It is time to come together

Contributed by Brad Burgess

It is time for artists to come together.  It is time for everyone to understand how important art is for communities of people.  It is time for everyone to realize their own art in life and how they can participate in the communities of which they are a part.

undergroundzero festival, and the direction it has taken into being a coalition/cooperative/collective/community of theatre groups and theatre artists is one of the strongest and most unique recognitions of this timing.  There are exponential benefits to sharing resources, connecting networks and finding perspective within the industry...amidst the new worldwide economic understanding about the instability of the monetary system...especially its utter failure to support the arts across the globe...undergroundzero festival, and other efforts like it are the way to sustainability.  It is the avant garde of what is being done on the national level like at TCG or NET, and on the local level in nyc, including NYIT, ART NY, LIT, LoMAL, and FAB.

It is indescribable, the feeling of going from handling the toughest challenges and questions, alone, to sharing responsibilities.  The feeling of sharing your best ideas to turn them into better ones, and finding new possibilities, together with others, is even more transcendent.  The experience of all that when art and theatre is at the center point...you'll have to come find that one out in July.

Brad Burgess is the Executive Producer of The Living Theatre

Sign Me Up

Contributed by Connie Hall

In June of 2011, Paul Bargetto, artistic director of the undergroundzero festival, instant messaged me on Facebook while I was at the proverbial Day Job as a grantwriter.  It was a tiresome day, for a reason I cannot remember that involved a spreadsheet and a government form with its own internal maze-like logic, and I was cranky.  We met after work and he asked me a set of questions that it seemed to me he had asked others before. I told him, kind of like a zombie recounting someone else’s experience, about my life as an actor in New York, how I came here to go to grad school for acting at Columbia, how I balanced finances to support my life as an artist, when and where and how I started Conni’s Avant Garde Restaurant with a group of collaborators, how I structured that venture, and how I saw all of this continuing now that I had turned 40 years old.  The zombie haze lifted as it became my turn to listen.  Do I want to join a new cooperative of independent theaters? Do I want a slot in the annual undergroundzero festival?  Do I want to find ways to share resources and invent a new system of working that involves cooperating rather than competing or working in isolation?  Yup, yup, and yup.  I do.  Something’s not working the best way it could here, and letting it all go is not an option, not with the inspiring work I see fomenting in this struggling/thriving independent theater community I am privileged to be a part of.  Sign me up.

P.S. Thank you IT Awards for reminding us of all we have to celebrate every year!

Connie Hall is the Producing Director of Conni's Avant Garde Restaurant and Executive Director of undergroundzero

We’re Joiners! Will You Be a Joiner Too!?

Contributed by Connie Hall

In February 2012, eleven independent theater artists and companies joined together in a new cooperative structure to share their resources, networks, and combined talents. The founding members of the undergroundzero cooperative are: Paul Bargetto / East River Commedia, Anna Brenner, Jeff Clarke / Performance Lab 115, Alec Duffy / Hoi Polloi, Connie Hall / Conni's Avant Garde Restaurant, Daniel Irizarry & Laura Butler Rivera, Doris Mirescu / Dangerous Ground, Shige Moriya & Ximena Garnica / Leimay, Judith Malina & Brad Burgess / The Living Theatre, Jill A. Samuels, and Shannon Sindelar.

Brad Burgess, executive producer of the Living Theatre explains why the 65-year old company decided to join the cooperative, “Strength in numbers. I think the cooperative will bring stability that individual arts groups can't find on their own, and continued artistic excellence.”

Since 2007, undergroundzero has been operating as a summer festival (Collective Unconscious, PS 122) featuring the cutting edge work of New York City and international theater-makers. Artistic Director Paul Bargetto and Executive Director Connie Hall program the festival by investing in theatre artists, not selecting productions. The artists alone decide what to make and present. This year, participants from past festivals and other veteran experimental theater artists formed the permanent resident cooperative in order to share resources and improve the conditions for making new work. The cooperative’s aim is to secure for its member companies the core means of production including rehearsal space, performance venues, touring opportunities, promotion, management, advocacy, and funding.

This year the undergroundzero festival will be presented at The Living Theatre and Clemente Soto Velez Cultural Center in New York City's historic Lower East Side June 26 - July 28, 2012. In addition, resident artist Shannon Sindelar will present an original piece in East River Park and the actors of Conni's Avant Garde Restaurant will present Little West 12th Night, a tour of the Chelsea Meatpacking District based on Shakespeare's Twelfth Night.

The opening of the festival will provide context for the time and place in which “hardcore downtown” NYC theatre makers are working by hosting a discussion with Arnold Aronson, author of American Avant Garde Theatre: A History and a panel discussion with members of the “NEA four.” Playwright Saviana Stanescu will present playgroundzero, a series of staged readings and works in progress about revolution and immigration. Artistic Director Paul Bargetto will bring together international theater artists and videographers to present Debt! a series of performative lectures about the concept, history, and meaning of debt. Visit this link for a sneak-peak:

There will be an exciting series of free events, meetings, “talk shows” and dance parties happening throughout the festival. Come join the conversation, get carried away and inspired, and get your boogie on out on the dance floor!

We have until April 17 to raise funds on Kickstarter. Will you help launch this exciting new possibility? Give $11 to support 11 theaters!

Connie Hall is the Producing Director of Conni's Avant Garde Restaurant and Executive Director of undergroundzero.