from Tanya Saracho (Superlab #5)

April 27, 2011

Dear Maria and Adam,

I’ve been meaning to write you this letter since I drove to the airport right after that amazingly encouraging Superlab reading of Mala Hierba at Playwrights Horizons in March. It’s been on my mind since then, but because of Nogalar, I hadn’t been able to write you and properly express what an extraordinary opportunity the Superlab was for me.

When I find myself thinking about the experience I had that week, I keep going back to this feeling that it was like nothing I’ve been through before. That sounds a little corny but seriously, I’ve been through many a workshop process, of various natures, at theaters big and small, but I have never had a process as supportive and nurturing as the Superlab; putting it into words doesn’t do it justice.

I think the trick was that we didn’t have the pressure of a production and I didn’t have a producer over my shoulder micro-dramaturging and giving notes bent towards some sort of aesthetic or mission statement. It was just about the play.

When does that ever happen? You guys just let the words breathe and would come in periodically to offer gentle dramaturgical advice. The combination of that with making
available a script assistant who kept up with my rewriting rhythm was gold. Absolute gold.

And I can’t tell you how much I laughed. The team we put together was just truly specially. During Superlab I was able to forge a relationship with Jerry which, I can tell, will go on for years. I can feel it. Thank you so much for that and for introducing me to New York in such an intimate way. This Chicago girl could never repay that.

Estimadamente,

Tanya Saracho

From Madeleine George-- Superlab # 1

April 22, 2011

It's widely acknowledged that American new play development has floundered over the past few decades. There's been a national conversation about the preponderance of timid theatrical institutions that, despite their best intentions, engender tepid plays. But there are a number of smart and scrappy exceptions to this rule, and Clubbed Thumb is one of the smartest and scrappiest. For 15 years Clubbed Thumb has built a dazzling reputation among adventurous theatergoers and theater practitioners as the go-to producer of the most exciting and audacious new American plays. I've been lucky enough to be the beneficiary of their producing energy not once, but twice.

Bold, curious, frank, unfettered by convention or fidelity to what may have worked in the past, interest in plays' for plays' sake—these are the hallmarks of Clubbed Thumb’s approach. The cleverly designed SuperLab series combines this ethos with the resources, reputation and infrastructure of another famously playwright-centered institution, Playwrights’ Horizons. So when Maria Striar invited me to bring my new play SEVEN HOMELESS MAMMOTHS WANDER NEW ENGLAND into the SuperLab series I jumped at the chance.

The development goal of the SuperLab is not to make plays different or "better,” but more of themselves, more fundamentally and fully what they set out to be in the first place. The focus, as with all Clubbed Thumb's work, is on the playwright and her questions about her work. The architecture of time and space are writer directed, from the scheduling of the week as a whole to the pace and purpose of every rehearsal hour. This intense writer focus is something lots of theaters talk about, but Clubbed Thumb actually makes happen in a peerless way.

The result was a huge leap forward for my play. A script that went into the SuperLab week as a promising collection of scenes cohered into a leaner, funnier comedy with the act break in an inspired new place (thanks to Maria Striar's hands-on dramaturgy) and about eight new scenes' worth of material. The intensity and abandon of the writing time made possible by the SuperLab structure was precious to me; the progress I was able to make on the work was crucial to the play's future life. I can only wish the same experience for every other playwright I know.

Yours sincerely,

Madeleine George

From David Adjmi ( Superlab #4):

Every playwright has at least one play in a drawer, possibly one he or she goes back to every now and again and thinks "Oh, maybe this could be something."Some plays exist in a kind of miasma and it's very hard to break them out of that. In 2005 I started 3C as part of a writing intensive at MCC theatre. I wrote the first draft quickly, in four or five days, and we did a reading, and it was an extremely thorny, undomesticated and odd play. And that became my play in the drawer.

I did a few readings of it over the years, but I knew it wasn't ready to be sent out and so I left it alone. So I do credit Superlab with saving my play from the orphanage of abandoned plays and letting me play around and figure it out. A week before rehearsals Jackson came over my house and we read the play together and I took notes and asked her some questions -- mainly about actions and obstacles.

My dramaturgy can get very conventional when I do rewrites, but it's good, because the plays themselves can be rather maniacal. I did an enormous amount of rewriting that week. I cut ten pages from the play and drastically changed what was the ending. When I came into rehearsal that first day we had no ending -- the play just kind of stopped.

