CMU School of Drama


Thursday, March 23, 2017

A new incubator in Pittsburgh, FUTUREMAKERS Labs, debuts at Kelly-Strayhorn Theater

Blogh: If you're an artist or entrepreneur frustrated by a lack of resources and networking opportunities in Pittsburgh, a new incubator at Kelly-Strayhorn Theater, in East Liberty, might be what you're looking for. FUTUREMAKERS Labs is a 12-week incubator running from April to June that offers training, workshops and networking for Pittsburghers seeking to connect with the city's burgeoning arts and nonprofit communities, but are unsure where to start. That may sound vague, but the open-ended approach is no mistake.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

This is amazing. As a computer science major and entrepreneur, I have been involved with a number of incubators in Pittsburgh such as ThrillMill, AlphaLab, AlphaLab Gear, and CMU’s own Project Olympus. However, these are all geared more towards technology. Given my technical background, I am not particularly familiar with artistic incubators, but the description given on the article is nothing but exciting. I believe creative expression is needed, especially in today’s America.

I am slightly confused as to what the article means by “an initiative to connect diverse creative technology and business” – what is the end goal of this? I wish this vision part had been more comprehensive because I would really like to help out with this initiative if possible. I spend a lot of time in East Liberty with the other incubators – perhaps it would be possible to bridge some of the gaps between technology and the arts through connections across the incubators.

Rebecca Meckler said...

I think it’s wonderful that there are places like this so that artist can grow and develop their work. However, I hope that the plan can work long term. Hopefully the work will be interesting enough to bring people back. I wonder what the vetting process for choosing which works get produced. Since this is a business, how does this affect the process of deciding what work gets produced? Also, the idea of trying to get work that that pushes boundaries and towards the future is amazing. Hopefully FUTUREMAKERS can be a successful business and be model of other similar companies in Pittsburgh. I think that the idea that Pittsburgh is frustrating and comfortable in the terms of theater administration. I often think of those as different things so it's interesting that the overlap. Overall, I think that FUTUREMAKES sounds like a great company and I hope that they are successful in their future endeavors.