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Feature
A moment during one of Foundry Theatre’s three workshops for Provenance of Beauty (originally Detour/South Bronx) by
Claudia Rankine. Production manager Dave Ogle is looking out the window at the historic "Teatro Puerto Rico,"
converted into an evangelical church.
new models, only their study will focus on devised works.
After three years (the length of the Mellon grant) CTG
is required by the conditions of the grant to release a paper
summarizing different processes and models, examining what
worked and what didn’t, so that theatres across the country can
learn. Additionally, the Center Theatre Group will use it’s semiannual
New Play Production Newsletter
to update everyone about the troupes,
their processes and how it’s proceeding,
so the field has a chance to learn along
with CTG.
To find these new models, CTG will
fund seven different projects that follow
three different paths: commissions,
completion funds and an “innovation
fund” designed to support “maverick”
approaches to theatre. Within the commissions
branch there are three ways
they’ll try: CTG will create an ensemble
themselves to make the work; look for
collaborators to work on a text that
already exists and deconstruct it, giving
it a new spin with the creators; lastly, the
straight commission, which means “We
support them in the development of the
work at their site, in their home base. And
we come to them,” says Rodriguez.
Like Arena, CTG is not accepting
applications to join this process, instead
choosing artists to collaborate with based on relationships already
in place.
“It’s going to be people that we know or work that we’ve seen,”
said Rodriguez, stressing that they wanted to work with these
people in new ways.
Rodriguez used the example of CTG’s
relationship with Phil Soltanoff (artistic
director of Mad Dog Theatre company,
already announced as one of the artists
participating in the program) to give more
details about what CTG’s “deeper investment”
would look like.
“We’re going to have a workshop of
20 people that we select that are interesting
performers, and maybe a designer’s
thrown in there,” says Rodriguez. “And Phil
works with those 20 people for a workshop.
And then we see if those people, if a smaller
group of that same group is interested in
proceeding with the project. And then we
form a smaller group. And that group stays
with us for quite a while, a year—at least a
year—creating the piece. Now that’s very
different than us hiring actors and they
come in with a piece already done.
Part of CTG’s process will be figuring
out how to cover the creators through
equity, how to work with the company
administratively, and also finding artists in
L.A. who are willing to commit to a yearlong
project.
“It takes a kind of artist who wants to
make work,” comments Rodriguez. “It’s the
difference between the words playwriting
and playmaking.”