Contributed by Guest Blogger of the Week, Jon Stancato.
There’s an alarming statistic that’s oft thrown about: there are nearly 1,000 theatre companies in operation at any given time in NYC. Let’s assume that a quarter of them have already called it quits but have remained on the books like so many Japanese centenarians. Let’s assume another quarter will, alas, not likely make it to their second production. That leaves us with 500 active professional companies, all scrambling to carve up the same pie, at a time when performance spaces are turning into condos, traditional media coverage is either losing relevance or word counts or both, presenters are finding their own resources too strapped to offer much to presentees besides space, and recession-weary audiences may be less than willing to count “supporting indie theatre” among their charitable priorities (or even their frivolous luxuries).
Bleak, eh?
We all want the Times review(s) and the sold-out houses (packed with donors!) and the chichi venues and the fancypants presenters. But what do we need? What do we really need to feel like that to which we’ve dedicated our lives to is a profession, not a hobby?
Here’s what I need:
1. I need to keep making theatre until I die (or until it kills me).
2. I need to have complete freedom to tell whatever stories I want to tell as an artist
in whatever aesthetic I choose
3. I need people (both collaborators and audiences) to understand my work and
find value in it.
Three simple things. So instead of aspiring for the same generic pie piece that everyone else is clawing for, I tried to find a path which could guarantee these needs. And, after 8 years with my brethren at Stolen Chair, I think (fingers tightly crossed!) we’ve laid the groundwork for them to be realistically achieved. In 2009 (with the support of many many people but most importantly The Field and its ERPA grant), we launched PlayGround, the country’s first Community Supported Theatre program, an innovative new play development model (adapted from Community Supported Agriculture) which offers audience-investors a “share” in Stolen Chair’s entire journey creating one of our original works. Our PlayGround members join the fray when the “new play” is merely a title and research packet, following the roller coaster of highs and lows as we figure out what the material means to our collective and prepare it for its world premiere. And as we attract wider audiences interested in such an experience, we can project to a not-too-distant future when our new play development process will pay for itself. Of course, that might not happen…but at least we’ve found a “path” (one specific to our company’s needs) worth pouring our efforts into.
So, if all goes according to plan, I’ll have everything I need: a sustainable platform to create and share the work I feel compelled to create. Am I going to stop sending press releases to theater[at]nytimes.com? Nope. Give up on our “Spring ask”? Niet. Forego invitations to the city’s most powerful presenters? Non. Resist the temptation of $3k+/week space rentals? Nit.
Because at the end of the day, I still want what you want. But I also want you to get what you need. Figure that out…then set up the programs and infrastructures necessary to secure it. We had to take nearly 16 months off of producing in order to do that. That’s okay: theatres were still waiting to take our rental dollars when we returned and there will still be butts willing to plop down in our seats. So…go forth!
Oh, if you wanna get a peek at this here PlayGround us Chairs have concocted, join us for the free launch of the program’s second year this Sunday, Nov 21 (7pm, Space on White). Freely flowing wine, food, and theatrical discussion. In the words of those creepy not-twins from The Shining, play with us….
Showing posts with label companies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label companies. Show all posts
Friday, November 19, 2010
Friday, September 10, 2010
The panel of the millinarily abundant: Matthew J. Nichols
Contributed by Guest blogger of the week: Cyndy Marion1. What was the first show you produced? What was the most important lesson you learned?
And now we will hear from Matthew J. Nichols--Actor, Director and Co-Artistic Director of Zootopia Theatre Company (see complete bio below). Thank you for participating Matthew!
The first show I produced with Zootopia Theatre Company was PROFESSIONAL SKEPTICISM, a dark office comedy by James Rasheed. The most important lesson learned was to plan for everything and expect anything. Be organized but flexible. The more prepared we were at the start, the better able we were to roll with the punches. Also, surround yourself with good people and listen to their ideas.
2. How do you define your role as producer? What do you enjoy most?
Usually when I produce I am also fulfilling another artistic role such as acting or directing, but the most important thing to me is the success of the production as a whole. For Zootopia, since our focus is new works, I measure success by asking, are we serving this play with the best premiere possible within our means? My role as a producer is to ensure this success by gathering all the elements needed (the right creative team, casting, funding, performance and rehearsal space, etc.) to pave the way to success.
3. What are some of the benefits to producing your own work?
The biggest benefit, for me, is creative control and the pride of ownership. When I produce my own work, I get to decide where my passions lie, what projects I wish to work on, how I wish to work, and who I want to work with. There is nothing more fulfilling for me than looking back and thinking, I made that happen, with the help of others of course, but it never would have gotten off the ground unless I invested myself in it fully.
4. What are the unique challenges to wearing more than one hat? How do you deal with them?
The challenge to wearing multiple hats is to know when to wear them one at a time. For me, the producer exists outside of the rehearsal room, smoothing out any bumps in the road so that the artists can work without having to think about external forces. If I'm doing my job right, I don't confuse the two because I don't get in my own way.
5. Any words of wisdom for artists who want to produce their own work?
Don't rush into a project before you're ready. Good work takes time. Carefully plan what kind of production you envision, and think about how you wish the audience to experience it on every level, from the moment they first hear about it and decide to attend until the moment they leave the theatre.
Matthew J. Nichols is an actor and director in New York. As Co-Artistic Director of Zootopia Theatre Company, he has produced PROFESSIONAL SKEPTICISM by James Rasheed, STILL THE RIVER RUNS by Barton Bishop, and EMINENE by Barton Bishop for FringeNYC. Zootopia's productions have been nominated for seven NYIT awards, including an Outstanding Direction nomination for Matthew's work on STILL THE RIVER RUNS. Select acting credits include PROFESSIONAL SKEPTICISM,THREEPENNY OPERA (New Rep), A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM (Colorado Shakes), and the independent film THE WEEKEND. www.zootopiatheatre.
Monday, August 23, 2010
OOB-er Waste
Contributed by Guest Blogger of the week, Neal Freeman
OOB-er Waste
As Executive Director of an Off Off company, I often find myself (as I suppose many do) wearing any number of different hats around the theater. Volunteer carpenter is one of them, and despite my hatred for power saws (frankly, they scare me), I spend a lot of time in the theater assembling or dismantling our sets.
Our procedure is something like this: Go to Lowe’s. Buy a bunch of lumber and paint. Hire “man with a van” for $30 to bring it the 4 blocks back to the theater. (Seriously, it’s only 4 blocks.) Ask him to help us unload it. He declines. (Did I mention he only had to drive 4 blocks?) Over the course of 2 or 3 weekends, chop up the wood and assemble it according to whatever set we’re building. Paint it. Take pictures of it at a dress rehearsal. Charge people $18 to see it 12 or 16 times over the next 2 or 3 weeks. Then on the Sunday evening after the last performance, dismantle it as quickly as possible, chop it up into pieces no more than 5 feet long, and put it out with the garbage. Repeat 7 more times. Every season.
This is reductive, of course. We go to Materials for the Arts whenever we can, and as a company with our own space we have many stock items like flats and platforms that we re-use. But for every show there’s still a good amount of lumber we buy that will be cut and screwed into and onto various pieces that isn’t practical to keep when the show is over. We don’t have the space for all of it, and because of our limited storage we have to make smart decisions about things we might actually want again vs. things that are just going to get crammed in a corner and take up valuable space before they are thrown out in 5 years, un-used.
I also know that as a company with our own year-round space, we have it easier than itinerant companies for whom it must be significantly harder to avoid throwing out nearly everything at the end of a production.
I’d love to donate things at the end of a show to MFTA or to other theater companies. Sometimes we do. More often, we simply don’t have the resources to truck materials around the city after every show or to keep them around until someone else can pick them up. Besides, a lot of it gets destroyed in the process of trying to take it apart, or has been permanently altered in the construction phase into some specialized shape that isn’t useful to others. Ultimately it’s a hell of a lot easier to throw it away then it is to deal with donating it to someone else.
And this doesn’t take into account the paint, which of course cannot be re-used once it has been applied.
I wish I was leading up to some brilliant epiphany about how to work in a less wasteful way but I don’t have one.
For now I just accept that the fleeting nature of theater makes us far less responsible as consumers than I’m comfortable with.
First let me say that I’m honored to be featured as a guest blogger and that I don’t have a particular theme in mind for the week. Rather, I’m planning to write about a few topics that I often chew on myself without worrying about tying them together. I’ve also got a special guest for one of the posts later in the week. I welcome comments, feedback, and differing opinions. And now, on to the blogging!
This, by the way, right here, is my first blog post EVER.
-Neal
OOB-er Waste
As Executive Director of an Off Off company, I often find myself (as I suppose many do) wearing any number of different hats around the theater. Volunteer carpenter is one of them, and despite my hatred for power saws (frankly, they scare me), I spend a lot of time in the theater assembling or dismantling our sets.
Our procedure is something like this: Go to Lowe’s. Buy a bunch of lumber and paint. Hire “man with a van” for $30 to bring it the 4 blocks back to the theater. (Seriously, it’s only 4 blocks.) Ask him to help us unload it. He declines. (Did I mention he only had to drive 4 blocks?) Over the course of 2 or 3 weekends, chop up the wood and assemble it according to whatever set we’re building. Paint it. Take pictures of it at a dress rehearsal. Charge people $18 to see it 12 or 16 times over the next 2 or 3 weeks. Then on the Sunday evening after the last performance, dismantle it as quickly as possible, chop it up into pieces no more than 5 feet long, and put it out with the garbage. Repeat 7 more times. Every season.
This is reductive, of course. We go to Materials for the Arts whenever we can, and as a company with our own space we have many stock items like flats and platforms that we re-use. But for every show there’s still a good amount of lumber we buy that will be cut and screwed into and onto various pieces that isn’t practical to keep when the show is over. We don’t have the space for all of it, and because of our limited storage we have to make smart decisions about things we might actually want again vs. things that are just going to get crammed in a corner and take up valuable space before they are thrown out in 5 years, un-used.
I also know that as a company with our own year-round space, we have it easier than itinerant companies for whom it must be significantly harder to avoid throwing out nearly everything at the end of a production.
I’d love to donate things at the end of a show to MFTA or to other theater companies. Sometimes we do. More often, we simply don’t have the resources to truck materials around the city after every show or to keep them around until someone else can pick them up. Besides, a lot of it gets destroyed in the process of trying to take it apart, or has been permanently altered in the construction phase into some specialized shape that isn’t useful to others. Ultimately it’s a hell of a lot easier to throw it away then it is to deal with donating it to someone else.
And this doesn’t take into account the paint, which of course cannot be re-used once it has been applied.
I wish I was leading up to some brilliant epiphany about how to work in a less wasteful way but I don’t have one.
For now I just accept that the fleeting nature of theater makes us far less responsible as consumers than I’m comfortable with.
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Guest Blogger of the week: Neal Freeman
A HUGE Thank you to Mariah MacCarthy for re-invigorating Full of IT last week! What a great topic - one we should be talking more about, I think.
We are very excited to announce next week's guest blogger - Neal Freeman!
Neal J. Freeman is a director, producer, writer, sound designer, and former actor who currently serves as Executive Director of Brooklyn's The Gallery Players. He has directed nine shows for that theater, including last season's IT-nominated new musical Top of the Heap. Other companies in the city he has worked for include Ensemble Studio Theatre, Sonnet Rep, Naked Angels, and Epic Theater Center, in addition to serving as an assistant for a half dozen shows with OBIE-winning Ridge Theater. Neal wrote, directed, and produced Fatboy Romeo for FringeNYC in 2006, and produced and directed in Week 38 of Suzan-Lori Parks' 365 Days/365 Plays in NYC with a showing at New World Stages. He is currently at work on a new play based on a family WWII story called A Letter from Bataan, which was workshopped at the 2010 Lincoln Center Directors Lab and is the recipient of a 2010 Seed Grant from The Drama League Directors Project. Neal is a proud graduate of the Cornell University Department of Theatre, Film, and Dance and holds an MFA in Directing from Brooklyn College. Member of SDC and Lincoln Center Directors Lab. www.moatedgrange.com
We are very excited to announce next week's guest blogger - Neal Freeman!
