HowlRound Theatre Commons: Now in its third year, Company One Theatre’s 2019 PlayLab Bootcamp—a three-day intensive for people dedicated to making new plays—was held 27-29 September 2019. Thirty-seven participants attended sessions on the theme of Circles of Community, and the rigorous mix of panels, hands-on workshops, and participant-guided conversations was free for all registrants, thanks to the generous sponsorship of the Boston Public Library.
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In my own personal theatrical endeavors, the one thing that always amazed me, was the sense of community that is formed when working on a project or show. Having attended an arts high school (where my graduating class in the theatre department was 16 kids), I feel that we worked very hard to generate a community in which people feel safe enough to be vulnerable. Having come to CMU, I noticed that mindset carried over. As these women describe in their article, in an art form that requires you to take risks and be vulnerable it is important that you feel supported doing those things. Theatre, also, is extremely competitive. Personally, in the past when I have worked in any setting, I accomplish more when I feel that it is ok to not be perfect all the time and to fail. On the other hand, when I have felt that I am being judged or others around me are looking at me as their competitor, I do not grow and learn nearly as much. Theatre has such an incredible power to bring people together, and I have found that overall what keeps bringing me back to this art form is the community that I have formed.
In my opinion, having a supportive network of people on a project is critical to the project’s success. Even if you bring the project to completion, if the team is fragmented, negative, and competing with one another, I would say that project is not truly successful. As an industry, we need to redefine a successful show as one that comes to a beautiful completion, but also had a positive process. A solid community creates a safe space to push ideas further, explore beyond previously accepted boundaries, disagree with one another, and truly allow the project to develop into a complex ecosystem. Being able to be vulnerable and take risks is critical to success in art, and that cannot happen in a toxic room with aggressive people, toxic energy, and judgement. The easier it is for people to experiment, play, and fail, not only will a project iterate more and faster, but they will find success sooner and more complete.
Community is one of the most important things to facilitate in a creative group. Not only does a sense of community lead to trust and open communication, it also helps designers to produce better work. In the past week or so I have started planning my designs for a couple of playground pieces I am involved in and not only do I already feel so much more connected to people I have known for months, but I've watched and been amazed as my designs and the designs of the people I'm working with grow as well. Having people that you trust and can bounce ideas off of is what helps you grow and realize the distinction between a mistake and a triumph. Also, what Dawn Simmons said in the article about the nature of community made me realize that the students in the school of drama probably teach each other as much as teachers just by being around each other and seeing each others' work. So much of my work in this semester has been influenced and made better by the people around me, whether its from seeing other people's past work and drawing inspiration or just the conversations I've had with my classmates, I've found that being in this kind of environment is probably the best kind of artistic growth you could hope for.
Art and theatre as a whole is truly a vehicle for conversations and communications to exist. I think that we can fuel conversations to happen through theatre, and that’s what makes it so powerful. Part of the reason I got into theatre in the first place was because it creates such a strong community. Theatre people create a community within themselves and then translate that power into artistic spaces where other people also can come into the community. The idea that is brought up of expanding, contracting, and changing is such a powerful construct that I haven’t thought about before, but when thinking back on other artistic experiences that have been impacted by as both an audience member and a member of the team. Additionally, playwrighting is something that I have always found incredibly interesting, especially after taking a theatrical writing class my freshman year at CMU, so it is interesting to get this perspective from someone who is a playwright because they impact the theatrical world in a very unique and vulnerable way.
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