During the first reading we got to the last page and, instinctively I just stopped the actors after a line in the middle of the page. Later I thought, "I think that's the last line of the play." I called Jackson and said, what do you think? And she loved it, and that's the last line of the play and I love it too. Most of the next four days involved sculpting the action of the main character, and building his arc. Some days we did it with the actors and sometimes we'd send the actors home and I'd sit with Jackson and my assistant Kelly and we'd talk it through together and I'd take notes (or I'd make Kelly take notes -- I can be bossy!). Then I'd go home and work in the rewrites all the next morning. Then I'd bug Maria Striar and Adam Greenfield. Then I'd bug the actors.

We all had an enormous amount of fun coming up with dirty lines for Marin Ireland in a particularly louche and silly scene. I don't think I've ever written so much or worked so hard in a development process. I just managed to get an enormous amount of work done. I felt so relaxed in the process and you can see it in the rewrites -- they feel so organic and alive, and I'm really proud of that. When one feels pressured in a process like this the rewrites get really mealy and stiff and perfunctory and blah, and there was none of that here -- it was a blast.

From Janine Nabers (Superlab #3)

I have been working on my play ANNIE BOSH IS MISSING on and off for a little over a year now. When I got the e-mail from Adam and Maria that the play had been selected for SuperLab I was thrilled that I had been given six days to work with some of the best artists in New York City to get my play into the shape I wanted it. And boy, what a glorious six days it was.

I moved to NYC in 2005 and enrolled as a playwriting MFA candidate at The New School for Drama. One thing that was so incredibly valuable about my experience as a student was being in the room with an amazing director and smart actors as they examine the words I’ve written over and over again. The six days of SuperLab sucked me back into that same creative vortex: rewriting until the early morning, coffee breaks and “aha” moments, living off cough drops and Airborne, throwing a rewrite out and then finding it in the trash and putting it back in, quick food runs to Lenny’s, actors discovering things in the play you never imagined, countless discussions about when and where and if there is an act break, Adam and Maria’s outstanding dramaturgy, director Davis McCallum’s hilarious play reenactments and laughter… lots and lots of laughter.

The week I spent with Playwrights Horizons and Clubbed Thumb was a tremendous one because every single day was devoted to my particular process. I happen to be a writer that puts a ton of pressure on myself so I managed to accomplish quite a bit of rewriting each night when I went home. But then again, that’s how I wanted it.

All in all I couldn’t have asked for a better experience. For a playwright who hasn’t had a production yet, SuperLab allowed me to get a sense of what the early process of that stage would be like. The week went by so quickly yet the work and relationships that were built were extraordinary and for that I am forever grateful to Playwrights Horizons and Clubbed Thumb. At the end of my six days I sat in the back of the room and ate awesome cookies while hearing my rewritten play read out loud in front of an audience. I always twitch when my work is being read aloud. Always. But this time I didn’t. I just ate the awesome cookies and smiled. Both Davis and I did. That’s how happy we were.

From Andrew Dolan (Superlab #2)

As a relatively inexperienced playwright, wrestling with play #2, I feel like a blind
prospector who struck gold with SuperLab. Smart, experienced, congenial
theatre folk giving you their know-how, facilities and $200 to boot for script
development; yeah, I’ll take that, please.

I suppose my prickly play, The Many Mistresses of Martin Luther King, was a
good fit. It provokes and challenges in the downtown manner while (mostly)
portraying the articulate, uptown Chardonnay set in a naturalistic, witty manner.
Most importantly, both the Clubbed Thumb and Playwrights Horizons people
“got” it.

You’re always pressed for time in theatre. The swift, professional manner of the
casting process erased any doubts I may have had about potential conflicts
between the two institutions. Everyone on the same page. “This is good.”

The question is asked: would I like a formal reading with invited audience at the
end of the workshop? You bet. Can’t make people uncomfortable with your play
(while entertaining them, while entertaining them!) if there are no people.

The Work.

Play cast. Director (Hal Brooks) chosen. Discussions had. We settle in for a first
read. Adam and Maria share thoughts afterwards. To my surprise, Maria has
trouble with what I would characterize as the more stylistically “downtown”
ending of the play. Indeed, in the weeks preceding the lab I had toyed with
scrapping the funky ending; going for pure naturalism.