Neal J. Freeman is a director, producer, writer, sound designer, and former actor who currently serves as Executive Director of Brooklyn's The Gallery Players. He has directed nine shows for that theater, including last season's IT-nominated new musical Top of the Heap. Other companies in the city he has worked for include Ensemble Studio Theatre, Sonnet Rep, Naked Angels, and Epic Theater Center, in addition to serving as an assistant for a half dozen shows with OBIE-winning Ridge Theater. Neal wrote, directed, and produced Fatboy Romeo for FringeNYC in 2006, and produced and directed in Week 38 of Suzan-Lori Parks' 365 Days/365 Plays in NYC with a showing at New World Stages. He is currently at work on a new play based on a family WWII story called A Letter from Bataan, which was workshopped at the 2010 Lincoln Center Directors Lab and is the recipient of a 2010 Seed Grant from The Drama League Directors Project. Neal is a proud graduate of the Cornell University Department of Theatre, Film, and Dance and holds an MFA in Directing from Brooklyn College. Member of SDC and Lincoln Center Directors Lab. www.moatedgrange.com
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Theatre for social change - an interview with Ashley Marinaccio
Contributed by our Guest Blogger of the week, Mariah MacCarthy
I’m going to ask you a question that you ask people on your People Who Want Change blog: who are you?
25 years old. Artist and activist. Observer. Perpetual student of life. Ever evolving, never still.
So, you’re in the middle of Fringe right now. Are you going completely out of your mind?
Not at all. The Project Girl Performance Collective has a phenomenal team assembled, and all the most difficult and time consuming tasks are delegated. The power of delegation is mighty! (It took me awhile but I just learned this… ha-ha) We also have a new executive director on board who has taken PGPC to another level in only weeks. The collective has grown immensely in such a short time and we’re ever evolving, it’s fantastic and truly inspiring!
Fabulous—tell me more about the show, the girls, and your collaborators.
GirlPower: Survival of the Fittest is created by the members of the Project Girl Performance Collective, a group of young women between the ages of 13-21 who devise and perform original work based on their own life experiences and the current political, social and cultural issues that are most important to them. It is under the direction of myself, writer, activist and academic Elizabeth Koke and Jessica Greer Morris who is a playwright, performer and activist (and these women are fierce… let me tell you). We also have the unbelievably talented and organized Katherine Sommer stage managing/assistant directing and Alexa Winston, a former performer with last year’s PGPC Fringe company assistant directing.
PGPC was founded in 2008 after our experience directing GirlPower in the Manhattan Theatre Source’s Estrogenius Festival . We saw the need to continue the work with the young women that was being done in the festival annually, throughout the year.
The girls have been working together on the Fringe show for the past 3 months. We hold weekly meetings where we do writing prompts and acting exercises, read articles and have guest speakers meet with the collective to create dialogue on the issues they feel are most pressing both personally and to their generation as a whole. Our objective is to create a safe space for the young women to express their voices openly, honestly and without fear of judgment or ridicule. We also encourage the girls to come up with solutions to the injustices they face and apply them to their lives and actions.
And what are some of those issues?
The beauty of this project is that each new cast brings a variety of new topics to explore. There are common threads that have been part of every GirlPower performance such as body image, societal pressure to fit a certain mold, family, peer pressure, relationships and sexuality.
This year’s group was particularly interested in exploring the role of women in theatre and questioning the lack of opportunities for women playwrights/directors in addition to looking at racism, gentrification and learning disabilities through the theatrical lens.
You are one of the most definitive examples I know of a theatre artist/activist. Were you always both? Was there a moment or a person or an experience that made you realize that you should combine the two, or that made you realize you were both?
My activism and art existed in completely separate planes for a long time (they were born separately). Truthfully, it was a professor I had in undergrad that made me see that they could be one. She was an anthropology professor who ironically gave me my first off-off Broadway directing gig at the Clemente Soto Velez Cultural Center (the site of our Fringe show last year) while I was still in school. She forced me to see the world of theatre that exists outside my microcosm and the potential it has for sustainable societal change. I am certain that I would not be doing any of this work if it wasn’t for her.
In your perfect world, what would The Theater look like? If you could change any and everything about the theater, what would you change?
This is a hard question as my idea of perfection is relative only to my own experiences, as is everyone else’s. In the perfect world, or at least in mine, all of the theatre that exists today (commercial, independent, community, guerrilla, etc.) exists but without the labels I just gave it and it’s accessible to all regardless of age, gender, finances and geographic location. The arts are globally respected and seen as vital to the continuation of the human race so there is never a lack of opportunity for playwrights, directors, performers or any artists. Small theatre collectives are generously funded, and making a living through membership in one of these companies is not only common but also well respected.
I don’t think any of these dreams are impossible or unattainable at all. It’s just going to take an organized movement and everybody’s participation to make it happen. Director Lev Dodin told the members of the Lincoln Center Directors Lab last year, “What we do is not just a job or profession – it’s a calling. The highest calling. Treat it as such.” As artists, we need to embody and remember this. We get so caught up in just trying to survive that we forget why it is we do what we do. We must always strive to stay connected to our community of fellow theatre artists through supporting each other’s work and offering/accepting valuable feedback and criticism. We also must know our history and be willing to learn from the past.
Now speaking more broadly, what kind of change do you want to see in the World At Large?
Justice and Peace. To accomplish this everyone must work together. It sounds Utopian but it’s possible. Artists give people hope and a vision of what is possible. We as a community of socially engaged artists need to both continue and amp up this work so that people see change is not only attainable but something everyone can take part in despite the social constructs that exist to limit the potential of many people.
What suggestions would you offer other theatre artists who are interested in collaborating with nonprofits on socially relevant theatre, or just doing activist theatre in general?
Do it! The best advice we got from our professors at Tisch when asked how to get COTE off the ground was to go out and make it happen. Also, don’t be afraid to reach out to both artists you admire and organizations you want to work with and introduce yourself. You’d be surprised how many people are not only willing, but genuinely excited to talk about their own experiences and mentor like minded artists. The theatre community is unbelievably generous. You must be willing to put yourself out there and ask for help.
You’re clearly a very nice person. But, it seems clear to me from your work that you have a lot of anger toward the injustices of the world. How do you balance your warm fuzziness and your anger? What keeps you going?
Faith, hope, the belief that everyone is connected and we’re all part of something so much bigger than this and a strong sense of community and support is what keeps me going. Right before opening GirlPower I was telling the girls that there is going to be a lot of industry and press coming to see the show. You know, giving them a rundown of what to expect, who may talk to them after and getting them hyped. And you know what? The majority of them didn’t care about that sort of thing. It was such a beautiful moment because there they were, all 14 of them sitting in a clump eating lunch, braiding hair and enjoying each other’s company. They were so empowered. They knew what they had created was special and that it would touch people and they didn’t need anyone’s official opinion to say so. Don’t get me wrong, they were thrilled when they saw their first glowing review and love having the support of industry and the press, but their confidence as artists, in their work and in themselves has taken precedence over everything else. It’s moments like that where I’m like, “Yes! We’re headed in the right direction!” and I know we can empower more people this way. We can continue the cycle, you know.
What makes Co-Op Theatre East different from other Off-Off Broadway theatre companies out there?
All theatre is socially relevant and there are a lot of theatre companies with similar missions popping up all over the place which is fantastic. There needs to be even more of this! I think that what we’re trying to do with COTE, which sets us apart from other companies is that our mission is to use theatre as a tool for social activism and we’re actively seeking out new and innovative ways to bring both theatre to the people and the people to the theater.
We have an exciting season planned for 2010-2011 that includes a series of new radio plays (staged live and podcasted), a new adaptation of Euripides’ The Trojan Women by COTE’s literary director Casey Cleverly which is addressing the issue of sex trafficking and the global slave trade, and in the spring we’re starting a series called the COTE Home and Garden tour where we’ll be performing in people’s homes and apartments, bringing the dialogue home. We have a phenomenal ensemble of actors and artists who will be working with us this year. I strongly encourage everyone to become a fan of COTE on facebook and twitter and visit our website www.cooptheatreeast.org to keep up with the latest news.
What’s one of your dream projects?
This is going to sound crazy and perhaps unexpected, being that most of my work thus far has been new plays, but my dream project is to direct a re-imagining of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Jesus Christ Superstar, a grandiose budget musical, complete with singing, dancing, puppetry, costumes… the whole nine yards. I actually think about it all the time and how I want to approach it (which changes daily, usually when I’m out jogging or driving in the car). I am obsessed with religion, patriotism, fundamentalism and how these things coincide in American politics. I want to explore the question of WWJD: What Would Jesus Do if he was here on earth, right now in 2010? Who would be his disciples? Where would he “hang out”? What messages would he preach and to who? How would he feel about the people who are using his name for personal and/or political gain? I have strong opinions on this topic. I was raised in the church and have had a very rocky relationship with organized religion (not spirituality… religiosity) over the years. I have a lot of questions, specifically dealing with Christianity, that I think many people share and I would like to address them through a theatrical lens. I would really encourage the political churches in addition to outspoken members of the religious right to weigh in on a production like this. I think it would be fascinating on many levels.
What’s next for you?
Acting. My soul is aching to be on stage again and that’s going to be my focus for the next few months. I’ve been auditioning and at the moment finishing up a one-woman show I’ve been writing sporadically for the past few years called What to do In case you miss the Rapture… based on interviews I’ve been conducting with people who believe the end of the world is upon us.
I’m in the beginning stages of a collaborative piece between PGPC and COTE which will debut in September 2011 that I’m tentatively calling 10 Years Later: Voices from the Post 9/11 Generation. It’s going to be a collection of written words - songs, poetry, scenes and monologues by young people, ages 10 to 21 specifically, focusing on the aftermath of 9/11 and the “post 9/11 generation”. Many of these kids were babies on September 11th, 2001. We need to hear their stories and see what we’ve created, how terrorism, war, media, religious fundamentalism has had an impact on these kids. Throughout most of their lives, the US has been engaged in war. What kind of impact does this have on their psyche? How do they view the future? Where do they see their place in the world? We’re going to explore this.
Finally, I want to work on devising an episodic theatre piece with a group of playwrights and actors that deals with the prison system, particularly incarcerated women. I would like to work in collaboration with a women’s correctional institution, perhaps doing workshops and having the artists involved become personally involved. I have always been interested in prison reform and the justice system. I’m going to be fleshing this idea out a bit more within the next few months but it’s definitely something close to my heart.
Continuing work with and developing Co-Op Theatre East and Project Girl Performance Collective is my priority. We’re always looking for collaborators and likeminded artists so please reach out, by contacting either cooptheatreeast@gmail.com (COTE) or projectgirlperformancecollective@gmail.com (PGPC).
Hola, comrades! Mariah here—this week in my blogs I’m going to be mainly focusing on the idea of theatre as an instrument for social change. And I can’t think of a better way to kick things off than to introduce you to one of the top practitioners of activist theatre I know, Ashley Marinaccio. I’ve blogged about Ashley before, she’s blogged about me, and now I get the privilege of interviewing her for all you lovely people!
The day before our interview, I saw Ashley at the opening of her Fringe show and I wish I had snapped a picture: with hot pink skinny jeans, a tank top reading “Project Girl” in hot pink lettering, and enormous/fabulous turquoise heels, you could see from a distance she was a force to be reckoned with. However, I think you’ll be able to pick that up from her answers. Without further ado: Ashley Marinaccio!
I’m going to ask you a question that you ask people on your People Who Want Change blog: who are you?
25 years old. Artist and activist. Observer. Perpetual student of life. Ever evolving, never still.
So, you’re in the middle of Fringe right now. Are you going completely out of your mind?
