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Feature | By Jacob Coakley Left Investing in Creative Infrastructure SD learns more about the programs the Mellon Foundation expects to see with its recent $2M infusion The Andrew W. Mellon foundation recently granted $2 million ($1M each) to the Arena Stage in Washington D.C. and the Center Theatre Group in L.A. to look at the ways that new plays are developed and study alternatives in an effort to discover systems of creating more work in a sustainable way. Arena Stage will use the funds to create the American Voices New Play Institute program. David Dower, associate artistic director at the Arena described the initiative in a blog post as an attempt “to create a space for the new works sector to study, develop, and npdp.arenastage.org/2009/08/raising-the-stakes-the-institutegets-rolling.html). It will include four distinct programs: Playwright Residencies, New Works Producing Fellowships, an Audience Enrichment seminar and a series of regular convenings to inform the theatre community about their findings, including what programs and techniques are working best. As Dower freely admits, the first three of these programs will be directly adopted from the theatres where they originated. The Playwrights Residencies are based on programs already in place Center Theatre Group will be working with Phil Soltanoff of the Mad Dog Theatre Company (a moment from their More or Less/Infinty shown here) as part of their support of devised works. to right: Musician’s Arwen Lawrence de Castellanos, Jorge Liceaga and JoAnne Winter rehearse a song at a California Shakespeare Theater workshop for Steinbeck's The Pastures of Heaven by Octavio Solis, an NEA New Play Development Project selection for a Distinguished Development Project grant. disseminate effective ideas for strengthening the infrastructure nationwide.” They look at it as a lab to study and disseminate best practices for play development across the country. In L.A., Center Theatre Group will be using the money to create their own New Play Production Program. The program will fund the commissioning, development and production of nontext-based work, but it also has an element of developing and strengthening infrastructure. “We’ve already been trying to find ways to develop this type of work,” Diane Rodriguez, director of new play development at CTG, told me. “Now it’s just an effort to codify—what are the models that we’re doing that we could develop these artists as well as develop models for the field in general.” I thought $2 million going to develop new structures of play development was worth a closer look, so I sat down with Dower and Rodriguez to talk more about their programs. www.stage-directions.com/mellonmoney ONLINE BONUS For a fuller explanation of each program, and more quotes from David Dower and Diane Rodriguez, go to www.stage-directions.com/ mellonmoney American Voices New Play Institute As part of their support of the NEA’s New Play Development Program, Arena Stage maintains a blog meant to inform those interested about the status of the projects in the program as well as invite more interaction. It was on this blog that Dower posted a lengthy description of what the Institute will look like (http:// at several large theatres and aim to give writers the financial, material and artistic support and freedom they need to create new works. The Producing Fellowships are based on a program at Foundry Theater and will focus on “developing a crop of young producers prepared specifically to handle new work.” The Audience Enrichment Seminar comes direct from Steppenwolf in Chicago, and will offer 100 audience members unsurpassed insight into how a play is produced. The new element Arena will be adding is the regular convenings, in order to spread the word about what’s working and ensure new ideas are being heard. “There’s no place to evaluate and disseminate what the ingredients of effectiveness for developing new work are,” says Dower. “The convenings are meant to identify promising new ideas, but also challenges and opportunities that are arising.” Convenings will be recorded and notes made public through the Institute’s Web site. The Institute will also commission and publish “white papers” on trends and challenges in the field, describing how they’re being met by theatres across the country. Dower takes the idea of studying and developing infrastructure seriously and will keep the focus of the Institute on these experiments. Programs that have proven to be successful in the Institute will need to be adopted by the Arena or other theatres, but will not continue to be supported by the Institute. The program faced a little bit of a backlash over the fact 20 October 2009 • www.stage-directions.com
PHIL SOLTANOFF A moment from i/o, a Mad Dog Theatre production. that when the plan was first presented the first cohort of fellows was already set and the playwrights residencies were limited to established playwrights. It has since been clarified that people wishing to participate in next round of producing fellowships should apply to the Allen Lee Hughes Fellowship Program, but the writers residencies will still only be offered to established playwrights that Arena currently has a relationship with. “In order to get it going, the choice that we’ve made, we’re going to work with people who understand us enough that we could build this thing by doing it,” says Dower. “And then after this first round when we know what it is, that’ll be the time to cast a wider net for people we may not already know but might be perfect contributors.” Non-Text Based Initiatives Center Theatre Group’s $1 million will also go to studying and disseminating www.stage-directions.com • October 2009 21
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