fitting that, after Rocco Landesman's stemwinder of a kick-off, that David wanted to start the Convening proper with a conversation about that book. And who better to have that conversation than Todd London, one of the authors of the book and a leader in the new play development field. What better two-some than Todd and David Dower to look at the field, a year after Outrageous Fortune came out and see how the ripples have affected the whole community.

The conversation kicked off with a bit of history, looking at the development and genesis of Outrageous Fortune, itself a five year long process of interviews, surveys and analysis. As Todd pointed out, though, there were a lot of overlapping and complementary studies and conversations happening all over the field at the same time: David Dower was doing his own research under a grant from the Mellon Foundation, Julia Jordan was looking at opportunities for female playwrights, the Duke Foundation was looking at its funding priorities. David wondered if, at any time, Todd felt like the moment for Outrageous Fortune had passed, but it didn't. And the resulting conversation that it sparked certainly showed that.

Todd made an interesting distinction between activity and change; before Outrageous Fortune came out there was a lot of activity, but it wasn't change. Not yet. All of that activity and discussion made the ground fertile and the field receptive, though, and Outrageous Fortune hit the ground running. A lot has happened in the last year, a lot of it spurred by the book's revelations. A lot of good has come from it. Todd said there are times when he feels like it's all "oh, so last year." But then he remembers that everything still sucks.

Well, not everything. In preparation for their conversation, Todd collected an impressive stack of e-mails, news clippings and press releases, a collection of a year's worth of new ideas and initiatives from around the country (though with a bit of an NYC bias, since that's where Todd lives). New ways of addressing gender parity, commitments to produce more works by women, new festivals celebrating the work of African-American playwrights, new partnerships between large and small companies, new funding for production, particularly second productions, new interdisciplinary models, a musical theatre festival dedicated to exploring its issues, a whole array of new ideas and new explorations, many of them direct responses to Outrageous Fortune.

With all of that, David asked Todd a good question: have we moved to a dramatically different place? Todd's response was hopeful, but careful: It feels like that. But it also feels like it's part of a zeitgeist moment, part of efforts that have been going on for years. He talked about a metaphor playwright and librettist John Weidman had used. One of the long battles had been over subsidiary rights claimed by theatres. For years, the Dramatists Guild had fought with theatres to reduce or eliminate those rights, and for years, theatres resisted. Then, all of a sudden, it seems the theatres gave way on it and several large theatres stopped claiming sub rights. Weidman described as an ice floe breaking and water gushing forth.

That's how Todd felt about the year since Outrageous Fortune came out. Ice floes that seemed unbreakable broke and there was a rushing forth. Will next year be grim because people feel like we've made all the change possible and now it's over? Maybe. But maybe not. Todd was less hopeful before collecting all of the stories. And there were more to come.

The room burst forth with stories from the attendees, things people from around the country have been doing for the last year to make change. The Alliance Theatre has committed to doing a full season of new work by playwrights less than a decade out of school. HERE has increased its fees for playwrights. Penumbra is working with 16 new playwrights every year. The Network of Ensemble Theatres has been working with the Playwrights Center and the LMDA. The Bay Area Playwrights Foundation is working with new writers every year. The Hip-Hop Theatre Festival is commissioning new work. The McCarter is producing 80% of its commissions, 5 plays by women, all directed by women. The National New Play Network has increased its commissions, eliminated subsidiary rights and forged new partnerships. Z Space is creating new support for new work. The Playwrights Center is breaking down the barriers between playwrights and artisitic directors and building new connections with the local theatres. The work of the Steinberg Foundation was singled out by Actors Theatre of Louisville and their tremendous financial support for writers. Tuscon Borderlands Theatre is making partnerships with theatres in Mexico, bringing new plays to both communities. Cornerstone has linked up with New Dramatists and has produced every play they've commissioned. And that's just the people who spoke up.

At Todd's insistence, David finished us off with a story he'd heard from Morgan Jenness about her transition from dramaturg to agent. She was working with Joe Papp at the Public. They'd commissioned a play from a writer, gone through a developmental process, worked with the writer, but ultimately, Joe wanted to pass on the play. He instructed Morgan to call the playwright and explain. Morgan went back to her desk and started calling theatres, saying she had a great play they should look at. Joe called her back into his office, and said, "I heard you've been calling this theatre and that theatre about this play. I told you to call the playwright, not try to get it produced by someone else. You work for the Public Theater, you know." And Morgan's response was, "I work FOR the American Theatre.  AT the Public." And Joe said, "Okay. Get that play produced."

We are all working at our separate theatres, on our own projects, but we're all working FOR the American Theatre. It was a good note to end on. But this is just the beginning.

Day 1 in the #NewPlay Convening: Fighting Words from Rocco Landesman

posted by Trisha Mead, reporting from the "From Scarcity to Abundance" Convening

"We're all one enterprise. We just file different tax returns." Paul Libin on the state of the American Theater, as quoted by Molly Smith at the introduction to the #newplay convening.

"I would like to start... by calling bullshit." - Rocco Landesman, in response to Paul Libin's quote, at the beginning of his remarks to the #newplay convening.

Here's a recipe for a hell of a conceptual fist fight. Convene 100 or so people from around the nation, each of whose mission in life is to grow the field of new work for the theater. Each of whom represents an organization that is fighting to generate new audiences, new ideas, new structures for expanding the American theater.

Then place a guy in cowboy boots in front of them (who happens to control the largest pool of public arts funding in the U.S.) and have him baldly state, "Look. You can either increase demand or decrease supply. Demand is not going to increase, so it is time to think about decreasing supply."

Bam. Knuckles cracked, Conceptual throwing stars were whetted and readied and a whole room was suddenly electrified into response. What does he mean there's too much supply?!? What does he mean we can't increase demand?!? Who determines which theater companies are wheat and which are chaff?!? And what are the consequences of this assertion for my own theater company? A pretty great way to start a #newplay convening, even if (particularly if) you wildly disagreed with every syllable of the assertion being made by our nation's nominal top funding dog. What else did the chair of the NEA have to say?

• He is deeply concerned about the increase in public/private partnerships. The dramatic increase in non-profit theaters receiving "enhancement money" from for-profit Broadway producers has him concerned that this the flood of money available from "enhancement" projects will handicap the artistic selection process at our regional theaters, over-privileging plays with "Broadway potential" over riskier, more locally focused work.
• He is concerned that the regional theaters are moving away from the values of their founders. Zelda Fichandler and Joe Papp, he argues, started regional theaters as a deliberate counter-culture to the for-profit Broadway community.  He declared, "The founders and funders of the great institutions wanted to work outside the exigencies of the box office. They wanted a protected environment to do work that otherwise wouldn't exist." Some time in our recent past, he feels, we have moved from a culture of "opposition" to a culture of "success." We've become obsessed with our metrics of success... ticket sales, Broadway transfers, reviews... We are losing the impetus to create work that is chosen deliberately because it is unsuitable for commercial production.
• He finds it scandalous that it is impossible for a professional theater designer, director or playwright to make a living wage in this country purely through work in their artform of choice. He feels that the overabundance of theater companies is partially responsible for this scarcity of living wage work for theatermakers. Fewer companies, more generously funded, would be able to create more living wage jobs for the artists they employ.
• And finally, he is very interested in seeing regional theaters invest in more work that is designed specifically for their own community, rather than passing around the latest Broadway hit. He wants to see regional companies generating work that speaks directly to their own communities... work that shares and reflects the unique values of its particular audience. He is concerned that it has become too tempting for regional artistic directors to program work with a potential Broadway transfer in mind.

