Monday, February 07, 2011
Theater conference seeks a common development pipeline for new plays
Washingtonpost.com: Marking its emergence as a center for asking big questions about the future of American theater, Arena Stage brought together more than 100 writers, directors and artistic managers from across the country this week to brainstorm on a topic central to the theater's survival: how to reform a piecemeal development system and get the best new American plays onto as many stages as possible.
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3 comments:
Going to see the New Works presented this week, I was thinking about this exact issue. There never seems to be a lack of new plays, but the great majority of them are developed in small programs like ours and largely do not get any recognition from the wider theatre community except for awards (and can you really name the winners of any national playwriting awards? Can you name any playwriting awards programs themselves?) The New Play Network's system of "rolling premieres" is a really intriguing one - ensuring three productions in different markets over the course of a year has the potential to establish some wider national exposure to these new pieces, as well as encouraging other companies to take on new works themselves. Only through recognition and support systems will new plays have a chance of truly establishing themselves.
Being at CMU and having just seen the first weekend of new works I assumed this article was going to be about the dramaturgy of the process. (Since I have no idea how much money gets into new works because it is not really part of scheme.) I wonder if the money is an issue because regional theaters want to develop local playwrights to cater to local audiences. For example, the Arden Theatre in Philadelphia almost always has a Michael Hollinger play in their season. They know they will sell tickets to Michael Hollinger plays, Philadelphia loves him. But I can't speak to how America likes Hollinger, I have no idea. I enjoyed the final proposal brought up in the article, to distribute the money between mulitple theaters all working on the same play. This will help playwrights expand their audiences. Again back to Michael Hollinger: a few years ago the Arden premiered a Hollinger play in conjucture with City Theatre in Pittsburgh. Actors got a longer contract and two theaters got a world premiere in their billing. If the NEA wants to give money to where the demand is, maybe spreading the demand accross regions may help.
I've always preferred new work to more popular plays, but (at least in my home town), there are maybe two smaller companies that produce new work. While one of them has made it their mission and produces nothing but new and developing works, there is still a great lack of new work where I'm from. What I feel needs to happen is more theaters taking the risk to produce new works on a grand scale, so that they can be popularized and added to our culture the way that older works have been. I feel that we've gotten into the pattern of producing "safe" works like well known plays and musicals. If we move away from that trend, we can make new works part of our repertoire as well.
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