Not at all. The Project Girl Performance Collective has a phenomenal team assembled, and all the most difficult and time consuming tasks are delegated. The power of delegation is mighty! (It took me awhile but I just learned this… ha-ha) We also have a new executive director on board who has taken PGPC to another level in only weeks. The collective has grown immensely in such a short time and we’re ever evolving, it’s fantastic and truly inspiring!
Fabulous—tell me more about the show, the girls, and your collaborators.
GirlPower: Survival of the Fittest is created by the members of the Project Girl Performance Collective, a group of young women between the ages of 13-21 who devise and perform original work based on their own life experiences and the current political, social and cultural issues that are most important to them. It is under the direction of myself, writer, activist and academic Elizabeth Koke and Jessica Greer Morris who is a playwright, performer and activist (and these women are fierce… let me tell you). We also have the unbelievably talented and organized Katherine Sommer stage managing/assistant directing and Alexa Winston, a former performer with last year’s PGPC Fringe company assistant directing.
PGPC was founded in 2008 after our experience directing GirlPower in the Manhattan Theatre Source’s Estrogenius Festival . We saw the need to continue the work with the young women that was being done in the festival annually, throughout the year.
The girls have been working together on the Fringe show for the past 3 months. We hold weekly meetings where we do writing prompts and acting exercises, read articles and have guest speakers meet with the collective to create dialogue on the issues they feel are most pressing both personally and to their generation as a whole. Our objective is to create a safe space for the young women to express their voices openly, honestly and without fear of judgment or ridicule. We also encourage the girls to come up with solutions to the injustices they face and apply them to their lives and actions.
And what are some of those issues?
The beauty of this project is that each new cast brings a variety of new topics to explore. There are common threads that have been part of every GirlPower performance such as body image, societal pressure to fit a certain mold, family, peer pressure, relationships and sexuality.
This year’s group was particularly interested in exploring the role of women in theatre and questioning the lack of opportunities for women playwrights/directors in addition to looking at racism, gentrification and learning disabilities through the theatrical lens.
You are one of the most definitive examples I know of a theatre artist/activist. Were you always both? Was there a moment or a person or an experience that made you realize that you should combine the two, or that made you realize you were both?
My activism and art existed in completely separate planes for a long time (they were born separately). Truthfully, it was a professor I had in undergrad that made me see that they could be one. She was an anthropology professor who ironically gave me my first off-off Broadway directing gig at the Clemente Soto Velez Cultural Center (the site of our Fringe show last year) while I was still in school. She forced me to see the world of theatre that exists outside my microcosm and the potential it has for sustainable societal change. I am certain that I would not be doing any of this work if it wasn’t for her.
In your perfect world, what would The Theater look like? If you could change any and everything about the theater, what would you change?
This is a hard question as my idea of perfection is relative only to my own experiences, as is everyone else’s. In the perfect world, or at least in mine, all of the theatre that exists today (commercial, independent, community, guerrilla, etc.) exists but without the labels I just gave it and it’s accessible to all regardless of age, gender, finances and geographic location. The arts are globally respected and seen as vital to the continuation of the human race so there is never a lack of opportunity for playwrights, directors, performers or any artists. Small theatre collectives are generously funded, and making a living through membership in one of these companies is not only common but also well respected.
I don’t think any of these dreams are impossible or unattainable at all. It’s just going to take an organized movement and everybody’s participation to make it happen. Director Lev Dodin told the members of the Lincoln Center Directors Lab last year, “What we do is not just a job or profession – it’s a calling. The highest calling. Treat it as such.” As artists, we need to embody and remember this. We get so caught up in just trying to survive that we forget why it is we do what we do. We must always strive to stay connected to our community of fellow theatre artists through supporting each other’s work and offering/accepting valuable feedback and criticism. We also must know our history and be willing to learn from the past.
Now speaking more broadly, what kind of change do you want to see in the World At Large?
Justice and Peace. To accomplish this everyone must work together. It sounds Utopian but it’s possible. Artists give people hope and a vision of what is possible. We as a community of socially engaged artists need to both continue and amp up this work so that people see change is not only attainable but something everyone can take part in despite the social constructs that exist to limit the potential of many people.
What suggestions would you offer other theatre artists who are interested in collaborating with nonprofits on socially relevant theatre, or just doing activist theatre in general?
Do it! The best advice we got from our professors at Tisch when asked how to get COTE off the ground was to go out and make it happen. Also, don’t be afraid to reach out to both artists you admire and organizations you want to work with and introduce yourself. You’d be surprised how many people are not only willing, but genuinely excited to talk about their own experiences and mentor like minded artists. The theatre community is unbelievably generous. You must be willing to put yourself out there and ask for help.
You’re clearly a very nice person. But, it seems clear to me from your work that you have a lot of anger toward the injustices of the world. How do you balance your warm fuzziness and your anger? What keeps you going?
Faith, hope, the belief that everyone is connected and we’re all part of something so much bigger than this and a strong sense of community and support is what keeps me going. Right before opening GirlPower I was telling the girls that there is going to be a lot of industry and press coming to see the show. You know, giving them a rundown of what to expect, who may talk to them after and getting them hyped. And you know what? The majority of them didn’t care about that sort of thing. It was such a beautiful moment because there they were, all 14 of them sitting in a clump eating lunch, braiding hair and enjoying each other’s company. They were so empowered. They knew what they had created was special and that it would touch people and they didn’t need anyone’s official opinion to say so. Don’t get me wrong, they were thrilled when they saw their first glowing review and love having the support of industry and the press, but their confidence as artists, in their work and in themselves has taken precedence over everything else. It’s moments like that where I’m like, “Yes! We’re headed in the right direction!” and I know we can empower more people this way. We can continue the cycle, you know.
What makes Co-Op Theatre East different from other Off-Off Broadway theatre companies out there?
All theatre is socially relevant and there are a lot of theatre companies with similar missions popping up all over the place which is fantastic. There needs to be even more of this! I think that what we’re trying to do with COTE, which sets us apart from other companies is that our mission is to use theatre as a tool for social activism and we’re actively seeking out new and innovative ways to bring both theatre to the people and the people to the theater.
We have an exciting season planned for 2010-2011 that includes a series of new radio plays (staged live and podcasted), a new adaptation of Euripides’ The Trojan Women by COTE’s literary director Casey Cleverly which is addressing the issue of sex trafficking and the global slave trade, and in the spring we’re starting a series called the COTE Home and Garden tour where we’ll be performing in people’s homes and apartments, bringing the dialogue home. We have a phenomenal ensemble of actors and artists who will be working with us this year. I strongly encourage everyone to become a fan of COTE on facebook and twitter and visit our website www.cooptheatreeast.org to keep up with the latest news.
What’s one of your dream projects?
This is going to sound crazy and perhaps unexpected, being that most of my work thus far has been new plays, but my dream project is to direct a re-imagining of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Jesus Christ Superstar, a grandiose budget musical, complete with singing, dancing, puppetry, costumes… the whole nine yards. I actually think about it all the time and how I want to approach it (which changes daily, usually when I’m out jogging or driving in the car). I am obsessed with religion, patriotism, fundamentalism and how these things coincide in American politics. I want to explore the question of WWJD: What Would Jesus Do if he was here on earth, right now in 2010? Who would be his disciples? Where would he “hang out”? What messages would he preach and to who? How would he feel about the people who are using his name for personal and/or political gain? I have strong opinions on this topic. I was raised in the church and have had a very rocky relationship with organized religion (not spirituality… religiosity) over the years. I have a lot of questions, specifically dealing with Christianity, that I think many people share and I would like to address them through a theatrical lens. I would really encourage the political churches in addition to outspoken members of the religious right to weigh in on a production like this. I think it would be fascinating on many levels.
What’s next for you?
Acting. My soul is aching to be on stage again and that’s going to be my focus for the next few months. I’ve been auditioning and at the moment finishing up a one-woman show I’ve been writing sporadically for the past few years called What to do In case you miss the Rapture… based on interviews I’ve been conducting with people who believe the end of the world is upon us.
I’m in the beginning stages of a collaborative piece between PGPC and COTE which will debut in September 2011 that I’m tentatively calling 10 Years Later: Voices from the Post 9/11 Generation. It’s going to be a collection of written words - songs, poetry, scenes and monologues by young people, ages 10 to 21 specifically, focusing on the aftermath of 9/11 and the “post 9/11 generation”. Many of these kids were babies on September 11th, 2001. We need to hear their stories and see what we’ve created, how terrorism, war, media, religious fundamentalism has had an impact on these kids. Throughout most of their lives, the US has been engaged in war. What kind of impact does this have on their psyche? How do they view the future? Where do they see their place in the world? We’re going to explore this.
Finally, I want to work on devising an episodic theatre piece with a group of playwrights and actors that deals with the prison system, particularly incarcerated women. I would like to work in collaboration with a women’s correctional institution, perhaps doing workshops and having the artists involved become personally involved. I have always been interested in prison reform and the justice system. I’m going to be fleshing this idea out a bit more within the next few months but it’s definitely something close to my heart.
Continuing work with and developing Co-Op Theatre East and Project Girl Performance Collective is my priority. We’re always looking for collaborators and likeminded artists so please reach out, by contacting either cooptheatreeast@gmail.com (COTE) or projectgirlperformancecollective@gmail.com (PGPC).
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
The Question or, Really I just wanted to be Diane Keaton
Hi everyone! Off-off Broadway superstar, Kevin Townley, here! If you’ve never heard of me then you’ve just proved my point, so the laugh’s on you.
I am honored to have been included in the illustrious roster of guest bloggers here.
I’ve been listening to the new Laurie Anderson album, Homeland, a lot this week. In the track Another Day in America she references Kierkegaard’s idea that life can only be understood backwards, but must be lived forwards.
This resonated with me a lot the night I wrapped up a five-hour photoshoot with my dear friend and collaborator, Hanna Cheek, where we had to simulate sex and a stabbing in our underwear. As an isolated moment in time this made absolutely no sense at all, but in retrospect my whole life had been leading up to this moment.
I grew up in Boulder, CO, and after graduating from high school I had decided to pack my Teletubby luggage and move to New York City. To prepare myself for the move I decided to rent movies about swinging city life. I watched every Woody Allen movie (this was 1996, so they hadn’t nosedived yet) and dreamed of being invited to the lush dinner parties of Upper East-siders where we’d all be wearing high-waisted chinos, deriding Heidegger and listening to Bix Beiderbecke records. Really I just wanted to be Diane Keaton.
On one of the last days before I moved, I was at the Boulder Public Library, leafing through a big hardcover book called something like The Paramount Story, all about the film studio. On one page about midway through the book there was a huge black and white photograph of Diane Keaton smoking a cigarette on the steps of a brownstone, wearing a trench coat over a plaid button down shirt and tight jeans tucked into a pair of knee-high boots. It was a still from a movie called Looking for Mr. Goodbar and she was the coolest person I’d ever laid my eyes on. This movie seemed essential arsenal in my quest to become a sophisticated New Yorker and Diane Keaton. I rented it that night and was completely traumatized…for life you might say; the one poster in my house is an original one-sheet of Looking for Mr. Goodbar. Those of you who have seen this troubled and troubling film will understand why; everyone else, go watch in on Netflix Watch Instantly (it’s not available on DVD).
The film was based on the best selling novel of the same name by Judith Rossner and tells the story of a young woman tangled up in a double life. The Netflix film description says:
Pretty grim stuff.
A few years ago I joined a rock band called Bambi as a singer and was asked to try my hand a writing lyrics. I had no idea what to write about, so I just decided to write about things that I liked: Jane Goodall, The Bride of Frankenstein and…Looking for Mr. Goodbar.
My good friend, Jimmie Marlowe, the band’s guitarist, took my lyrics summarizing the Goodbar story and turned them into a plaintive rock ballad inspired by Barry Manilow’s 'Mandy'. We performed it a lot over the next few years and it was always very popular at our shows. After completing an album we were all trying to decide what to work on next and Jimmie suggested we try our hand at a concept album. “Why not try adapting Looking for Mr. Goodbar into a concept album?” he suggested. The story resonated with all of us; we’d all had our share of wild nights in New York, made some fun but stupid choices and were all lucky enough to live to tell the tale. We spent the next few months tinkering around with the idea, making some headway, but, as with many artists, with no real deadline to keep us in check nothing concrete really came of it.