Reactions to these concerns and assertions were pretty varied in the room, but here are a few common themes that arose:

1. Michael Rohd from Portland's Sojourn Theatre kicked off the question period with a question prepared in advance and emailed to Diane Ragsdale, the moderator of the discussion. He asked, in the aftermath of the President's State of the Union speech about education being the Sputnik of our time, and particularly in light of the importance the President placed on innovation as the key to our retaining our prominence as the world's economic engine, why was the arts not included as one of the keys to help build a more creative and innovative economy?  And what were we doing to get the arts higher on the President's agenda?

Rocco's response was illuminating- he spoke about the work that's being done to build relationships with cabinet level agencies... embedding the arts in domestic policy through strategic partnerships with HUD and the Department of Health and Human Services. The result is an expansion in the government money that is being used to support artists and the arts (without necessarily running through the contentious NEA appropriations process).

2. Is it a false dichotomy to equate for-profit with non-risk-taking? After all, the vast majority of for profit theater projects do not recoup their investment. One Broadway producer in the room who was currently working on precisely the kind of profit/-non-profit partnership that Rocco was concerned about challenged the notion that to be a for-profit producer was some how in opposition to being a true artmaker or a cultural critic. The inverse assumption was also questioned: Is it necessarily true that regional theaters, by definition, must place themselves in opposition to the cultural mainstream? Or is it possible for a regional theater to be true to its mission and non-profit status and ALSO create work that resonates with the cultural majority?

3. What is the potential impact of this assertion that it is time to decrease supply? As Kirk Lynn from the Rude Mechanicals pointed out in the question period, a $3k grant to an organization of his size has real impact on the work they can generate and how many audience members they can reach with it. The $25k grant to a $4 mil organization has less relative impact. He wonders: Is this weeding out of the overabundance of the theater community going to concentrate more resources into the hands of already large institutions? And what will that mean for the companies whose work isn't compatible with the structures of large institutions?

4. One commentor Scott Walters from CRADLE took issue with the notion that we cannot impact demand. There is a third option, he argued, between decreasing supply and increasing demand- we can create new markets. He argued for investment in opening up more rural communities to professional arts experiences. Rocco seemed very interested in this idea, since it aligns with his desire to see more arts organizations focus on their own relationship to place... to the needs and concerns of a theater's own community. He argued that it was essential to generate more work for and by smaller rural communities, and there was a shared responsibility between the NEA and small arts organizations to seek out opportunities to pair funding with projects that reach those communities.

As the session wrapped up and conveners prepared to move to the next event, the buzz all over the room had a similar refrain: Shouldn't we focus on growing demand and creating new markets (and don't we have proven techniques to share to do this?) And how will this hypothetical winnowing of supply impact the institutions we are currently responsible to? Who will get left out in the cold in this proposed new world order? And most importantly, who will be nominated to determine, on a community by community basis, which arts orgs are vital and which are unnecessary? Are there new gates being buillt? And what values will those gatekeepers hold?

Reports from the #NewPlay Sector: Ensemble Studio Theatre's "EST/Youngblood"

(This is an addendum to the Pre-Convening Reports found in the "From Scarcity to Abundance: Capturing the Moment for the New Work Sector" Pre-Convening PDF. For more info about the Convening Jan 26-Jan29, click here.)

EST/Youngblood

from Graeme Gillis, http://ensemblestudiotheatre.org/programs/youngblood

Youngblood, EST’s company of emerging playwrights under 30, comes at a critical time in a writer’s life – when they have to decide if they can commit to playwriting as a lifetime pursuit. Youngblood exists to make the argument that they can.

The group – currently 21 member playwrights – meets weekly to read new work. Throughout the season programs of ten-minute plays, one-acts (the monthly Sunday brunch series), full-lengths (the annual Unfiltered series of studio productions), and Mainstage productions give the writers consistent deadlines with the knowledge that their work will be performed in front of an audience. Aside from a full-length reading series at the end of each season, Youngblood’s programming is rehearsed, staged, and off-book.

In recent years a core audience has evolved that understands the group’s objectives. Knowing they’ll be there – that people will show up – has allowed the writers the freedom to take chances, to fail, and finally find their voice in a supportive, boisterous, generous environment. This ensures that they keep writing, connected to the fulfillment of realizing their work onstage, away from the second-guessing that can plague an artist before their career takes shape. Youngblood focuses on the joy of a life writing plays.

Membership is based entirely on merit. On average, writers remain in Youngblood for 2-5 years. New members are added each summer. The writers are black, white, Korean, Vietnamese, and East Indian, and come from all manner of economic backgrounds. We strive to include writers outside major university drama programs and the career connections they provide.

The promise Youngblood offers goes beyond a one-time production. By committing to the growth of the individual writer and their unique voice, Youngblood promises a haven for artists who otherwise would have no entry point into the New York theatre community. We are proud of the outcomes for Youngblood’s members and alumni, several of whom have gained national recognition as leaders of their generation.

Following their tenure in the group, Youngblood writers maintain a strong connection to EST and a strong interest in Youngblood writers that come after them. We think this reflects the depth of EST’s commitment to them and their artistic growth. 

The writers of Youngblood get the same artistic and career support from EST as its decorated veteran membership. This is a bedrock principle of Ensemble Studio Theatre and has been for decades. Youngblood exists to ensure that promise continues for generations.

We Begin...

by David Dower

When I was working with members of the Tectonic Theater Project on a Z Space commission, I remember being very moved by their process of "Moment Work." It was a collaborative approach to developing a play, based on a series of smaller moments which could be created by anyone in the company. Any person on the creative team could request time to present a moment. And, whenever a moment was being presented, the person who was presenting it would always say "We begin."

And so. We begin.

It's the day before the start of From Scarcity to Abundance: Capturing the Moment for the New Work Sector. I really like this post from Trisha Mead. She's coming in the precise frame of mind that we're hoping to all enter with this convening.

I wanted to also reach out to those of you who are planning to participate online and in watch parties. I hope you'll also be able to enter the mindset of the gathering, to "feel it" as it were, over the interwebs. It's going to ask us (particularly, you, I guess) to try to open a different space of dialogue, a different voice and approach to conversation than is the normal stock in trade of internet interactions.

