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#2amt, #2femt, advocacy, arts administration, audiences, board members, community, development, dramaturgy, festivals, ideas, mission, new play development, new plays, newplay, playwrights, producers, social profit, storytelling, the future, the process, Uncategorized
A Playwright’s Responsibility
03.31.12 | Permalink | 2 CommentsI’ve been thinking more and more about my responsibility as an artist. And just typing that feels a little weird—the idea that artists have responsibilities other than to their art. But our work does more than just sit there in our heads. It wanders out of our skulls and into the heads of other people, [...]
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#2amt, arts administration, funding and support, ideas, major regional theatre, marketing, mission, non-profit theatre, producers, the future, the process, Uncategorized
Punching Above Your Weight Class
03.14.12 | Permalink | 2 CommentsHere in DC, it’s season roll-out time. The major theatres are sending out press releases listing the plays they’ll be tackling in their 2012-13 season, making each seem like a precious gem that audiences would be fools to miss. Recently, after two major theatres went public with their season and I was hard-pressed to find [...]
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audiences, collaboration, corporate sponsors, designers, development, devised work, directors, dramaturgy, funding and support, ideas, new plays, non-profit theatre, playwrights, presenting, producers, the process
Devised Theatre: Transitioning to Production
Previously in this column: The members of Bright Alchemy Theatre, a very young devised theatre company based in Washington, DC, have spent the last nine months working on its new project which began with the question: Why do we as a species feel the need to tell stories about our own destruction? This weekend, for [...]
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collaboration, conversation starter, devised work, the process
Devised Theatre: Maybe There’s No Such Thing
08.15.11 | Permalink | 2 CommentsRachel Chavkin, founding artistic director of the TEAM, a devising ensemble, wrote an article on TCG’s blog that asks the question, “What if devised theatre moved from the margins to the mainstream of theatre making?” She makes the case that the slower, cooperative methods involved in a lot of devised work could make for a [...]
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audiences, conversation starter, corporate sponsors, development, directors, education, ideas, new plays, producers, sponsorship, technical work, the future, the process, theatrical ecosystem
Do whatever a spider can.
07.07.11 | Permalink | 3 CommentsIn case you’ve been in a coma for the last year, there’s this Broadway musical, it’s called Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, and it’s made some headlines. There were accidents and script problems and fights with critics and the official opening kept being pushed further back and back and back and…etc. Basically, it redefined the [...]
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actors, arts service organizations, collaboration, community, corporate sponsors, designers, development, devised work, dramaturgy, ideas, new plays, non-profit theatre, partnerships, playwrights, producers, the process, Uncategorized
Devised Theatre: Terrible Practicalities
Previously in this column: Bright Alchemy Theatre, a very young company devoted to the creation of devised work, decides to begin work on a narrative and thematic sequel to A Cre@tion Story for Naomi, which explored the world’s creation myths. We began this new process with a question: Why do we feel the need to [...]
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collaboration, community, devised work, ideas, partnerships, playwrights, technical work, the process
Devised Theatre: Planning Your Own Funeral
04.22.11 | Permalink | 2 CommentsPreviously in this column: Bright Alchemy Theatre, a very young company devoted to the creation of devised work, decides to begin work on a narrative and thematic sequel to A Cre@tion Story for Naomi, which explored the world’s creation myths. We began this new process with a question: Why do we feel the need to [...]
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collaboration, devised work, ideas, new plays, partnerships, technical work, the process, theatrical ecosystem
Devised Theatre: The End of the World Gets Personal
04.13.11 | Permalink | 2 CommentsWeek 6: This is the first week where there was homework. For the last two months, we’ve been talking about Apocalypse on the grand scale. Lots of great thoughts circling vast concepts of evolution and society. I thought it might be useful to start thinking on the micro scale. Throughout the process, we have briefly [...]
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collaboration, devised work, ideas, playwrights, technical work, theatrical ecosystem
Devised Theatre: What’s A Playwright To Do?
On the last day of the new play convening held at Arena Stage this past January, participants (and livestream satellite observers) were asked to come up with goals for the coming year. What could we do to further the state of new play development in our town/city/shire? One of my resolutions for the coming year [...]
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collaboration, devised work, new plays, playwrights, the process, theatrical ecosystem
Devised Theatre: Short-Circuiting Armageddon
Week 3. Is it just me, or are destruction stories a lot less interesting—or at least less fantastical—than creation stories? And there are a lot fewer variations on how things end than on how things begin. Maybe because with creation you have to work for it. We can’t imagine how things like worlds and civilizations [...]
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actors, collaboration, community, conversation starter, development, devised work, dramaturgy, ideas, new plays, partnerships, playwrights, producers, social media, the process
Devised Theatre: Apocalypse as sequel
03.14.11 | Permalink | 2 CommentsSo, here we are. Week two and hip-deep in the initial group dramaturgy of Bright Alchemy’s devising process, which started with the question “Why do we as a species feel compelled to tell stories of our own destruction?” It’s very early, but I’m already beginning to get that familiar feeling of drowning in images and [...]
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actors, conversation starter, development, devised work, dramaturgy, education, ideas, new plays, playwrights, producers, the process
Devised Theatre: There’s a 10:30 in the morning?
Wherein I blog Bright Alchemy’s devising process for its newest project. My living room is full of artists eating baked goods and mainlining coffee. The latter is not surprising, since it’s 10:30 A.M. on a Sunday. What is surprising is that a dozen theatre-makers chose to subject themselves to this sun-drenched world while there was [...]