But hearing the cast read (and working on it over the 6 days) I abandon that
idea. I see Maria’s (and others’) concern: the tonal shift plays too heavy. It’s not
“earned”. I agree and decide to earn it. I set it up MORE- double down on the
conceit- working backwards to layer in hints of stylistic changes to come.

Some of these changes I integrate into the week’s work with the actors. Others
in the revision I hand the next month. The end result is both more “theatrical”
(downtown-y?) but makes for a more coherent, integrated evening of theatre.

Other improvements include significant cuts to the script along with the addition
of two direct address monologues by the two characters who previously had
none. I’m very pleased with all the changes.

If platitudes in the blogosphere constitute the quintessence of cheese then my
apologies to all. The SuperLab teams from both theatres helped improve my play
profoundly. The script is tighter, clearer and less disjointed (or rather, no longer
disjointed). On a practical level, as my agent sends it out for consideration, it’s
got the imprimatur of two of New York’s finest theatres and that can’t hurt.

I only hope, and indeed expect, that the other SuperLab playwrights had as
much good fortune as I did. My eternal gratitude to Maria, Adam, and everyone
who played along.

Andrew

Thanksgiving

More than once this holiday weekend I winced at the cynical attitude toward new work floating around online, theater critics and award panelists shrugging and declaring a dearth of good new writing. The promotion of adventurous new work has ever been an uphill battle, an achingly familiar topic of countless conference break-out sessions and drunken rants at the corner bar but this is a weekend of thanksgiving, and to contradict the crossed-arm nay-sayers I feel an itch to write that there's much to be thankful for, and tops on my list is working with Clubbed Thumb on SuperLab, which is now up and running and hitting its stride.

SuperLab got some attention in the press a few weeks back, which is nice, but what wasn't really acknowledged is what makes this lab series particular -- what makes it, ahem, super. I mean, theaters develop new plays all the time, and separately from one another Clubbed Thumb and Playwrights Horizons produce more developmental workshops than we do together. What makes this program new is the way it strengthens the relationship between two theaters who share artistic values and a devotion to advocating new American work, but who far from share a budget category or an infrastructure. Maria Striar has eloquently compared us to the "ibis and the hippopotamus," a symbiotic relationship found between two totally divergent animals. I feel like this collaboration highlights a functional pattern in our theater ecology: a theater dubbed "downtowny" and a theater dubbed "uptowny" sharing notes and working toward the same goal.

Perhaps the mindmeld that Maria and I have developed is reflected in the fact that we never once discussed that SuperLab is a writer-driven program; we both assumed it would be so. Each step of the way, we're taking our cue from writers, shaping each lab around the moment-by-moment needs of a writer's process. At the completion of our first SuperLab, Madeleine George's play SEVEN HOMELESS MAMMOTHS WANDER NEW ENGLAND, I left with a stride in my step. Maria's blog entry describes the work we did in the room, to which I would only add that part of the success of this first go, in addition to seeing sharp, lovely play get even sharper, lovelier, we saw a great alchemy take shape between two theaters. This collaboration can only fly thanks to our staffs working side by side: Alec Strum and Kelly Hires from the PH literary department; Lisa Donadio and Alaine Alldaffer from the PH casting department; Diana Konopka, Maria's cohort and left brain at CT; and Sarah Krohn, who's helping with casting on CT's end. We're also blessed with Ann Thayer, SuperLab's Project, tirelessly acting as the liaison between both companies and each creative team.

In the last month, we programmed our next three labs. In December, we'll be spending time with Andrew Dolan's play THE MANY MISTRESSES OF MARTIN LUTHER KING, directed by Hal Brooks, and also Janine Nabers's play ANNIE BOSH IS MISSING, directed by Davis McCallum. In January, it's David Adjmi's 3C, directed by Jackson Gay. As I type this, we're in the middle of casting and designing these labs.

For these people, for these plays, I'm thankful.
--Adam Greenfield

Superlab #1 recap

Here's my take on our first Superlab:

Madeleine was very ready to get to work on her script. She knew both what she wanted to work on, and what schedule she preferred. We worked for a few hours every morning, so she could use most of the day for revisions -- in fact one day we changed the schedule hours before, because she realized she wanted more time to write. She did not want/need a big, public presentation at the end, so it was just our literary staffs in attendance, more or less. She brought in many new pages every day, and did a good amount of on-the-spot editing, especially of a particularly symphonic scene. She added scenes that addressed filled in some gaps, prompted by actor's questions; the scenes were remarkably elegant and economical for brand new material. Adam and I attended the first and last readings, and popped in and out of the other two sessions, sharing thoughts. We were lucky to have such a strong cast, with faces familiar and new to both organizations. The final reading was a wonderful event and showed a script in great shape; it provoked a number of realizations that will lead to an even leaner next draft.