In the room, especially from Thursday on, we'll be putting as high a value on active listening as speaking. We'll be asking the one hundred or so people not at the table each time to support the discussion through listening. I'm wondering if we can ask the same of the "third circle"-- those in the virtual room. Will the fact that we're live tweeting, in and of itself, mean that people skip that crucial step of listening to the whole discussion first? Can people read a string of 25 or 30 tweets from a 45-minute conversation, let the whole thing penetrate, and sift their reactions for the thing that needs to be contributed that's thus far not been said before they chime in? Can they listen to a story from the center table live streamed and not jump on their keyboards or talk over the next moment-- waiting, instead, until the entire discussion has unfolded. It's not how it's wired, this whole web wide world. Here, we jump. We read or hear a fragment and we're off. And we keep spinning, off and off and off until we run out of enthusiasm and need another morsel to spark us.

Trisha's got the right notion: This is a moment that calls us to our highest contributions. If we want to be called. If we want it to be a moment. In fact, we're going to even end this whole event with something that ritualizes that. An action that asks us to commit to what we're going to make happen over this next generation of the regional theater movement. And, wherever you are on Saturday, to leave behind anything you don't want to bring into the next generation with you. Some people will no doubt find all of this overly precious or overblown, but there will be people who engage it openly, and I know that the room will be mostly filled with that sort of engagement-- and who knows what we'll make? Who knows if it will be something that, in the end, makes it "to opening night," the way a Moment in a Tectonic rehearsal might or might not. 

People in a "Moment Work" rehearsal never know if they're making a breakthrough for the play or making a mess. But they risk it. They honor the risk. And they formalize the risk. And they take the journey fully before they start to debate it. Maybe we'll find that we can do that, all of us in this rambunctious, unusual, and relatively recently forged #newplay company. Or not. But anyway, we risk it.

We begin.

Reports from the #NewPlay Sector: Ensemble Studio Theatre's "EST/Sloan Project"

(This is an addendum to the Pre-Convening Reports found in the "From Scarcity to Abundance: Capturing the Moment for the New Work Sector" Pre-Convening PDF. For more info about the Convening Jan 26-Jan29, click here.)

EST/Sloan Project

from Billy Carden, http://ensemblestudiotheatre.org/programs/estsloan-project/

The EST/Sloan Project exists to further the public understanding of science and technology through theater. Each year we commission 8 - 12 new plays and offer rewrite development grants for existing scripts. We also offer seed grants to regional theaters who have related projects they wish to develop with local artists. 

The EST/Sloan Project has multiple tiers of developmental support for Sloan plays. Each spring, we devote three weeks to the First Light Festival of readings and workshops, tailoring the level of development to the needs of each play. These range from closed readings of first drafts to week-long workshops. This year, we will add a RoughCut production of a Sloan play to the festival. RoughCut, EST's highest level of developmental programming, is a fully rehearsed and minimally produced workshop, an ideal opportunity to feel how a play lives in space. RoughCuts are open to the public but closed to reviewers, providing the writer the opportunity to make changes all through the process without concern about critical judgment.

Each year the EST/Sloan Project culminates in a full production on our Mainstage. We continue to support each EST/Sloan Mainstage after our production by offering a substantial grant to a regional theater to mount a second production.

Since the program began, 13 years ago, we have commissioned over 200 artists, and have helped more than 60 plays from the program go on to productions around the country. During the life of the program we have given almost a million dollars to support the development of new work at EST and around the country.

We are dedicated to cultivating plays that are human, theatrical, funny, original and surprising. EST/Sloan plays expand our understanding of the world around us.

#NewPlay Festival Roundtable Discussion Questions

The #NewPlay Festival From Scarcity to Abundance begins this Wednesday, January 26th and goes through Saturday, the 29th. In these four days there will be a series of roundtable discussions with various artists from the forefront of the new work sector discussing topics ranging from diversity to Twitter. These questions are used to engage those in the theater to think openly and react passionately about that future and betterment of new American work.

 

THURSDAY, JANUARY 27^TH

 

FRISSON OR FRICTION? ARTISTS AND INSTITUTIONS

9:30AM - 10:15AM    Roundtable Discussion # 1    

Focus on the Bright Spots: As you survey the #NewPlay sector right now, what are some examples of especially effective environments or projects or practices involving the relationship between artists and institutions that you’d want to register as a “Bright Spot”? What are the key ingredients in these environments that create effectiveness?

 

11:00AM – 11:45AM   Roundtable Discussion # 2

With so many institutions identifying themselves as “artist-focused” or “artist-friendly” or “about the artists”, how is it that artists so frequently talk of feeling “in the way” or “in the dark” around institutions? 

 

WHAT’S DIVERSITY GOT TO DO WITH IT?

1:15PM – 2:00PM     Roundtable Discussion # 3

What, in your view, is the value/importance of diversity to the New Play Sector? What’s risked in focusing on diversity as a key indicator of the health of an environment? What’s gained? Are their rules or obligations to “represent” for artists pegged as the diversity-bearers?

 

2:00PM – 2:45PM   Roundtable Discussion # 4

Focus on the Bright Spots for diversity in the New Play Sector: As you look across the New Play sector, where are you seeing things that inspire you? Things that we could learn from? What’s the key to cloning those?

 

THEATER OUTSIDE THE BOX: DEVISERS & ENSEMBLES

3:45PM – 4:30PM   Roundtable Discussion # 5

The name of the Institute is the American Voices New Play Institute. The organizing hashtag these as well. Thinking in terms of initiatives, organizations, projects, processes – What are they, what’s the key to disseminating them?

 

4:30PM – 5:15PM    Roundtable Discussion # 6

Let’s return to the bright spots for Devised Work and try to identify and understand these as well. Thinking in terms of initiatives, organizations, projects, processes – what are they, what’s the key to disseminating them?

 

FRIDAY, JANUARY 28^TH

 

CONNECTIVITY AT WORK: NETWORKS & PARTNERSHIPS

9:30AM - 10:15AM    Roundtable Discussion # 7

What is the value or danger in networks and partnerships as we try to advance the outcomes for artists, organizations, and audiences?

 

11:00AM – 11:45AM   Roundtable Discussion # 8

Focus on Bright Spots: When you look at the sector, what are the most effective examples of partnerships in production, development, and presentation of work as well as networks? What makes these effective?

 

GO TWEET YOURSELF! NEW TECHNOLOGIES IN THE NEW WORK SECTOR

2:00PM – 2:45PM   Roundtable Discussion # 9

What does any of this mean? How does it impact the efforts to capture the abundance of this moment? How does it impact the work itself?

Reports from the #NewPlay Sector: Center Theatre Group's "Commissioning Devised, Ensemble, Collective Creation"

(This is an addendum to the Pre-Convening Reports found in the "From Scarcity to Abundance: Capturing the Moment for the New Work Sector" Pre-Convening PDF. For more info about the Convening Jan 26-Jan29, click here.)

from Malcolm Darrell, mdarrell@centertheatregroup.org

Center Theatre Group’s (CTG) newest commissioning and development program focuses on work that is devised, ensemble or collective creation and is not the singular vision of a playwright. The project is unique not only in its potential impact for CTG, but also on a field-wide level as it could encourage other regional theatres to reconsider their assumptions about developing and producing new work. We have committed to three production commissions, the first driven by Director Phil Soltanoff. The second commission is helmed by co-lead artists Dominique Serrand and Steven Epp formally of Theatre de la June Lune in Minneapolis. The final production commission will be developed by an ensemble company to be determined. 