Then one day I got a call from Tom Ridgely, one of the co-founders of my theatre company, Waterwell, asking me if Bambi would like to collaborate with them on a project. “You guys are so theatrical already, it might be fun to put what you do into a more narrative structure; something that’s not quite a rock show and not quite theater.” I was excited by the idea and told him about our Goodbar project. There were a few moments of silence and then he said, “Well I’m not sure if that’s quite it, but let’s talk about it more.”
Before we could really discuss other options, Tom called to let me know that our friend Freedome from the City Parks Foundation had contacted him wondering if Waterwell had any ideas to pitch for SummerStage’s 25th Anniversary season. Goodbar was a go. We held an eight-song presentation for Freedome and he booked us. “I don’t know what you guys are doing, but I love you and trust you. See you in August.”
If we were going to crack open our hearts and skulls for this project we were aiming for a life beyond August, but this was the lighted rag we needed under our asses to kick this project into gear and completed.
I really had no idea why we were choosing to re-imagine this old chestnut from the ‘70s, aside from a dark teenage fixation. If we were going to expend the required amount of time and energy into hauling this project into being, there ought to be a reason. To paraphrase Victor Hugo, material that is not universal and timeless isn’t really worth exploring.
Whenever Waterwell embarks on a new project we try to find a central question that we can continuously come back to in order to make sure we’re on the right track. For Goodbar I had stumbled upon a proverb that the Buddhist nun, Pema Chodron, used in a lecture I’d head: “Death is certain; the time of death is uncertain; what is the most important thing?”
We all reread Judith Rossner’s strange third-person-omniscient novel, fired up my old VHS copy of the movie and wrote fifteen new songs in under eight months.
As is often the case when you collaborate with a bunch of creative kooks, the project you each hold so dearly begins to take on a life of its own, dictating to you what it wants to be and your job is to hold on; not too loosely and not too tight.
One thing we all seemed to agree on was that we did not want this to be Looking for Mr. Goodbar: The Musical! Any source material from the ‘70s has the potential to become a kitsch-fest, and there was something deep, dark and timeless about the material, which kept calling us back to it. Plus, we’d all seen our share of Off-Broadway and Broadway “rock musicals” which had missed the mark; just more showtunes played on the electric guitar, sung by trained conservatory voices with stick-on faux-hawks. We had something more along the lines of Kte Baush’s Hounds of Love or The Who’s Tommy in mind.
Bambi is an actual rock band and we wanted to revisit the lost art of the concept album. What we aim at is closer to a classical oratorio than anything else; something with deep, resonant themes that‘s all music all the time; no contrived scenes, just rock and roll with enough abstracted holes in between songs so the audience can fill in the blanks with themselves.
We did want to be true to the story though, which had a few plot points and six main characters, so we enlisted the help of the stellar video artist, Alex Koch. We decided that we’d need a feature-length video element to help us clarify the story and characters we’re portraying. It seemed a logical next step to enlist the help of actor friends to appear in the video and through a few crafty emails we were able to get Ira Glass, Bobby Cannavale, Dave Hill and other New York notables to lend their time and talents to the project.
For the roles of the main character, Theresa, and her killer Gary, however, Hanna and I decided to step up to the plate. We figured if we were going to take on such dark material we ought to put our money where our mouths were. This meant recreating the final, blood-curdling murder scene.
So I grew a creeper moustache and met Hanna and the crew at a friend’s apartment this past Sunday night. In keeping with the story, I simulated a sex scene with my dear friend, tied her up with a phone cord and stabbed her to death (Hanna’s currently alive and well performing another show in Canada). The cameraman suggested that he shoot the actual stabbing from her perspective. He didn’t want to get fake blood on his nice shirt though, so he stripped down to his undies (I was already in mine) and I straddled him with a switchblade in hand while our director, Arian Moayed, stood by, flinging fake blood at me from a jam jar with a tablespoon as I pretended to stab him to death.
My life is weird.
We still have a few weeks of rehearsal; choreographing and staging the show, which will premier at East River Park on August 20th.
It’s interesting to see how little seeds unknowingly planted in the past begin to spring up years and years later.
The show will continue to grow and change, and who, really, can say what will happen to our baby? Who can really spend too much time worrying about what will happen next when we’re all having such an amazingly fulfilling time creating something together?
Death is certain; the time of death is uncertain; what is the most important thing?
I am honored to have been included in the illustrious roster of guest bloggers here.
I’ve been listening to the new Laurie Anderson album, Homeland, a lot this week. In the track Another Day in America she references Kierkegaard’s idea that life can only be understood backwards, but must be lived forwards.
This resonated with me a lot the night I wrapped up a five-hour photoshoot with my dear friend and collaborator, Hanna Cheek, where we had to simulate sex and a stabbing in our underwear. As an isolated moment in time this made absolutely no sense at all, but in retrospect my whole life had been leading up to this moment.
I grew up in Boulder, CO, and after graduating from high school I had decided to pack my Teletubby luggage and move to New York City. To prepare myself for the move I decided to rent movies about swinging city life. I watched every Woody Allen movie (this was 1996, so they hadn’t nosedived yet) and dreamed of being invited to the lush dinner parties of Upper East-siders where we’d all be wearing high-waisted chinos, deriding Heidegger and listening to Bix Beiderbecke records. Really I just wanted to be Diane Keaton.
On one of the last days before I moved, I was at the Boulder Public Library, leafing through a big hardcover book called something like The Paramount Story, all about the film studio. On one page about midway through the book there was a huge black and white photograph of Diane Keaton smoking a cigarette on the steps of a brownstone, wearing a trench coat over a plaid button down shirt and tight jeans tucked into a pair of knee-high boots. It was a still from a movie called Looking for Mr. Goodbar and she was the coolest person I’d ever laid my eyes on. This movie seemed essential arsenal in my quest to become a sophisticated New Yorker and Diane Keaton. I rented it that night and was completely traumatized…for life you might say; the one poster in my house is an original one-sheet of Looking for Mr. Goodbar. Those of you who have seen this troubled and troubling film will understand why; everyone else, go watch in on Netflix Watch Instantly (it’s not available on DVD).
The film was based on the best selling novel of the same name by Judith Rossner and tells the story of a young woman tangled up in a double life. The Netflix film description says:
Diane Keaton plays young teacher Theresa Dunn, whose initially innocent search to find the man of her dreams escalates into increasingly promiscuous and dangerous encounters with men she meets at bars. An outwardly caring nurturer living a banal existence by day, she thrives on the thrill of her evening trysts, which eventually involve drugs and violence. As she's spinning out of control, she vows to clean up -- but not before one final rendezvous.
Pretty grim stuff.
A few years ago I joined a rock band called Bambi as a singer and was asked to try my hand a writing lyrics. I had no idea what to write about, so I just decided to write about things that I liked: Jane Goodall, The Bride of Frankenstein and…Looking for Mr. Goodbar.
My good friend, Jimmie Marlowe, the band’s guitarist, took my lyrics summarizing the Goodbar story and turned them into a plaintive rock ballad inspired by Barry Manilow’s 'Mandy'. We performed it a lot over the next few years and it was always very popular at our shows. After completing an album we were all trying to decide what to work on next and Jimmie suggested we try our hand at a concept album. “Why not try adapting Looking for Mr. Goodbar into a concept album?” he suggested. The story resonated with all of us; we’d all had our share of wild nights in New York, made some fun but stupid choices and were all lucky enough to live to tell the tale. We spent the next few months tinkering around with the idea, making some headway, but, as with many artists, with no real deadline to keep us in check nothing concrete really came of it.
Then one day I got a call from Tom Ridgely, one of the co-founders of my theatre company, Waterwell, asking me if Bambi would like to collaborate with them on a project. “You guys are so theatrical already, it might be fun to put what you do into a more narrative structure; something that’s not quite a rock show and not quite theater.” I was excited by the idea and told him about our Goodbar project. There were a few moments of silence and then he said, “Well I’m not sure if that’s quite it, but let’s talk about it more.”
Before we could really discuss other options, Tom called to let me know that our friend Freedome from the City Parks Foundation had contacted him wondering if Waterwell had any ideas to pitch for SummerStage’s 25th Anniversary season. Goodbar was a go. We held an eight-song presentation for Freedome and he booked us. “I don’t know what you guys are doing, but I love you and trust you. See you in August.”
If we were going to crack open our hearts and skulls for this project we were aiming for a life beyond August, but this was the lighted rag we needed under our asses to kick this project into gear and completed.
I really had no idea why we were choosing to re-imagine this old chestnut from the ‘70s, aside from a dark teenage fixation. If we were going to expend the required amount of time and energy into hauling this project into being, there ought to be a reason. To paraphrase Victor Hugo, material that is not universal and timeless isn’t really worth exploring.
Whenever Waterwell embarks on a new project we try to find a central question that we can continuously come back to in order to make sure we’re on the right track. For Goodbar I had stumbled upon a proverb that the Buddhist nun, Pema Chodron, used in a lecture I’d head: “Death is certain; the time of death is uncertain; what is the most important thing?”
We all reread Judith Rossner’s strange third-person-omniscient novel, fired up my old VHS copy of the movie and wrote fifteen new songs in under eight months.
As is often the case when you collaborate with a bunch of creative kooks, the project you each hold so dearly begins to take on a life of its own, dictating to you what it wants to be and your job is to hold on; not too loosely and not too tight.
One thing we all seemed to agree on was that we did not want this to be Looking for Mr. Goodbar: The Musical! Any source material from the ‘70s has the potential to become a kitsch-fest, and there was something deep, dark and timeless about the material, which kept calling us back to it. Plus, we’d all seen our share of Off-Broadway and Broadway “rock musicals” which had missed the mark; just more showtunes played on the electric guitar, sung by trained conservatory voices with stick-on faux-hawks. We had something more along the lines of Kte Baush’s Hounds of Love or The Who’s Tommy in mind.
Bambi is an actual rock band and we wanted to revisit the lost art of the concept album. What we aim at is closer to a classical oratorio than anything else; something with deep, resonant themes that‘s all music all the time; no contrived scenes, just rock and roll with enough abstracted holes in between songs so the audience can fill in the blanks with themselves.
We did want to be true to the story though, which had a few plot points and six main characters, so we enlisted the help of the stellar video artist, Alex Koch. We decided that we’d need a feature-length video element to help us clarify the story and characters we’re portraying. It seemed a logical next step to enlist the help of actor friends to appear in the video and through a few crafty emails we were able to get Ira Glass, Bobby Cannavale, Dave Hill and other New York notables to lend their time and talents to the project.
For the roles of the main character, Theresa, and her killer Gary, however, Hanna and I decided to step up to the plate. We figured if we were going to take on such dark material we ought to put our money where our mouths were. This meant recreating the final, blood-curdling murder scene.
So I grew a creeper moustache and met Hanna and the crew at a friend’s apartment this past Sunday night. In keeping with the story, I simulated a sex scene with my dear friend, tied her up with a phone cord and stabbed her to death (Hanna’s currently alive and well performing another show in Canada). The cameraman suggested that he shoot the actual stabbing from her perspective. He didn’t want to get fake blood on his nice shirt though, so he stripped down to his undies (I was already in mine) and I straddled him with a switchblade in hand while our director, Arian Moayed, stood by, flinging fake blood at me from a jam jar with a tablespoon as I pretended to stab him to death.
My life is weird.
We still have a few weeks of rehearsal; choreographing and staging the show, which will premier at East River Park on August 20th.
It’s interesting to see how little seeds unknowingly planted in the past begin to spring up years and years later.
The show will continue to grow and change, and who, really, can say what will happen to our baby? Who can really spend too much time worrying about what will happen next when we’re all having such an amazingly fulfilling time creating something together?