I've asked both Adam Madeleine to share their thoughts. Those will be coming up...

SUPERCoLABoration

I will continue with stupid punny subject headings for some time, I think. Helps me ease into the discomfort of the blogging.

The preceding blog material was highly collaborative -- press release was shuttlecocked back and forth over the course of a few weeks, and the Times piece was born from a rapid fire email Q and A we had with Patrick Healy (Adam and I were literally hunched over a shared computer, taking turns, editing out loud). CT's associate director Diana Konopka having observed Adam, Madeleine George and I huddled together at times, pointed out that it's unusual for a process to have two literary/dramaturgical respondents involved. Adam and I have each separately worked with Madeleine in some depth and brought the ease of that history to our conversations with her, both together and individually. The relationships will configure a little differently in each of the following projects. Will this double attention be an asset? Or will we make our playwrights' heads pop off? I guess that remains to be seen, but good to be aware of it.

Clubbed Thumb's SuperLab featured in New York Times Arts Beat

Clubbed Thumb recently announced the launch of SuperLab , an innovative new play development program. A series of collaboratively curated play laboratories, SuperLab will support the creation of bold, risk-taking new works by living American playwrights.

The announcement was picked up by the New York Times Arts Beat, read it here:

Theater Groups Team Up to Help Playwrights Develop Works

Read the full press release announcing SuperLab here:

CLUBBED THUMB & PLAYWRIGHTS HORIZONS

LAUNCH INNOVATIVE

NEW PLAY DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM

Moving Forward with the Play Development Laboratory

Have had a series of meetings over the last weeks with Adam Greenfield, Director of New Play Advancement at Playwrights Horizons, whose organizational skills has Diana weeping in admiration ( I'm impressed too, but she has to bear the brunt of my cluttered brain).

We have put together a nice clean process for our play development laboratory, so beautiful in its orderliness that I told Adam I didn't want to muck it up with actual programming. We have a few more practical hurdles-- minor, we think. The next step is choosing the projects, which is some of the fun part. Adam, his assistant Alec and Ann Thayer, who we have hired as the project manager, are a delight and the meetings are probably too enjoyable. I look forward to working with more of the Playwrights staff as we get into this.

So our big plan: 5 week-long play labs, monthly, from November-early April. Being frugal donwtowners, Clubbed Thumb will program development projects of our own in the unused block of the rehearsal time for each of these labs. So! We'll be developing at least 11 projects from September-April (and on either side producing). Time to read some plays.


--Maria Striar, Clubbed Thumb

Modifying the Original Plan

After determining that the time parameters on the A-ha! grant were too tight to actualize our proposal as initially conceived, we reconfigured it into a development collaboration. We'll have a development residency at Playwrights Horizons with whom we will co-curate a series and will be in residence with our own development projects for the year. We will also use resources to travel and continue the growth of relationships started by this grant, with the aim of laying the groundwork for future collaboration.

-- Maria Striar, Clubbed Thumb

How Valuable are Theatre Partnerships

Clubbed Thumb ponders establishing relationships in theatre...

Given some food for thought at a Mellon-organized conversation about theater partnerships, something that, given the nature of our A-ha! grant, is very much on my mind. One thing we all said: it's great to be in a room talking together, because it is hard to find the time for that (although we weren't that great at saying that much that was specific when we were all together--better when we divided up into smaller groups). My current thinking: I wish I had structured the grant so that I could hire someone to do part of my job, so I had more time to cultivate these relationships, instead of, say, write grants. But of course I only want to spend money on production... which is why I applied with a Do It instead of a Think It!

--Maria Striar, Clubbed Thumb

When Do You Turn to Plan B?