In addition, we are also identifying work that we can support that has begun the development process elsewhere but still needs funding and additional support to be completed. These completion commissions will address both institution-specific and field-wide needs. They will allow CTG to broaden its reach and artistic vibrancy by creating a formal policy for identifying and supporting artists that the institution has not worked with before. The first commission is with Austin, TX based ensemble, The Rude Mechs.

Reports from the #NewPlay Sector: Lark Play Development Center's "Bonanza Clause"

(This is an addendum to the Pre-Convening Reports found in the "From Scarcity to Abundance: Capturing the Moment for the New Work Sector" Pre-Convening PDF. For more info about the Convening Jan 26-Jan29, click here.)

Bonanza Clause

from Michael Robertson, Managing Director, michael@larktheatre.org

The Bonanza Clause is a contractual concept that Lark created 15 years ago primarily in response to early board members who saw RENT and other success stories as something that could happen to a Lark writer. Instead of taking an upfront piece of the pie, Lark created a clause (for a limited number of writers, primarily those who have been through our BareBones program). Should the writer make more than $100,000 net of all others' cuts (agent commission, etc.) within 7 years after leaving the Lark, Lark would participate on any income above that $100,000; further, if other theaters were participating in the writer's subrights, Lark would reduce its part of the pie so that the total taken from the writer would never exceed 6% combined (all organizations).

While this clause has never been enacted (because, as we know, writers don't make money), it was a way to not encumber the play nor rob the playwright of early (usually minimal) income on the play. While we rarely insert the clause in contracts currently, we have shared it with numerous producers in the past few years as an alternative; if they are going to take subrights then we encourage them to do so after the writer makes some money on their work. Subrights is clearly a hot issue on the table in the field and we offer this as one of several windfall models out there. We hope it generates healthy contractual agreements that promote new work and protect the playwright.

Reports from the #NewPlay Sector: Lark Play Development Center's "Playwrights of New York"

(This is an addendum to the Pre-Convening Reports found in the "From Scarcity to Abundance: Capturing the Moment for the New Work Sector" Pre-Convening PDF. For more info about the Convening Jan 26-Jan29, click here.)

Playwrights of New York

from Lloyd Suh, Director of Onsite Programs; http://www.larktheatre.org

This initiative provides a year of housing, $27,000 stipend, and artistic support at the Lark for any and all projects as the playwrights desires including a seat in Lark's Playwrights' Workshop led by Lark's Playwright Advisors including Arhtur Kopit, David Henry Hwang, Doug Wright, Tina Howe, and Theresa Rebeck. This program has been a successful test of "deep financial investment" in individual artists, investment that allows them to give up the "day job" and focus on their work. Now in its fourth year, we know from writers that it has great affected their careers because each PONY Fellow has completed between 5 and 8 plays in one year's time, a feat that may not have been possible otherwise. Based on the success, we are looking at creating a substantial fellowship portfolio of financially deep fellowships to economically free writers to do their best work. The next program is called New Voices New York which just started this month and will be announced in the next few week (these fellowships are basically PONY without housing).

Reports from the #NewPlay Sector: Lark Play Development Center's "Middle East America"

(This is an addendum to the Pre-Convening Reports found in the "From Scarcity to Abundance: Capturing the Moment for the New Work Sector" Pre-Convening PDF. For more info about the Convening Jan 26-Jan29, click here.)

Middle East America

from Lisa Rothe, Director of Offsite Programs and Partnerships, http://www.middleeastamerica.org

Middle East America: A National New Plays Initiative is a first-of-its-kind tri-coastal collaboration involving San Francisco’s Golden Thread Productions, New York’s Lark Play Development Center, and Chicago’s Silk Road Theatre Project. This initiative was designed to encourage and support the development of Middle Eastern American playwrights and Middle Eastern American plays, of the highest artistic caliber, and to enrich the canon of American dramatic literature. We aim to challenge both the lack of representation and the one-dimensional stereotypical representation of persons of Middle Eastern descent on America's stages. The goal of this initiative is to provide additional opportunities for writers of Middle Eastern backgrounds, to expand cultural representation of Middle Eastern Americans, and to integrate Middle Eastern American plays into the American theatre repertoire. The initiative will provide $10,000 to commission a Middle Eastern American playwright to develop a new work. The commission will be awarded to a playwright selected by application process and will include in-depth development support at the Lark Play Development Center in collaboration with Golden Thread Productions and Silk Road Theatre Project. This initiative also includes a development phase that will be designed with an eye towards production at Golden Thread Productions and/or Silk Road Theatre Project.

The MEA partners are in the middle of the pilot cycle of the program and launching the second cycle.

CYCLE #1 (2008-2012): NIGHT OVER ERZINGA, by Adriana Sevan Nichols

CYCLE #2 (2011 - 2013): To be announced February 2011

Reports from the #NewPlay Sector: Lark Play Development Center's "Launching New Plays into the Repertoire"

(This is an addendum to the Pre-Convening Reports found in the "From Scarcity to Abundance: Capturing the Moment for the New Work Sector" Pre-Convening PDF. For more info about the Convening Jan 26-Jan29, click here.)

Launching New Plays into the Repertoire

from John Clinton Eisner, Artistic Director, john@larktheatre.org

This pilot initiative builds consortia consisting of the playwright, Lark, and 3-4 producing organizations who commitment to "creating a movement" around a play by committing to not only produce the play but to travel with the entire consortium to each location to see each production and engage in conversations about issues related to play from marketing challenges to community engagement to advocacy for additional productions of the play. In addition to multiple productions (which in itself is extremely important) it engages a group of stakeholders in looking at why and how a particular play should enter the repertoire. The playwright is at the center of the process attending all meetings of producers/Lark and taken part in conversations ranging from union issues, casting, outreach, budget, etc. Initiative objectives include: (a) to fulfill our mission of bringing new works by diverse and unheard voices into broader public awareness; (b) to deepen cooperation among producing institutions in the U.S. and internationally; (c) to strengthen the role of the playwright in making production decisions; (d) to challenge current patterns of proprietary behavior in the cultural sector related to the securing of production rights and licenses; (e) to encourage a sense of “community ownership” of important works of theater by multiple stakeholders;(f) to building a local community around each play/playwright by engaging the playwright 6-12 months prior to the production; (g) to spark further collaborations among theater organizations to advance new works in a similar way and help to expand the repertoire.