Death is certain; the time of death is uncertain; what is the most important thing?
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Do we see theatre anymore?
Contributed by Guest Blogger of the week, Jillian Zeman.
I don’t know if anyone else feels this way, or if this is true for anyone else, but I really don’t go to theatre much anymore. Not because I don’t enjoy it, not because there isn’t anything I want to see… but time. My show is usually on the same schedule as everything else and unfortunately I can’t exactly put in for a personal day to take in a show.
Tonight was treat. I actually got to watch a show. And it wasn’t one I was training on; it was out of pure enjoyment and, well, time. My current show is in Raleigh, NC and right next door in Durham was the national tour of Wicked. I’ve never seen it before (yes, I know most of your jaws all dropped… a New Yorker of 7 years, working in theatre hasn’t seen Wicked?!)
The production was amazing, and there were moments where I was looking around going “how did they do that?” I’ve had those moments with OOB as well, most recently with
APAC’s production of The Pillowman directed by Tom Wojtunik. Now here’s the difference, this show had a budget of who knows how much, and OOB has a strict budget. I think what is most remarkable is that on the larger big-budget productions you have an idea of how they made something work, but didn’t know the specifics (and granted, I’m speaking of theatre people who know what to look for during those special effect moments). However, on the OOB productions the designers have to bring a level of creativity to make the magic happen on a much tighter budget. I love sitting in a theatre and analyzing how a special effect happened. It’s moments like this that I’m so proud to work in OOB. It may not have the budgets that the larger productions do, but we have just as much, if not more creativity and talent to put on display.
Monday, February 1, 2010
Working Period.
Contributed by Guest Blogger of the week, Heather Cunningham
It’s in the details. Whether your production is on Broadway or in a 40-seat theater on a side street in an industrial neighborhood, it’s in the details. The angle of the heel on the shoe, the buttons on the coat, the frame of the chair, the packaging of the cigarettes. And when your audience practically sits in your actors’ laps it is even more important that those details be as right as possible.
It’s hard work. It’s my own fault Retro Productions does nothing but period pieces. But the truth is, I love those details. I love doing the research and playing hide and seek with the items that will make those details right. And nothing drives me crazier than going to see a show set in 1960 and seeing a modern package of Ronzoni on the stage.
I know there is an argument, especially in Off-Off Broadway where money is ridiculously tight, for simplifying the experience. Why do you need a set, costumes and props to tell the story? Why not just focus on the acting, and save a ton of money in the process? And that’s right for certain plays (and hell, focus on the acting no matter what). But if you are doing a play that belongs in another world, say, the New York City of the mid-1950s (as Retro will be doing again this May with THE DESK SET), you really can’t get away with that.
The world has changed and so has the way people interact with each other and the material things in their lives. We dial and hold the telephone differently. We pack and carry our suitcases differently. We even type differently (tell the truth, would you even know how to change a typewriter ribbon now if you had to?). As the things around us change, so do our interactions with them, which is why I object to modern props and costumes in a play set in the past.
So how do you get the details right when your combined costume, prop and scenery budget are just a couple of hundred dollars?
1) RESEARCH! (The good news is if you have a library card and an Internet connection, you can do this step for free!) Know what it should look like and you will start to see the things around you that may not be vintage, but come so close that they won’t stick out like a sore thumb. (Check back for some of my favorite 20th Century research resources.)
2) “Beg, borrow and steal” (I’m not condoning the latter.) Obviously we all do this anyway, but it still applies! In addition to treasure hunting at estate and yard sales, junktique stores, salvage dealers, freecycle, ebay, craigslist, dollar stores and thrift shops I also fully admit to dumpster diving. I’m always checking out what people have tossed… one mans trash is another mans treasure!
3) Time is on my side, yes it is! And it can be on your side too. I occasionally take up to 6 months in advance of a show in order to get what I need within my budget. Time to spare can be your greatest ally when working on a budget.
4) Learn Photoshop. Need a mid-40s dust jacket for War and Peace? A ‘60s box of Wheaties with a ball player on the front? A can of tomato juice out of the ‘50s? At Retro we’ve done them all… with Photoshop.
5) No matter how gorgeous the costume, the look is not period complete without the right hair and make up. As a producer it makes me crazy (and I’m willing to bet costume designers hate it too) when actors don’t understand that the wrong hairstyle or shade of lips can throw the entire balance of the design off.
6) Don’t focus on what something is; see what it can be. I’ve had more than one designer for Retro who took apart something they bought at Goodwill and made it into something else. I’ve seen an early 90s cotton wrap dress transformed into a 30s day dress with a few cuts and stitches and a set of vintage buttons. And that modern sofa looked a lot less “Jennifer Convertibles” once the throw pillows of 50s fabric were put on top of it.
7) She’s crafty and she’s just my type… learn how to make stuff. Because when you can’t find it, you’ll have no choice but to make it. Giant wheel of cheese? Check. Bad modern art? Check. Wood burning cook stove? Check. Room sized “electronic brain”… check back with me in May.
And the diner jukebox that everyone loved… a combination of plywood, colorful plastic rods, kitchen lamps, and, yes, photoshopped images… if I had a buck for everyone who asked me where we got an old jukebox I’d have more money than it cost to make it.
And that’s one definition of being innovative, don’t you think?
It’s in the details. Whether your production is on Broadway or in a 40-seat theater on a side street in an industrial neighborhood, it’s in the details. The angle of the heel on the shoe, the buttons on the coat, the frame of the chair, the packaging of the cigarettes. And when your audience practically sits in your actors’ laps it is even more important that those details be as right as possible.
It’s hard work. It’s my own fault Retro Productions does nothing but period pieces. But the truth is, I love those details. I love doing the research and playing hide and seek with the items that will make those details right. And nothing drives me crazier than going to see a show set in 1960 and seeing a modern package of Ronzoni on the stage.
I know there is an argument, especially in Off-Off Broadway where money is ridiculously tight, for simplifying the experience. Why do you need a set, costumes and props to tell the story? Why not just focus on the acting, and save a ton of money in the process? And that’s right for certain plays (and hell, focus on the acting no matter what). But if you are doing a play that belongs in another world, say, the New York City of the mid-1950s (as Retro will be doing again this May with THE DESK SET), you really can’t get away with that.
The world has changed and so has the way people interact with each other and the material things in their lives. We dial and hold the telephone differently. We pack and carry our suitcases differently. We even type differently (tell the truth, would you even know how to change a typewriter ribbon now if you had to?). As the things around us change, so do our interactions with them, which is why I object to modern props and costumes in a play set in the past.
So how do you get the details right when your combined costume, prop and scenery budget are just a couple of hundred dollars?
1) RESEARCH! (The good news is if you have a library card and an Internet connection, you can do this step for free!) Know what it should look like and you will start to see the things around you that may not be vintage, but come so close that they won’t stick out like a sore thumb. (Check back for some of my favorite 20th Century research resources.)
2) “Beg, borrow and steal” (I’m not condoning the latter.) Obviously we all do this anyway, but it still applies! In addition to treasure hunting at estate and yard sales, junktique stores, salvage dealers, freecycle, ebay, craigslist, dollar stores and thrift shops I also fully admit to dumpster diving. I’m always checking out what people have tossed… one mans trash is another mans treasure!
3) Time is on my side, yes it is! And it can be on your side too. I occasionally take up to 6 months in advance of a show in order to get what I need within my budget. Time to spare can be your greatest ally when working on a budget.
4) Learn Photoshop. Need a mid-40s dust jacket for War and Peace? A ‘60s box of Wheaties with a ball player on the front? A can of tomato juice out of the ‘50s? At Retro we’ve done them all… with Photoshop.
5) No matter how gorgeous the costume, the look is not period complete without the right hair and make up. As a producer it makes me crazy (and I’m willing to bet costume designers hate it too) when actors don’t understand that the wrong hairstyle or shade of lips can throw the entire balance of the design off.
6) Don’t focus on what something is; see what it can be. I’ve had more than one designer for Retro who took apart something they bought at Goodwill and made it into something else. I’ve seen an early 90s cotton wrap dress transformed into a 30s day dress with a few cuts and stitches and a set of vintage buttons. And that modern sofa looked a lot less “Jennifer Convertibles” once the throw pillows of 50s fabric were put on top of it.
7) She’s crafty and she’s just my type… learn how to make stuff. Because when you can’t find it, you’ll have no choice but to make it. Giant wheel of cheese? Check. Bad modern art? Check. Wood burning cook stove? Check. Room sized “electronic brain”… check back with me in May.
And the diner jukebox that everyone loved… a combination of plywood, colorful plastic rods, kitchen lamps, and, yes, photoshopped images… if I had a buck for everyone who asked me where we got an old jukebox I’d have more money than it cost to make it.
And that’s one definition of being innovative, don’t you think?
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Shop to help the NYIT Foundation!!
If you're avoiding department stores and heading straight to Amazon.com for your 2010 holiday shopping, think of your favorite (and only) New York Innovative Theatre Foundation!
By following the Amazon.com logo via this link on our website to make your purchases, 10% of your purchase is donated to the New York Innovative Theatre Foundation, at no cost to you! It's the simplest way to help the Off-Off Broadway community this holiday season. Spread the word!
2010 holds promising things for all of us - we are so proud to celebrate this community year round, and we thank you for celebrating us!!
Thursday, July 23, 2009
TDF presents: Off-Off @ $9!
In an effort to expand its audience to Off-Off Broadway, Theatre Development Fund has announced a new ticketing program designed just for us: Off-Off @ $9! From the Press Release:
Any show can be made available for Off-Off @ $9. The Producer develops a profile for its show, TDF sells tickets for $9 to the patron and reimburses the company in full weekly on Mondays. Click Here for more information, and to register your show.
Theatre Development Fund announces the launch of a new on-line service, “off-OFF @ $9,” designed to make it easier for TDF members to attend off-Off Broadway shows all over the city. “off-OFF @ $9” provides TDF members with instant access to the exciting world of off-Off Broadway at less than the cost of a movie admission! Now, more than ever, TDF members can explore the smaller stages, beyond Broadway and Off Broadway, where innovative artists are creating new and adventurous works, with all tickets for only $9 with no handling fee.
“This program will supplement our long standing voucher program. With “off-Off @ $9,” members can buy their eTix ahead of time and know that they will have a seat waiting for them at the venue. It will help our members, and in doing so, will assist the theatres as well,” said Victoria Bailey, TDF’s executive director. “I am pleased that we can start this program in the summer in the midst of the many play festivals around the city.” Full Press release here.
Any show can be made available for Off-Off @ $9. The Producer develops a profile for its show, TDF sells tickets for $9 to the patron and reimburses the company in full weekly on Mondays. Click Here for more information, and to register your show.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Here they are!
The 2009 IT Awards Nominees were announced tonight! For those of you who couldn't make it, it was a great time! A HUGE thank you to the AMAZING volunteers for making the evening possible.
The evening also celebrated the 5th birthday for the New York Innovative Theatre Awards. The founders commemorated by presenting the inaugural Founder's Award to Akia, for her undying support and unwavering devotion since year one of the organization. Cheers to Akia!
And Now, the 2009 Nominees!