The program recently completed the first of three cycles and has begun cycle three.CYCLE #1 (2008-2010): American Hwangap, by Lloyd Suh. Partners: Ma-Yi Theater Company, The Play Company, Magic Theater, and Tanghalang Pilipino (Cultural Center of the Philippines)

CYCLE #2 (2010-2013): Road Weeps, the Well Runs Dry, by Marcus Gardley. Partners: Perserverance Theater, Los Angeles Theater Center, Pillsbury House, and one to be named (located in are of the Seminole forced migration)

#NewPlay TV! Convening Schedule

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 26^TH

 *All times are in EST

2:00PM - 3:15PM     The Intersection of the For Profit & Not For Profit Theater

                             Rocco Landesman, Chairman of the NEA

                             Moderated by Diane Ragsdale

 

3:45PM – 4:45PM   Massive Thoughts from Four Big Thinkers

                             Lydia R. Diamond, Kirk Lynn, Marc Masterson & Meiyin Wang

                             Moderated by Deborah Cullinan

 

5:00PM – 6:00PM   Outrageous Fortune: One Year Later

                             David Dower interviews Todd London 

 

8:30PM - 9:30PM    NEA NPDP Artists Talk Process

Aditi Brennan Kapil, Lana Lesley, Claudia Rankine, Lloyd Suh & Joanne Winter

                             Moderated by Polly Carl

 

THURSDAY, JANUARY 27^TH

 

FRISSON OR FRICTION? ARTISTS AND INSTITUTIONS

9:30AM - 10:15AM    Roundtable Discussion # 1    

11:00AM – 11:45AM   Roundtable Discussion # 2

 

WHAT’S DIVERSITY GOT TO DO WITH IT?

1:15PM – 2:00PM     Roundtable Discussion # 3

2:00PM – 2:45PM   Roundtable Discussion # 4

 

THEATER OUTSIDE THE BOX: DEVISERS & ENSEMBLES

3:45PM – 4:30PM   Roundtable Discussion # 5

4:30PM – 5:15PM    Roundtable Discussion # 6

 

FRIDAY, JANUARY 28^TH

CONNECTIVITY AT WORK: NETWORKS & PARTNERSHIPS

9:30AM - 10:15AM    Roundtable Discussion # 7

11:00AM – 11:45AM   Roundtable Discussion # 8

 

GO TWEET YOURSELF! NEW TECHNOLOGIES IN THE NEW WORK SECTOR

1:15PM – 2:00PM     The New Play Map Lecture Demo

2:00PM – 2:45PM   Roundtable Discussion # 9

3:00PM – 4:00PM   Uses for the New Play Map

4:00PM -- 5:00PM  Interviews:

          -Kamilah Forbes

          -Octovio Solis

          -Diane Ragsdale        

          -David Dower

          -Polly Carl

 

SATURDAY, JANUARY 29^TH

 

DESIGNING TOMORROW: ACTION STEPS

9:30AM - 10:15AM    Roundtable Discussion # 10

11:00AM – 11:45AM   Roundtable Discussion # 11

12:15PM – 1:45PM    Lunch & Endings

From Scarcity to Abundance: Capturing the Moment in the #Newplay Sector

by David Dower

And here we are in the final crazy run-up to the mega-convening here in DC, taking place January 26th - 29th at Arena Stage.

The agenda for the gathering is exhilarating and exhausting in equal measure. In addition to all the sector reports, panel discussions, round tables, and breakouts, the whole event plays out in the midst of the #Newplay Festival-- the culminating event of our involvement with the NEA's New Play Development Program.  There will be over 100 people gathered in Arena Stage at The Mead Center for American Theater for three marathon days. Obviously we didn't have room for everyone who has a stake in these conversations. I'm pretty proud of the list-- a diverse mix of artists, organizations, advocates from around the nation-- and, at the same time, very aware that it excludes to a much larger extent than it includes. Which is why we are wrestling budgets, technological limitations, and various rules and regulations to try to bring the greatest degree of transparency to the proceedings as we can.

We won't be streaming any of the performances. Though Actors Equity has worked hard to move forward in their own struggles with transparency, we're not quite to the place where we can stream shows.

But, as long as Comcast keeps its promise, we will be streaming almost everything else that happens that weekend. Travis Ballenger is at work arranging "watch parties" in a number of cities, where people will gather to watch the final presentations together on Saturday, the 30th, and share their own priorities for "capturing the moment" in the new year. We'll stream the opening day's panel discussions as well.

We've had great debates among the Institute staff as to the merits and challenges of livestreaming the roundtables themselves. (For an overview of the format of these roundtables, see Page 9 of the Monograph.) The danger is that the whole "third circle"-- people not in the room but following along on line-- will negatively impact the open, intimate, deeply personal tenor of the discussions at the center table. The concept (some have said "conceit"- and it's a fine line we walk, I know...) is that the table in the center is surrounded by a "listening circle" of people who are actively engaged in supporting the dialogue around the table by listening carefully to what transpires. There's a very real sense of shared responsibility in the room itself-- responsibility for the tone, content, and basic value of the interactions at the table. People tend to play by the same set of rules in the room-- maintaining the spirit of "positive inquiry" and total focus. It creates an air of safety and encourages a greater vulnerability amongst the people taking the job of the center table at any given time.

For every person participating live, there are at least five or six people who had wanted to be. Whether someone is a the table or on the Listening Circle, we are still "delegates" to the discussion, representing those people, and by extension sector itself.

And whether people are participating in person or on line, we are still, hopefully, engaged in the same goals (advancing the effectiveness of the #newplay sector on behalf of new works and the artists who make them) and in the same spirit of "positive inquiry" on which the Institute is founded. 

But the "third circle", in the general culture, tends to play by its own rules. The voice of the interwebs is generally "snark and pronounce" more often than it is "positive inquiry". This will be a good opportunity to experiment: can we really have a transparent, engaged, shared inquiry that emanates from a small table in DC out through the entire country? And do the principles of this discussion hold, even over the web? 

One tenet of this format holds that the listening circle is making a contribution to the quality and content of what's said equal to that of the speaking circle. You can feel the truth of that live. Can it hold over cyberspace?

Another tenet holds that the things that need to get said will get said-- even if you don't say them yourself, someone will. The things that are the important contributions to the dialogue bubble up through the center table. In this sense, the people at the center table are just delegates of what needs to be said. Can that which needs to be communicated on behalf of people not in the room really get into the room simply by the active listening of the third circle?

I can't imagine how many people are really interested in this to the level I am curious about it. I know the power of this format first hand now, having participated in a variety of discussions over the past six years.

The last time I did this format was a disaster, by the way. Oy, what a mess! It was in a meeting room of a major funder. The funders were in the room. So were big time institutional leaders who are not generally used to transparency or disciplined discussion-- they are used to being the people who speak, not the people who listen. And the artists in the room seldom get to speak to these leaders. And the timeframe was compressed to one day. And the topic was loaded. It was amazing how challenging, and ultimately impossible, it was to have a dialogue in the face of those realities. The leaders performed for the funders. The artists performed for the leaders. The people used to listening found themselves tongue tied and self-deprecating when asked to speak. The funders weren't able to invest the Listening Circle with their full energy because the leaders kept talking directly to them instead of to each other. Almost everyone had an eye on the clock to see whether they were going to get out on time. And a huge part of the time was spent trying to "define the topic" because the topic, as actually defined in the invitation, would have forced them to be critical of their own practices. Which you can't be in front of people giving you money for your practices.