Outstanding Full-Length Script
Johnna Adams, Angel Eaters (Flux Theatre Ensemble)
Derek Ahonen, Amerissiah (The Amoralists Theatre Company)
James Carmichael, Stomp and Shout (an' Work it All Out) (Babel Theatre Project)
Nat Cassidy, The Reckoning of Kit & Little Boots (Gallery Players/Engine37)
Kate McGovern, Blue Before Morning (terraNOVA Collective)
Mac Rogers, Universal Robots (Manhattan Theatre Source/Dark Brew Productions) Outstanding Original Short Script
Martin Dockery, The Surprise (soloNOVA Arts Festival)
Ira Gamerman, Dated: A Cautionary Tale for Facebook Users (Elephants on Parade 2009, EBE Ensemble)
Jeff Grow, Creating Illusion (soloNOVA Arts Festival)
Kristen Kosmas, The Scandal! (The Management)
Kitt Lavoie, [Pwnd] (Rising Sun Performance Company)
Nico Vreeland, The Interview (Elephants on Parade 2009, EBE Ensemble) Outstanding Performance Art Production
Cirque du Quoi?!? (Human Flight Productions, Inc. & Gramily Entertainment)
Creating Illusion (soloNOVA Arts Festival)
Miss America (LaMaMa ETC in association with Split Britches)
Dracula (Radiotheatre)
Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind (New York Neo-Futurists)
Traces (soloNOVA Arts Festival) Outstanding Production of a Musical
Coming, Aphrodite! (LaMaMa ETC in association with Watson Arts)
Like You Like It (The Gallery Players)
Ragtime (Astoria Performing Arts Center)
The 103rd Annual Performance of Ruddigore, or The Witch's Curse, Presented by Murgatroyd's Hospital for Mental Rehabilitation, Ruddy Gore Maine (Theater 1010)
The Apple Sisters (The Apple Sisters)
The Who's Tommy (The Gallery Players) Outstanding Production of a Play
Blue Before Morning (terraNOVA Collective)
Lee/gendary (HERE Arts Center)
Still the River Runs (Zootopia Theatre Company)
Stomp and Shout (an' Work it All Out) (Babel Theatre Project)
Suspicious Package: an interactive noir (The Fifth Wall)
The Reckoning of Kit & Little Boots (Gallery Players/Engine37)
Universal Robots (Manhattan Theatre Source/Dark Brew Productions) Outstanding Solo Performance
Martin Dockery, The Surprise (soloNOVA Arts Festival)
Leigh Evans, Traces (soloNOVA Arts Festival)
Jeff Grow, Creating Illusion (soloNOVA Arts Festival)
Abena Koomson, Cozi Sa Wala: Magic Words (soloNOVA Arts Festival)
Micia Mosely, Where My Girls At? (Nursha/soloNOVA Arts Festival)
Una Aya Osato, Recess (FRIGID Festival) Outstanding Director
Geordie Broadwater, Stomp and Shout (an' Work it All Out)
Nat Cassidy, Any Day Now
Gia Forakis, Blue Before Morning
Vit Horejs, The Very Sad Story of Ethel & Julius, Lovers and Spyes and about Their Untymelie End while Sitting in a Small Room at the Correctional Facility in Ossining, N.Y.
Matthew J. Nichols, Still the River Runs
Suzi Takahashi, Lee/gendary Outstanding Actor in a Featured Role
William Apps IV, Amerissiah
Nicoye Banks, The High Priestess of Dark Alley
Roy Clary, McReele
Clint Morris, Like You Like It
Jeffrey Plunkett, All the Rage
Chris Thorn, Most Damaging Wound Outstanding Actress in a Featured Role
Ivanna Cullinan, The Granduncle Quadrilogy: Tales from the Land of Ice
Brynn Curry, Like You Like It
Phyllis Johnson, Blue Before Morning
Maura McNamara, The Real Thing
Constance Parng, Lee/gendary
Aura Vence, The High Priestess of Dark Alley Outstanding Actor in a Lead Role
Julian Elfer, Twelfth Night, or What You Will
Jaron Farnham, Still the River Runs
Steve French, Still the River Runs
Jason Howard, Universal Robots
David Ian Lee, The Reckoning of Kit & Little Boots
August Schulenburg, 8 Little Antichrists Outstanding Actress in a Lead Role
Katrina Foy Stomp and Shout (an' Work it All Out)
Soomi Kim, Lee/gendary
Jan Maxwell, Scenes from an Execution
Nedra McClyde, Miss Evers' Boys
Kate Middleton, Avow
Elyse Mirto, Any Day Now Outstanding Ensemble
(Not) Just A Day Like Any Other (Christopher Borg, Jeffrey Cranor, Kevin R. Free & Eevin Hartsough)
Blue Before Morning (Kether Donohue, Phyllis Johnson, Jenny Maguire, Chris McKinney, Flaco Navaja & Jennifer Dorr White)
Most Damaging Wound (Bard Goodrich, Ken Matthews, Megan McQuillan, Michael Solomon, Michael Szeles & Chris Thorn)
Oph3lia (Laura Butler, Drae Campbell, Dawn Eshelman, Connie Hall, Ikuko Ikari, Hana Kalinski, Eunjee Lee, Mark Lindberg, Alanna Medlock, Jy Murphy, Jorge Alberto Rubio, Maureen Sebastian & Magin Shantz)
Stomp and Shout (an' Work it All Out) (Geraldine Bartlett, Brian D. Coats, Katrina Foy, William Jackson Harper, Khris Lewin, Carolyn McCandlish, Joe Mullen, Frank Rodriguez, Christopher Rubin, Jeremy Schwartz, Joe Sullivan & Andrew Zimmerman)
Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind (Joe Basile, Jill Beckman, Christopher Borg, Jeffrey Cranor, Cara Francis, Kevin R. Free, Ryan Good, Alicia Harding, Eevin Hartsough, Sarah Levy, Erica Livingston, Jacquelyn Landgraf, Rob Neill, Lauren Parish, Joey Rizzolo & Justin Tolley)
Universal Robots (Esther Barlow, Jennifer Gordon Thomas, Jason Howard, David Lamberton, David Ian Lee, Michelle O'Connor, Ridley Parson, Nancy Sirianni, Tarantino Smith & Ben Sulzbach) Outstanding Original Music
Drew Cutler, Still the River Runs
Mark Ettinger and Paul Foglino, Coming, Aphrodite!
Kimmy Gatewood, Andy Hertz, Rebekka Johnson, Sarah Lowe and Jeff Solomon, The Apple Sisters
Gerard Keenan, Angel Eaters
Dave Malloy, Beowulf - A Thousand Years Of Baggage
Nick Moore, 23 Knives Outstanding Choreography/Movement
Keith Andrews, Like You Like It
Edward Elefterion, Shadow of Himself
Leigh Evans, Traces
Soomi Kim and Airon Armstrong, Lee/gendary
Austin McCormick, The Judgment of Paris
Stefanie Smith, The Selfish Giant Outstanding Costume Design
Michelle Beshaw, The Very Sad Story of Ethel & Julius, Lovers and Spyes and about Their Untymelie End while Sitting in a Small Room at the Correctional Facility in Ossining, N.Y.
Emily Morgan DeAngelis, Angel Eaters
Olivera Gajic, The Judgment of Paris
Hunter Kaczorowski, Like You Like It
Becky Lasky, Stomp and Shout (an' Work it All Out)
Karen Ann Ledger, Twelfth Night, or What You Will Outstanding Lighting Design
Lucrecia Briceno, Lee/gendary
Ian W. Hill, The Granduncle Quadrilogy: Tales from the Land of Ice
Andrew Lu, Still the River Runs
Jennifer Rathbone, Angel Eaters
Federico Restrepo, The Very Sad Story of Ethel & Julius, Lovers and Spyes and about Their Untymelie End while Sitting in a Small Room at the Correctional Facility in Ossining, N.Y.
Bruce Steinberg, Blue Before Mornin Outstanding Sound Design
Dan Bianchi, Dracula
Katie Down, Blue Before Morning
Austin McCormick, The Judgment of Paris
Nick Moore, 23 Knives
Chris Rummel, Twelfth Night, or What You Will
Asa Wember, Angel Eaters Outstanding Set Design
George Allison, Twelfth Night, or What You Will
Jim Boutin, Coming, Aphrodite!
Tristan Jeffers, Stomp and Shout (an' Work it All Out)
Michael P. Kramer, Ragtime
Caleb Levengood, Angel Eaters
Blair Mielnik, To Barcelona!
The recipients will be announced at our annual Ceremony on Monday, September 21st. Stay tuned for location and details. Alson announced at the 5th annual NYITAwards Ceremony will be the Honorary Awards and the inaugural Outstanding Stage Manager Award.
Congratulations to all honorees!
The evening also celebrated the 5th birthday for the New York Innovative Theatre Awards. The founders commemorated by presenting the inaugural Founder's Award to Akia, for her undying support and unwavering devotion since year one of the organization. Cheers to Akia!
And Now, the 2009 Nominees!
Johnna Adams, Angel Eaters (Flux Theatre Ensemble)
Derek Ahonen, Amerissiah (The Amoralists Theatre Company)
James Carmichael, Stomp and Shout (an' Work it All Out) (Babel Theatre Project)
Nat Cassidy, The Reckoning of Kit & Little Boots (Gallery Players/Engine37)
Kate McGovern, Blue Before Morning (terraNOVA Collective)
Mac Rogers, Universal Robots (Manhattan Theatre Source/Dark Brew Productions)
Martin Dockery, The Surprise (soloNOVA Arts Festival)
Ira Gamerman, Dated: A Cautionary Tale for Facebook Users (Elephants on Parade 2009, EBE Ensemble)
Jeff Grow, Creating Illusion (soloNOVA Arts Festival)
Kristen Kosmas, The Scandal! (The Management)
Kitt Lavoie, [Pwnd] (Rising Sun Performance Company)
Nico Vreeland, The Interview (Elephants on Parade 2009, EBE Ensemble)
Cirque du Quoi?!? (Human Flight Productions, Inc. & Gramily Entertainment)
Creating Illusion (soloNOVA Arts Festival)
Miss America (LaMaMa ETC in association with Split Britches)
Dracula (Radiotheatre)
Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind (New York Neo-Futurists)
Traces (soloNOVA Arts Festival)
Coming, Aphrodite! (LaMaMa ETC in association with Watson Arts)
Like You Like It (The Gallery Players)
Ragtime (Astoria Performing Arts Center)
The 103rd Annual Performance of Ruddigore, or The Witch's Curse, Presented by Murgatroyd's Hospital for Mental Rehabilitation, Ruddy Gore Maine (Theater 1010)
The Apple Sisters (The Apple Sisters)
The Who's Tommy (The Gallery Players)
Blue Before Morning (terraNOVA Collective)
Lee/gendary (HERE Arts Center)
Still the River Runs (Zootopia Theatre Company)
Stomp and Shout (an' Work it All Out) (Babel Theatre Project)
Suspicious Package: an interactive noir (The Fifth Wall)
The Reckoning of Kit & Little Boots (Gallery Players/Engine37)
Universal Robots (Manhattan Theatre Source/Dark Brew Productions)
Martin Dockery, The Surprise (soloNOVA Arts Festival)
Leigh Evans, Traces (soloNOVA Arts Festival)
Jeff Grow, Creating Illusion (soloNOVA Arts Festival)
Abena Koomson, Cozi Sa Wala: Magic Words (soloNOVA Arts Festival)
Micia Mosely, Where My Girls At? (Nursha/soloNOVA Arts Festival)
Una Aya Osato, Recess (FRIGID Festival)
Geordie Broadwater, Stomp and Shout (an' Work it All Out)
Nat Cassidy, Any Day Now
Gia Forakis, Blue Before Morning
Vit Horejs, The Very Sad Story of Ethel & Julius, Lovers and Spyes and about Their Untymelie End while Sitting in a Small Room at the Correctional Facility in Ossining, N.Y.
Matthew J. Nichols, Still the River Runs
Suzi Takahashi, Lee/gendary
William Apps IV, Amerissiah
Nicoye Banks, The High Priestess of Dark Alley
Roy Clary, McReele
Clint Morris, Like You Like It
Jeffrey Plunkett, All the Rage
Chris Thorn, Most Damaging Wound
Ivanna Cullinan, The Granduncle Quadrilogy: Tales from the Land of Ice
Brynn Curry, Like You Like It
Phyllis Johnson, Blue Before Morning
Maura McNamara, The Real Thing
Constance Parng, Lee/gendary
Aura Vence, The High Priestess of Dark Alley
Julian Elfer, Twelfth Night, or What You Will
Jaron Farnham, Still the River Runs
Steve French, Still the River Runs
Jason Howard, Universal Robots
David Ian Lee, The Reckoning of Kit & Little Boots
August Schulenburg, 8 Little Antichrists
Katrina Foy Stomp and Shout (an' Work it All Out)
Soomi Kim, Lee/gendary
Jan Maxwell, Scenes from an Execution
Nedra McClyde, Miss Evers' Boys
Kate Middleton, Avow
Elyse Mirto, Any Day Now
(Not) Just A Day Like Any Other (Christopher Borg, Jeffrey Cranor, Kevin R. Free & Eevin Hartsough)
Blue Before Morning (Kether Donohue, Phyllis Johnson, Jenny Maguire, Chris McKinney, Flaco Navaja & Jennifer Dorr White)
Most Damaging Wound (Bard Goodrich, Ken Matthews, Megan McQuillan, Michael Solomon, Michael Szeles & Chris Thorn)
Oph3lia (Laura Butler, Drae Campbell, Dawn Eshelman, Connie Hall, Ikuko Ikari, Hana Kalinski, Eunjee Lee, Mark Lindberg, Alanna Medlock, Jy Murphy, Jorge Alberto Rubio, Maureen Sebastian & Magin Shantz)
Stomp and Shout (an' Work it All Out) (Geraldine Bartlett, Brian D. Coats, Katrina Foy, William Jackson Harper, Khris Lewin, Carolyn McCandlish, Joe Mullen, Frank Rodriguez, Christopher Rubin, Jeremy Schwartz, Joe Sullivan & Andrew Zimmerman)
Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind (Joe Basile, Jill Beckman, Christopher Borg, Jeffrey Cranor, Cara Francis, Kevin R. Free, Ryan Good, Alicia Harding, Eevin Hartsough, Sarah Levy, Erica Livingston, Jacquelyn Landgraf, Rob Neill, Lauren Parish, Joey Rizzolo & Justin Tolley)
Universal Robots (Esther Barlow, Jennifer Gordon Thomas, Jason Howard, David Lamberton, David Ian Lee, Michelle O'Connor, Ridley Parson, Nancy Sirianni, Tarantino Smith & Ben Sulzbach)
Drew Cutler, Still the River Runs
Mark Ettinger and Paul Foglino, Coming, Aphrodite!
Kimmy Gatewood, Andy Hertz, Rebekka Johnson, Sarah Lowe and Jeff Solomon, The Apple Sisters
Gerard Keenan, Angel Eaters
Dave Malloy, Beowulf - A Thousand Years Of Baggage
Nick Moore, 23 Knives
Keith Andrews, Like You Like It
Edward Elefterion, Shadow of Himself
Leigh Evans, Traces
Soomi Kim and Airon Armstrong, Lee/gendary
Austin McCormick, The Judgment of Paris
Stefanie Smith, The Selfish Giant
Michelle Beshaw, The Very Sad Story of Ethel & Julius, Lovers and Spyes and about Their Untymelie End while Sitting in a Small Room at the Correctional Facility in Ossining, N.Y.
Emily Morgan DeAngelis, Angel Eaters
Olivera Gajic, The Judgment of Paris
Hunter Kaczorowski, Like You Like It
Becky Lasky, Stomp and Shout (an' Work it All Out)
Karen Ann Ledger, Twelfth Night, or What You Will
Lucrecia Briceno, Lee/gendary
Ian W. Hill, The Granduncle Quadrilogy: Tales from the Land of Ice
Andrew Lu, Still the River Runs
Jennifer Rathbone, Angel Eaters
Federico Restrepo, The Very Sad Story of Ethel & Julius, Lovers and Spyes and about Their Untymelie End while Sitting in a Small Room at the Correctional Facility in Ossining, N.Y.
Bruce Steinberg, Blue Before Mornin
Dan Bianchi, Dracula
Katie Down, Blue Before Morning
Austin McCormick, The Judgment of Paris
Nick Moore, 23 Knives
Chris Rummel, Twelfth Night, or What You Will
Asa Wember, Angel Eaters
George Allison, Twelfth Night, or What You Will
Jim Boutin, Coming, Aphrodite!
Tristan Jeffers, Stomp and Shout (an' Work it All Out)
Michael P. Kramer, Ragtime
Caleb Levengood, Angel Eaters
Blair Mielnik, To Barcelona!
The recipients will be announced at our annual Ceremony on Monday, September 21st. Stay tuned for location and details. Alson announced at the 5th annual NYITAwards Ceremony will be the Honorary Awards and the inaugural Outstanding Stage Manager Award.
Congratulations to all honorees!
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Community Corner: assessing the current economy's impact on artists & venues
Help NYC Performing Art Spaces accurately assess the economy's impact on Performing artists and venues. They have created 2 surveys to gather information:
- Performing Artists Survey
- Performing Arts Venues and Cultural Facilities
- Performing Artists Survey
- Performing Arts Venues and Cultural Facilities
To read more about Happenings, events & issues affecting Off-Off Broadway, visit the Community Corner.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Good News! CB3 Arts Task Force Resolution Passed Unanimously March 24th
A resolution composed by the Community Board Arts Task Force that was the result of the CB 1-5 Public Forum on small theatre in NYC & a March 10 Arts Task Force meeting, passed unanimously last evening by Community Board 3, paving the way for other Community Boards to use this language to adopt similar resolutions.
The community board can now bring the resolution to elected officials, requesting further support:
The next CB3 Arts Task Force Meeting will be April 7th; stay tuned for more information.
The community board can now bring the resolution to elected officials, requesting further support:
THANK YOU to all who have attended meetings leading up to these events! It's because of our community that our voices were heard loud and clear through these otherwise distracting and difficult times. And THANK YOU to Shay Gines, John Clancy, Paul Nagel and Tamara Greenfield, who all spoke last night in support of CB3's Arts Task Force's recommendationsWHEREAS: Arts and Entertainment is one of the largest industries in New York City with the economic impact of non-profit estimated to be $5.8 Billion and 40,460 jobs (NY Alliance for the Arts, 2005);
WHEREAS: Small to mid sized theaters and other arts organizations are an integral part of the Arts & Entertainment industry: A) as an entry point for actors, playwrights, and other artists, B) for the expression and exploration of the diverse culture of New York City communities, C) sites of creativity, experimentation and innovation, D) jobs;
WHEREAS: Small to mid sized theaters and other arts venues are a closely tied to their local neighborhood small businesses, for instance one theater in CB3 had 70 restaurants contribute food to a recent festival;
WHEREAS: Small to mid sized theaters and other arts venues are economic drivers of local neighborhoods, and are a crucial to the cultural and economic resilience and diversity of our neighborhoods;
WHEREAS: A cyclical economic downturn is the TIME TO INVEST in our neighborhood economic drivers and NOT TO DISINVEST in local economic drivers;
WHEREAS: The proposed disinvestment by the City and the State in community based arts may have an adverse multiplier effect on the small businesses and neighborhoods that they are based;
WHEREAS: Foundation funding and government funding are down by 20-40 percent, yet small to mid sized theaters and other non profit arts venues have fixed real estate costs;
WHEREAS: Government funders recommendations to small to mid sized theaters and other arts organizations to cut back on programming in this time of crisis will not work, as programming constituted the revenue for fixed costs and employment;
WHEREAS: CB3 has been a historic incubator and concentration of Off Off Broadway theaters and has lost much of its small theaters in the late 90s and other performing arts venues in the last decade due to real estate competition and speculation, resulting in spaces constructed for performance to be repurposed and irretrievably lost;
WHEREAS: Areas (CB2, CB4, CB5) surrounding CB3 have recently lost 25-30 percent of their small to mid sized theaters in the last five years predominantly due to real estate competition (New York Theatre Innovative Theatre Awards study, Dec 08);
WHEREAS: CB3 remains an important viable center for theater and performing arts;
WHEREAS: There exists innovative policies (land use, tax, public buildings) to sustain and retain theater and other performance venues that other cities and states have successfully used;
WHEREAS: The New York State Assembly member O’Donnell, and NYC Council member Alan Gerson’s office are proposing bills to create a property tax abatement for commercial landlords that rent to non-profit cultural groups;
WHEREAS: CB3 Art Task Force Town Halls, and the recent joint Community Board Forum on small to mid sized theaters have been well attended with extensive expert and public testimony on the loss of theater and arts venues, the importance of theater and arts venues for local communities, and the severe financial crisis hitting small to mid sized theater.
THEREFORE IT BE RESOLVED: CB3 calls on its elected officials to acknowledge small to mid sized theaters and other arts organizations to be crucial to the cultural and economic resilience and diversity of our neighborhoods, to recognize the arts as economic drivers and integral to local small neighborhood businesses;
THEREFORE IT BE FURTHER RESOLVED: CB3 call on its elected officials to develop and adopt land use , tax and other governmental incentives and policies to retain and secure theater and other arts and cultural venue spaces and to retain arts and cultural organizations in our district and the City of New York.
THEREFORE IT BE FURTHER RESOLVED: CB3 calls on its elected officials, and the Governor, to act in order to restore the 100 percent funding cut from remaining funds of the New York State Council of the Arts (NYSCA) for Fiscal Year 2009, to restore NYSCA funding to sustainable levels in Fiscal Year 2010, and not to discriminate against small to mid-sized theaters and arts organizations.
THEREFORE IT BE FURTHER RESOLVED: CB3 calls on its elected representatives of Congress to include small to mid-sized theaters and other arts organizations in job retention and economic stimulus funding, and not to discriminate against the arts and non-profits in urban stabilization, job retention, and other funding and policies assisting other small businesses.
The next CB3 Arts Task Force Meeting will be April 7th; stay tuned for more information.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Where is the New Young Audience for Indie Theatre?
Last month, Isaac Butler posted a provocative column on his website, Parabasis, entitled No-Brainer Secrets Revealed!, about the best ways for theater to reach younger audiences. Butler surmised that the best way to bring them in is to do uncompromising work and offer it at a reasonable price. The work will speak for itself. If you build it, Butler said, the audience will come.
Easier said then done, though. Butler then homed in on a larger point; that most theater companies don’t want to reach out to younger audiences because that’s not where the money is. In other words, to cater their work to such an audience would indeed be a compromise. So the question is what do theaters want? To reach people or to make enough money?
There is no one answer to this question. Writers, performers, and producers alike must want to do good work. But the easier it is to make a living at it, the better able they are to keep putting on original, personal artistic work. And it is also hard to lump in all theater companies when the Off-Off world, more than anywhere else, I imagine, is made up of very distinct companies with very heterogeneous missions.
The other question is, what do audiences want? Who do they want to see portrayed? Is money the major issue, or is it interest? Again, the term “younger audience” also needs to be broken down and defined in order to figure out how best to appeal to that demographic. Are we talking about young audiences who have dramatic aspirations, or young laypeople, or both? And what spectrum does “young” include?
Even when figuring this out, there is no easy answer to the main question. Would revivals of known works be best? Does an original work have to have some measure of gimmickry or novelty in order to create buzz? Is this audience only likely to turn out if they have friends involved in a production?
I’ve never met Butler, but I should say that I’m a big fan of his site and his writing, including the column I reference here. I agree with his stance and the point he makes. But I look to it as a tipping point, of sorts, to engender an ongoing dialogue about what makes theater thrive, a quest more important than ever in our current economy.
The entire point of the IT Awards was to foster a sense of community throughout the hard-working, passionate members of the Off-Off world. I believe they have gone a long way in cementing a feeling of camaraderie among the various production companies doing their thing. But that community is far from limited to the people doing the work; the people who show up are just as important. I would like to think that the IT organization can also help in figuring out exactly what audiences are out there, and how we can appeal to them. Perhaps this very newsletter can even help the process.
What do you think, faithful readers?
Contributed by Doug Strassler
Easier said then done, though. Butler then homed in on a larger point; that most theater companies don’t want to reach out to younger audiences because that’s not where the money is. In other words, to cater their work to such an audience would indeed be a compromise. So the question is what do theaters want? To reach people or to make enough money?