Listening is the hardest part of this format. Trusting that what you need to say will either come up at the table or come with you to a breakout session is a challenge-- the impulse is to try to interject, interrupt, or turn to a neighbor and deliver your thought that way. This will be especially hard for the "third circle"-- will people be able to not tweet their every reaction in real time, but rather sit with the listening for the full duration of the table and let their own comments wait? And a lot of people in this sector have lost the ability to really listen. In fact, some of what makes them leaders of their own parades is their inherent trust that what they say and what they think is more important than what the other people around them say or think. Narcissism is an occupational hazard, a pandemic in our midst.

So, I'll be curious how we do. Not just with the third circle. There will be people on site who don't ever get to the table. Will they be able to cope with that? Will we be able to cope with them coping? Will we have found a way for them to feel heard? And outside the room, will there be actual listening? And will the listening lead to better discussions on that circle in the breakouts?

It's a lot of experimenting with form in a high stakes, high resources moment. But those of us involved in the planning of it are at least confident that the business-as-usual format of panel talks, breakouts, and parties is less than the best we can do. It will be grueling in terms of its demands on our time and our mental faculties, but if we're really going to move the dial in terms of the effectiveness of our sector, we need to put our collective shoulders to the wheel and put our backs, legs, and hearts into it. The list is not the usual suspects. The format is not the usual format. The agenda is not the usual agenda. And the goal is not the usual goal. We are, collectively, going to try to capture the abundance of this moment. It will call the best from each of us. I look forward to seeing us in all our glory.

Attention #NewPlay -ers! The Monograph is Here!

By Jamie Gahlon, Co-Director, American Voices New Play Institute

Come one, come all! The first annual report of the American Voices New Play Institute, a monograph that features reports on all of the Institute happenings throughout its first year is now available for your viewing pleasure here!  The monograph contains reports (complete with video!)  from each of the first three convenings of the Institute (Defining Diversity, Black Playwrights, and Devised Work) as well as interviews with our Resident Playwrights, Producing Fellows, and more! Get your read on and let us know what you think!

#NewPlay Black Playwrights in Charge!

By Travis LeMont Ballenger, New Play Producing Fellow

What happens when you get 30 Black Playwrights and Administrators in a room together? Innovation. Action. The New Black Fest. Conceived and designed by Keith Josef Adkins, J. Holtham, and Jocelyn Prince, The New Black Fest is described as "a gathering of artists, thinkers, activists and audiences who are dedicated to stretching, interrogating and uplifting the Black aesthetic." Check out their cool website. They are really up to something, if you want to play along. And you can find out about making donations here. The festival will take place from October 9-17th at BRIC Arts in Fort Greene, Brooklyn and other venues throughout NYC. It's bound to be a stunning looking into the world of black theater.

Also, check out the things, people, ideas, etc that inspire the creators of New Black Fest. Besides having a cool website, they touch on some really cool people.

Who's at the Table? A Discussion on Diversity #NewPlay

by Amrita Mangus, New Play Senior Producing Fellow

As they say, it’s all in the timing.

During the past couple months, my mind has been reinvigorated on the ideas and questions
circulating diversity in the new play sector, thanks mainly to the exciting conversations within the Defining Diversity Convening Task Force. Akin to the round table discussions from the convening, the task force has continued to delve into the pressing questions addressed during the convening and search for ways to disseminate the information and highlight the bright spots. It’s a fascinating process – taking the ideas and creating a more tangible system to spread them around and utilize them in our own theaters, organizations, universities, etc. – and one that I’ll keep you posted on.

Speaking of bright spots, Clay Lord’ article titled “Who’s at the Table?” could not come at a better time. The article, published through Theatre Bay Area, examines diversity as it intersects with theater and communities. It’s the second in the series and provides great insight on the notions of diversification of audiences, companies and artists: Is it valuable and how can the value of it be measured? In addition to Clay’s commentary, he provides some powerful statistics (including application stats from Round 1 and 2 of the NEA NPDP) and interviews with Ben Cameron, Diane Ragsdale, Stanley Williams, Tamara Alvardo, and Ron Ragin to name a few.

It makes you think, who’s at your table, who's missing from it and why?

Calling all innovative artists!

by Ronee Penoi, Senior New Play Producing Fellow

The SEPTEMBER 1ST deadline is around the corner for NEFA's National Theater Pilot, a grantmaking program designed to support the creation and development of original/innovative/ensemble/devised works, with the intention to tour. This pilot program will select two rounds of six projects each, supporting both the production and touring of the work over a 18-36 month period. Depending on the needs of the project, awards could range from $80,000-$130,000, to cover development, presentation and evaluation. The intent of this pilot program is to "ask questions and test assumptions about how to support theater development and touring in the U.S."

So, for all of you ensembles, multi-disciplinary artists and devisers out there, this is a great opportunity to find support that carries though multiple stages of a piece's development and future life. This Pilot is the result of a study done through the NEFA in 2009 that pointed to the undeveloped potential for theater projects that push the limits of contemporary theater. With leadership support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, this pilot program aims to build a better support system for theater of this kind. I say, hooray!

All the information can be found here, or from the home page at NEFA.ORG

Apply Now!

The #Newplay Convenings: Next Steps

by David Dower

OK, so we've now completed the first three #newplay convenings of the AVNPI. Thank you to everyone who has participated thus far, both live in DC and online. It's been a real privilege to chair these discussions. And all of us working with the Institute program here at Arena Stage are committed to making sure the energy of so many people over the past three months is a catalyst for action; that it doesn't just evaporate now that the last of the guests have gone home and we've put away the vacuum cleaner.

The plan from here, for those following along:

-- First up, there will be a comprehensive report from each. These will be compiled into a single monograph and released to the public this Spring. We'll include a list of the proposed next steps from each so we've a public record of what was requested. (If you were a participant in any of the convenings, you'll get a draft version of the report for your comments before we finalize.)

-- Then, we'll form a "task force of the willing" around each topic from the people who participated. They'll help us prioritize the "next step" recommendations in each convening. We can't do everything, of course, and not all at once. This step will create a path for advancing as a field.

-- It will be the responsibility of each of the convening producers (Amrita, Travis, and Ronee) to then direct the process of moving through that list of priorities. Over the coming twelve months we will endeavor to make measurable progress on the challenges and opportunities expressed in the priorities.

It is our hope that we will be able to reconvene within the next twelve months-- this time as a committee of the whole that comingles these three groups with the other Institute program participants: the resident playwrights, the Round 1 and Round 2 NPDP folks, and the beta group for the New Play Map-- to chart and celebrate the progress everyone has made in 2010 and to recalibrate the priorities and opportunities in each program area.

That's a huge undertaking of course. And we're not yet certain we have the money to mount it, but I put it here because it's our goal and our intention-- and even though it's hard we want to commit ourselves to the attempt.

Thanks for your interest and support. Stick around. We're just getting started...

Why call it 'Devised work'?

by Ronee Penoi, Institute Fellow

As Travis's blog posts suggest, everyone's heads are full-up with the deep discovery and concentrated conversation made by our wonderful group this past weekend at the convening on Devised Work. So, instead of trying to respond to all of it, I'm going to toss out there one thought that popped up for me in the days following.

'Devised work' is always going to be a tricky term for 'this kind of work.' And that's because any term is going to be problematic. As soon as anyone attempts to unite a collection of work that belongs there because of its uniqueness, it becomes clear pretty quickly that it can't be codified collectively. So why try? A beautiful and  unexpected benefit of the past weekend, is that many artists felt a sense of community that isn't often made apparent. It isn't why we gathered, but it suggests at least to me, that maybe there's more benefit to finding similarities than differences here. Maybe there's a way to unite while still cradling that sense of uniqueness - to expand the sense of what 'devised' means, so that instead of the response being, 'oh, I don't do that' its 'yeah, I'm in that community.'

It may be a little 'kumbayah', but there it is.

Devised Works: Post-Convening

Posted by guest blogger Travis Bedard from the Devised Work Convening

The final formal section of the convening (before the demonstrations) was a moment of reflection on all of the discussions, and then the participants were asked to share conclusions and next steps. Some of those next steps as well as a few important points that got repeated along the way. In nothing like a hierarchical order:

• The fact that there is a “we” is important.
  There is a support network for the work, you just need to reach out (and be available).
• Don’t just reach out to your community when you want to sell tickets, be in the community.
• “We were planning on a potato, but we can use this parsnip”
  Things happen and resources and people come and go. Stay flexible.
• Devised Work artists and supporters need to lobby Equity to that recognize the duration of process on the work to create contracts that allow it.
• “How can we free the product from the architecture?” 
  Theaters are built with a specific product in mind (even black boxes) how can we free the thinking about creation from that restriction?
• There was a desire for more festivals (or even microfestivals) of devised work nationally, both to present work more often and less expensively, but also to keep an eye on what everyone else is doing.
• There was a loud call for a central source listing available resources (space, grants, duct tape, whatever) and ways to connect to those resources.
• Technology. There was no fear of technology in the room, but there was a lack of clarity on how it could best be leveraged, especially social media.

There were three very clear calls for action, none of which were actually raised during the final sharing session, rather they echoed throughout ALL of the sessions.

1. There is a large need for language around the sector. Despite a dislike for labels, communication to funders and audiences requires something.
2. Presenters/producers/funders and the artists need to close the circle and develop audiences holistically as a unified group not as separate units. That sort of repeated engagement doesn’t help the art and can turn off an audience member.
3. Long term relationships need to be forged between all parts of the devised work sector. Those long term relationships will enable better communication less drenched in grant-speak, and fewer outsized expectations about process or product.

I would like to close my reporting from this convening with a pair of questions:

What would you do to improve the lot of devised work artists and ensembles? What is one thing you can do to make a difference in this sector in the next year?

Saturday Night’s All Right for Devising

Posted by guest blogger Travis Bedard for the Devised Work Convening:

After two days of talking about theatre, four of the participants gladly grabbed their chance to get back “into the room” and actually make some theatre.

Kirk Lynn, Andy Parris, Geoff Sobelle, and Barney O’Hanlon each took a turn at demonstrating a process or exercise used in their ensemble work on stage with Georgetown students the eager guinea pigs.

     

Devised Works Convening: Day 2

Posted by guest blogger Travis Bedard for the Devised Work Convening

The second day of the devised work convening was a grueling, giddy day that passed far too quickly. It was a day that lasted from roughly 9AM until midnight. It was tightly planned and the few gaps were filled with introductions and more conversation. I honestly needed to be removed from it all to get any sort of hold on the ground that had been covered.

As David Loehr explained, the participants were exploring the questions posed by David Dower’s four prompts in three circles. The first circle a group composed by Mr. Dower based on the prompt being answered, the second comprised the remainder of the participants cast as active listeners, and the third made up of invited local artists, the Art Dev. staff, and the formal observers. This approach worked wonderfully to focus discussion. It gave participants clear roles during each segment and kept each question from being a free-for-all lost in the larger group. It also served to relieve the tension of participating in a passionate debate for 10 hours.

Day 1 of the Devised Works convening

Posted by Travis Bedard from the Devised Works convening -

I have been an active follower and participant in the discussions around these #newplay convening since the #newplay tag popped up for the Diversity convening. What I can tell you as someone experiencing it “in the room” for the first time is that what hasn’t translated in the online discussions around these meetings is the size of the group discussing these broad topics, and the pure passion that these people have for the advancement of theatre. That’s not to say  that the Diversity or Race discussions weren’t obviously passionate, it’s simply that outside the room, following the interpretations of one person typing on the fly in one window on your computer doesn’t adequately capture it.

Today’s work in the room broke down into two distinct parts, as loosely mentioned in the earlier “in the room posts”, actually getting everyone in the room, and then talking about their upcoming projects. Firmly rooting where we are, so we can look confidently to where we might be headed.

As David Dower mentioned in his post previewing this convening, this branch of the #newplay discussion has been going on amongst many of these same players for years. Many of the participants have worked with one another in one capacity or another in the past and the greetings as they arrived reflected that, as they caught up with one another,

This informal reconnection flowed easily into the more formal introductions of the group with the observers and reporters introducing themselves and then the bulk of the afternoon spent with participants explaining where they (and their groups) are now, and what is next. The breadth and depth of the ambition and collaboration of the participants is breathtaking.

The development process of a devised work that is iterated over and again requires bursts of support in the way that a single author traditional piece doesn’t. A commission at the beginning of the process and a check for production would leave a woefully doughy middle of a devised piece. It was made clear as companies, funders, presenters, and support organizations each outlined their next steps that they are working desperately to get solid footing under each part of that development process. Working in concert with the producing companies to support a work from conception to production.

Introductions finished (and remember that there are a lot more people in the room than you think there are) Mr. Dower began a broad group discussion around the question of whether companies considered themselves “lightly institutionalized”, or “institutionalized” at all (Lightly institutionalized in this case referring to the structure and operation of the companies). It quickly became clear that groups were hesitant to accept the label and the general sentiment expressed was that it was the institutional side of the work that was leading to burnout (or risk of burnout) in most cases.

This segued into a final burst of discussion about the frustrations of the Sisyphean production/funding cycle, and looking for ways to correct the balance of time spent being grantwriters, and fund raisers versus time spent in the rehearsal room building the art…

When the dinner bell rang.

Where does that leave us?

We are set up perfectly for the long day tomorrow. The room is fired up and ready to go; The participants feel safe talking to the group about things that are really bothering them about the system or the process or their situation; and the prompts that lead tomorrow’s discussion are very straightforward. I encourage you to review them for yourselves, and join in in the comments section here, or follow the action on Twitter by searching or following the #newplay hashtag.