There is no one answer to this question. Writers, performers, and producers alike must want to do good work. But the easier it is to make a living at it, the better able they are to keep putting on original, personal artistic work. And it is also hard to lump in all theater companies when the Off-Off world, more than anywhere else, I imagine, is made up of very distinct companies with very heterogeneous missions.
The other question is, what do audiences want? Who do they want to see portrayed? Is money the major issue, or is it interest? Again, the term “younger audience” also needs to be broken down and defined in order to figure out how best to appeal to that demographic. Are we talking about young audiences who have dramatic aspirations, or young laypeople, or both? And what spectrum does “young” include?
Even when figuring this out, there is no easy answer to the main question. Would revivals of known works be best? Does an original work have to have some measure of gimmickry or novelty in order to create buzz? Is this audience only likely to turn out if they have friends involved in a production?
I’ve never met Butler, but I should say that I’m a big fan of his site and his writing, including the column I reference here. I agree with his stance and the point he makes. But I look to it as a tipping point, of sorts, to engender an ongoing dialogue about what makes theater thrive, a quest more important than ever in our current economy.
The entire point of the IT Awards was to foster a sense of community throughout the hard-working, passionate members of the Off-Off world. I believe they have gone a long way in cementing a feeling of camaraderie among the various production companies doing their thing. But that community is far from limited to the people doing the work; the people who show up are just as important. I would like to think that the IT organization can also help in figuring out exactly what audiences are out there, and how we can appeal to them. Perhaps this very newsletter can even help the process.
What do you think, faithful readers?
Contributed by Doug Strassler
Monday, December 22, 2008
Good News: The Tank!
Found on Emerging Leaders of New York Arts (Google Group), The Tank moves into its new home in Jan 2009 with a subsidized Rehearsal Space and its continuing inexpensive membership! Check it out...
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Good news: OOB publishing events!
Spreading the good news! Indie playwrights get their due in November reading & book signing events. United Stages celebrates their newest play titles November 23rd 2008, 3-5 pm at Barnes & Noble Lincoln Triangle NYC with original cast readings of plays from today’s hottest Indie/Off-Off playwrights. Book signing will follow the performances.
United Stages book titles will be available on their web bookstore at the beginning of 2009.
Sunday, November 23, from 3 to 5 p.m.
Barnes and Noble, Lincoln Triangle
1972 Broadway, New York, NY 10023, 212-595-6859
THE TITLES:
Hey You Monster, part one, Derek Ahonen, paperback, $11.50
Hey You Monster, part two, Derek Ahonen, paperback, $11.50
Sisters Dance, Sarah Hollister, paperback, $11.50
En Avant Playwrights, The best of, (var. authors*) paperback, $11.50
Eatfest, The Best of, Volume one, (var. authors+) paperback, $11.50
Eatfest, The Best of, Volume three, (var. authors+) paperback, $11.50
Eatfest, The Best of, Volume four, (var. authors+) paperback, $11.50
*Best of En Avant Playwrights: Ed Valentine’s Women Behind the Bush, Maz Troppe’s How Mona Lisa Got Her Smile, Chance Muehleck’s Tagging April, David Marrero’s Incident Near Chaco, Tom Dillehay’s Blue Grass, Dan Shore’s Travel, and Kathleen Warnock’s Not at Home.
+ Best of EATfest 1,3 &4 (3 volumes): Mark Lambeck’s Lucky Day, Bekah Brunstetter’s Mom, Stoned, Joe Godfrey’s Clapp Trapp, F.J.Hartland’s Postcards from a Dead Dog, Frank Higgin’s The Questioning, Greg Kalleres’ Forgetting to Remember and Help Thyself, Karen Schiff’s Recoil, Aoise Stratford’s Our Lady of the Sea, Kathleen Warnock’s Some are People and Chris Widney’s One of the Great Ones.
United Stages publishes original scripts from today’s Off-Off-Broadway/Indie theater scene. US scripts are a smart resource for theater companies looking to present the vanguard of plays and playwrights. For actors they offer fresh material that casting agents and teachers haven’t seen time and again. Our play catalog celebrates the unfolding of NY theater history from Caffe Cino legends to emerging indie stars.
AND the TENTH ANNIVERSARY of NYTE’s Plays and Playwrights continues with a free staged reading of Daniel Reitz's Fall Forward.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008 @ 8:00pm - 10:00pm
Metropolitan Playhouse, 220 East 4th Street, New York, NY
You can check out all of the Plays & Playwrights details at NYTE Small Press & Check out the Facebook invite for this event.
Friday, October 10, 2008
Queens Innovative Theatre Artists: we're coming to you!
I have to tell you, I know very little about Queens - ashamed to say that after nine years of NYC living (Brooklyn girl), I still don't get how people in Queens get their mail and find their homes, but I understand that's really my problem. I'm proud to say that in planning this event, I'm catching on! Sort of...:)
So a few weeks before our Awards ceremony, Taryn Drongowski from APAC got ahold of us to talk about reaching out to Queens theatres and artists about the IT Awards. Great idea - i'm always looking for ways to get the word out about the IT Awards, and what we came up with (together with the amazing Queens Council on the Arts) was to host a happy hour - very chill, no speakers or putting people on the spot - just a couple of hours where we can meet artists, companies & venues, and they can meet each other. I hope to have events like this all over the city at some point - you hear that, Brooklyn?
So there you have it! Pass the word on to your fellow Queens artists, companies & venues, and be there or be square!
ps - SPECIAL thanks go out to QCA & LIC Bar. you rock.
WHO: Queens theatre artists, companies & venues; the more, the merrier!
WHEN: Monday, October 20, 2008, 7pm - 9pm
WHERE: LIC Bar 45-58 Vernon Blvd, Long Island City, NY 11101
YOUR HOSTS: Morgan Lindsey Tachco (IT Awards), Taryn Drongowski (Astoria Performing Arts Center) & Meredith Blouin (Queens Council on the Arts)
RSVP/Questions: community@nyitawards.com
Join The New York Innovative Theatre Awards together with the Queens Council on the Arts and Astoria Performing Arts Center for a happy hour at LIC Bar!
We want to know what it takes to make theatre in Queens, and introduce you to not only the IT Awards and Queens Council on the Arts, but give you a chance to meet your fellow artists, companies & venues.
We hope to see you there!
Morgan Lindsey Tachco
Community Relations Manager,
New York Innovative Theatre Awards
Taryn Drongowski
Executive Director,
Astoria Performing Arts Center
Meredith Blouin,
Queens Council on the Arts
About the NEW YORK INNOVATIVE THEATRE AWARDS
The New York Innovative Theatre Foundation was created to bring recognition to the great work being done in New York City's Off-Off-Broadway, to honor its artistic heritage, and to provide a meeting ground for this extensive community. The organization advocates for Off-Off-Broadway and recognizes the unique and essential role it plays in contributing to American and global culture. We believe that publicly recognizing excellence in Off-Off-Broadway will expand audience awareness and appreciation of the full New York theatre experience. www.nyitawards.com
About the ASTORIA PERFORMING ARTS CENTER
APAC was founded in 2001 as an Off-Off Broadway theater company that complements main-stage productions with community programming, including writing and performance programs for Queens youth and senior citizens. APAC's 2004 production of Is There Life After High School? was recognized with an Off-Off Broadway Review Award. APAC's 2006 production of Forever Plaid was honored with three New York Innovative Theatre Award nominations, in the categories of Production, Direction, and Choreography. Our productions of A New Brain, Proof and Triumph of Love received nominations for Outstanding Set Design and most recently Triumph of Love also received two more nominations, Outstanding Production of a Musical and Outstanding Lead Actress, Abby Baum. For more information about APAC, including a downloadable media kit, visit www.apacny.org.
About the QUEENS COUNCIL ON THE ARTS
Queens Council on the Arts, founded in 1966, fosters and develops the arts in Queens, through a number of programs supporting arts organizations and artists of all disciplines. Offering a multi-tiered approach, including granting programs (the Queens Community Arts Fund) for artistic projects open to the public, professional development workshops, networking and mentorship opportunities, portfolio development and other arts services, and arts education grants and programming, QCA helps artists and cultural groups present the rich cultural and artistic diversity of Queens county to local residents as well as the larger community. QCA continually grows partnerships with other organizations serving the artistic community, and has been widely recognized as leader in bringing attention to the innovative work of Queens artists. www.queenscouncilarts.org
So a few weeks before our Awards ceremony, Taryn Drongowski from APAC got ahold of us to talk about reaching out to Queens theatres and artists about the IT Awards. Great idea - i'm always looking for ways to get the word out about the IT Awards, and what we came up with (together with the amazing Queens Council on the Arts) was to host a happy hour - very chill, no speakers or putting people on the spot - just a couple of hours where we can meet artists, companies & venues, and they can meet each other. I hope to have events like this all over the city at some point - you hear that, Brooklyn?
So there you have it! Pass the word on to your fellow Queens artists, companies & venues, and be there or be square!
ps - SPECIAL thanks go out to QCA & LIC Bar. you rock.
Queens Innovative Theatre Artist's Happy Hour!
WHO: Queens theatre artists, companies & venues; the more, the merrier!
WHEN: Monday, October 20, 2008, 7pm - 9pm
WHERE: LIC Bar 45-58 Vernon Blvd, Long Island City, NY 11101
YOUR HOSTS: Morgan Lindsey Tachco (IT Awards), Taryn Drongowski (Astoria Performing Arts Center) & Meredith Blouin (Queens Council on the Arts)
RSVP/Questions: community@nyitawards.com
Join The New York Innovative Theatre Awards together with the Queens Council on the Arts and Astoria Performing Arts Center for a happy hour at LIC Bar!
We want to know what it takes to make theatre in Queens, and introduce you to not only the IT Awards and Queens Council on the Arts, but give you a chance to meet your fellow artists, companies & venues.
We hope to see you there!
Morgan Lindsey Tachco
Community Relations Manager,
New York Innovative Theatre Awards
Taryn Drongowski
Executive Director,
Astoria Performing Arts Center
Meredith Blouin,
Queens Council on the Arts
About the NEW YORK INNOVATIVE THEATRE AWARDS
The New York Innovative Theatre Foundation was created to bring recognition to the great work being done in New York City's Off-Off-Broadway, to honor its artistic heritage, and to provide a meeting ground for this extensive community. The organization advocates for Off-Off-Broadway and recognizes the unique and essential role it plays in contributing to American and global culture. We believe that publicly recognizing excellence in Off-Off-Broadway will expand audience awareness and appreciation of the full New York theatre experience. www.nyitawards.com
About the ASTORIA PERFORMING ARTS CENTER
APAC was founded in 2001 as an Off-Off Broadway theater company that complements main-stage productions with community programming, including writing and performance programs for Queens youth and senior citizens. APAC's 2004 production of Is There Life After High School? was recognized with an Off-Off Broadway Review Award. APAC's 2006 production of Forever Plaid was honored with three New York Innovative Theatre Award nominations, in the categories of Production, Direction, and Choreography. Our productions of A New Brain, Proof and Triumph of Love received nominations for Outstanding Set Design and most recently Triumph of Love also received two more nominations, Outstanding Production of a Musical and Outstanding Lead Actress, Abby Baum. For more information about APAC, including a downloadable media kit, visit www.apacny.org.
About the QUEENS COUNCIL ON THE ARTS
Queens Council on the Arts, founded in 1966, fosters and develops the arts in Queens, through a number of programs supporting arts organizations and artists of all disciplines. Offering a multi-tiered approach, including granting programs (the Queens Community Arts Fund) for artistic projects open to the public, professional development workshops, networking and mentorship opportunities, portfolio development and other arts services, and arts education grants and programming, QCA helps artists and cultural groups present the rich cultural and artistic diversity of Queens county to local residents as well as the larger community. QCA continually grows partnerships with other organizations serving the artistic community, and has been widely recognized as leader in bringing attention to the innovative work of Queens artists. www.queenscouncilarts.org
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)