Second: Who are you and what are you doing?

posted by Travis Bedard from the convening room -

The beginnings of this convening are about getting a hold on our present to take our steps towards the future. We are hearing from the companies in the room about their current projects and their next steps.

What work are you building from the ground up? What is you next step? Join the circle and introduce yourself and what you do.

First: Talking about talking

Posted by Travis Bedard from the convening room -

One of the very first problems that arises when discussing “devised work” is that there is little established vocabulary around the niche. There is no monolithic style of “devised work” production, indeed part of the success of devised work is avoidance of the pitfalls of the monolithic production styles of single authorial voice pieces. 

But go ahead and talk to folks who create collaboratively about their opinions on devised work. I have. I drafted up a list of questions about devised works and sent them to devised companies in my circle of acquaintance in Texas to begin a conversation and the first answer from all of them was that they “don’t do devised work, they do X”. Which was of course an answer that encompassed how they made what they made not a catch-all term for which specific “bucket” they belong in. The broad questions then become:

If you don’t fit into a category how can systems fund you appropriately?

If, as many devised works do, you produce then iterate, how do you get development money from systems that are built to support finished projects?

How do you get your audience to buy in to supporting iterations of a developing work?

But let’s start at the beginning:

How do you define “devised work”?

The Online Audience of the #newplay Devised Work Convo knows how to Party!

Calling all 'Devisers' in Southern California: For the past two #newplay convenings, there have been three circles of participation. In the convening room, there's a rotating seating configuration where an inner circle speaks and an outer circle listens. The third circle is the online audience that follows and participates in the conversation that is provoked by a micro-blogger who's reporting from inside the room.  Up to now, the third circle participants have been behind their laptops or mobile units, tweeting and tracking alone in twitterverse.  But why be alone? Twitter's not supposed to be anti-'social'. A group of people in L.A. are already asking just that - shouldn't we just hold a mixer, watch the live broadcast on #NewPlay TV together and tweet the Q&A all together? Yes, you can!  This fun mixer going to be hosted by Son of Semele Ensemble in L.A. on Saturday evening. Bring your tweeting gear and tag #newplay. Click here for more information and to RSVP

Look Who's Talking: Devised Work Convening Participants - #newplay

by Ronee Penoi, Institute Fellow Producer: Devised Work Convening

We've got a great group coming up this weekend for the Devised Work conversation - wowzers! - check it out:

The Participants

Neil Barclay, CEO National Black Arts Festival
Rachel Chavkin, Artistic Director, the TEAM
Stephen Earnhart, Artist 
John Eisner, Producing Director/Lark Play Development Center
Susie Farr  Executive Director, Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center at Maryland
Kamilah Forbes, Artistic Director, Hip-Hop Theater Festival
Sandra Gibson, President and CEO, Association of Performing Arts Presenters
Sabrina Hamilton, Artistic Director, Ko Festival of Performance/Network of Ensemble Theatres Board 
Christopher Hibma, Associate Director, Sundance Institute Theatre Program
Dan Hurlin, Artist
Morgan Jenness, Creative Consultant, Abrams Artists
Melanie Joseph, The Foundry Theatre
Andrew Kircher, Under the Radar (NYC)
Kelly Kirkpatrick, Center Theater Group Los Angeles
Thomas Kriegsmann, President / ArKtype

Jim Lasko, Resident Artist Redmoon Theater
Kirk Lynn, Co-Producing Artistic Director, Rude Mechs
Sam Miller, President, OAM Company, Inc
Jennifer Morris, The Civilians
Barney O'Hanlon, SITI Company
Andy Paris, Artistic Associate, Tectonic Theatre Project
Ann Rosenthal, Executive Director & Producer/MAPP International Productions
Dan Rothenberg, Co-Artistic Director, Pig Iron Theatre Company
Steven Sapp, Universes
Vincent Scott, Program Producer/National Museum of the American Indian
Leigh Smiley,    Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center at University of Maryland
Geoff Sobelle, Co-Artistic Director, Rainpan 43
Lisa Steindler, Executive Artistic Director, Z Space
Nick Stuccio, Live Arts Festival
Alex Torra, Associate Artistic Director, Pig Iron Theatre Company
Meiyin Wang, Under the Radar (NYC)
MK Wegman, President and CEO National Performance Network

We're also thrilled to have Travis Bedard blogging at the convening, and David Loehr tweeting all weekend long. Follow online here, on twitter at @NEW_PLAY_BLOG, and use #newplay

"What Are They Talking About?" The Devised Work Convening

by David Dower

Next weekend we'll be completing the Convening Trifecta here, with the gathering of people engaged in the development, production, presentation, and touring of devised work. Here's a [long] introduction to the conversation we'll be having over the two days.

This conversation will build on a whole range of discussions that have been taking place in a variety of settings over the past several years.

Time Out NY series on the #newplay Black Playwrights Convo

Helen Shaw has interviewed the bloggers from the Black Playwrights Convening here. Three separate interviews.And a picture of J. "99 Seats" Holtham in the bargain! 

#NewPlay TV

Watch the LIVE BROADCAST public event: "How the Devising's Done: Theater Mavericks Talk Process" at 8pm EST / 5pm PST on Sat, Feb 20 on #NewPlay TV at http://livestream.com/newplay 

Add this event your calendar.  

In this free public lecture-demo, four artists will talk about and demonstrate their ensemble and devised processes and techniques. These artists include Kirk Lynn from Rude Mechs, Barney O'Hanlon from SITI Company, Geoff Sobelle from Rainpan 43 and Andy Paris from Tectonic Theater Project. Click here for more details.

Whaddya mean: "Devised Work"? Countdown to the next #newplay convening starts now...

<--Kirk Lynn, Rude Mechs

posted by Ronee Penoi, Institute Fellow

It's been so long, hasn't it?  Yes, the Institute is ramping up for the next conversation, and it's on DEVISED WORK -- February 19th and 20th. "What do we mean by 'devised'?"- you might ask. Well, that's one of the things we're hoping to discover, as well as what the challenges and obstacles are to championing, supporting, and talking about devised, ensemble, interdisciplinary, and [insert your adjective here] work in a system that's primarily built on a playwright-driven model. 

As with 'Defining Diversity' and 'Black Playwrights' - we'll be on Twitter all weekend, so remember #newplay to add questions and follow along. We'll also be live broadcasting on #NewPlay TV a free public event on Saturday, February 20th, at 8pm. We have a line-up of fabulous theater mavericks doing a lecture-demo on their processes and techniques, such as Kirk Lynn from Rude Mechs, Barney O'Hanlon from SITI Company, Geoff Sobelle from Rainpan 43, and Andy Paris from Tectonic Theater Project. Click here for more details.  

<--Barney O'Hanlon, SITI Company, Geoff Sobelle, Rainpan 43-->

Stay tuned...