What do you do when things don't go as originally planned? Clubbed Thumb shares their ideas when they encountered that scenario:

We realized that the turnaround from mid-October, when the grant could be made public, to now, when our summer programming decisions had to be finalized, was not enough time to fully execute this program. Over the fall and winter, we had a lot of great conversations, many of which had/have the potential to bear fruit. Ultimately, the one or two projects to which we narrowed down could not be worked out for this summer. While we could put something in place to satisfy the terms of the grant on our original timeline, it would be much more valuable if we could continue to explore the proposed parameters of the grant. We are looking at 2011 for the partnering projects to happen. This situation however introduces an additional burden; we must secure enough of a firm commitment from a partnering institution so that grant funds will be spent by the end of March, even if the productions are a little later. Because that is right up to the margin, we have planned a September 2010 check-in, by which point if we do not have a relationship fairly firmly in place we will move to a Plan B. We have a rough-out of that plan now, and will hone it over the coming months as we re-engage with our initial conversations. Emilya (Emilya Cachapero, TCG)has made a good suggestion: going to our core playwrights to see what they are working on with other institutions, and seeing if we can find a good collaboration that way; we also have projects that were of interest, but could not be fit into the initial timeline. In sum ... we have our work cut out for us, but are excited about the further exploration of our idea.

--Maria Striar, Clubbed Thumb

Intro from Clubbed Thumb

The round two recipients of the A-ha! program continue to move steadily forward with their projects. Today we have an introduction and update from Clubbed Thumb…

Clubbed Thumb commissions, develops, and produces funny, strange, and provocative new plays by living American writers. Since its founding in 1996, the company has earned four Obies and presented plays in every form of development, including over 75 full productions. Clubbed Thumb is a groundbreaker, with an unparalleled track record for finding emerging artists and producing innovative new plays; a matchmaker, cultivating relationships between theater artists through our development and production programs; and an incubator, nurturing artists and their work, from first read-through to fully mounted production.

Clubbed Thumb plays range in form and content, but are always intermission-less, 90 minutes or under, with no history of production in NYC. They feature equally challenging and substantial roles for both sexes, are questioning, formally inventive, theatrical, and contain a sense of humor somewhere in the text.
For years, Clubbed Thumb has been contemplating how to get our plays, playwrights, and productions into more theaters across the country. In particular, I hoped there were ways to extend the lives of the productions of our summer festival -- the shows are rehearsed for four weeks, and fully produced, but only run for one week.

For the A-ha! Grant, I proposed first looking for a partner, ideally a larger theater, and with them, mutually choosing a play, its artistic staff and its cast. The play would be developed (as needed/desired), rehearsed and presented in a one-week run in our June festival and then in a longer run at the larger theater, some time in the following nine months. There is equal money for both productions, and money to ensure that both parties will be able to be present for the key decisions and processes. There is a good amount of flexibility in this project’s parameters, and the kind folks at TCG have told me that it’s okay if it fails—that is, we can take the risks necessary to truly explore the project, without worrying about disappointing the funders (how great is that?) The only thing that is non-negotiable is that both partners must commit to producing the play. The truly difficult thing will be finding a play that compels both parties and that fits in the partner theater’s season.

Clubbed Thumb has been hard at work over the last few months, scarfing down plays and talking to theaters, from a few blocks away to outside of the lower 48, from modest budgeted theaters to major institutions, about 30 in all. The conversations have been enriching, worth it in and of themselves. I feel like we are building relationships with a number of these theaters that will carry into the future, sharing plays, development resources and practices, and hopefully, future co- production possibilities will organically arise. In a post-holiday spurt of frenetic effectiveness we will be attempting to touch base in the coming days… with every one of them.

--Maria Striar, Producing Artistic Director, Clubbed Thumb

A-ha!: Refreshing the Process

As the new year is still fresh, we thought it would be a good time to RE-refresh minds on the program and introduce it to those of you who are newcomers to this blog. The MetLife/TCG Ah-ha! Program: Think It, Do It was created to encourage and foster creative thinking and action among TCG member theatres. A-ha! has two components: Think It grants (up to $25,000) give theatre professionals the time and space for research and development, and Do It grants (up to $50,000) support the implementation and testing of new ideas. Over 180 TCG Member Theatres submitted proposals for the second round of the program, and five of them received grants.

TCG is proud and delighted to present the second round of A-ha! recipients with a brief summary of their exciting projects. In addition, Jenny Millinger and Anthony Runfola of Childsplay give us an update of their project so far…

Visit us again to read more from this group of recipients while they share their process with the field as their projects move from thoughts to actions.

Think It!
Book-It Repertory Theatre will investigate the feasibility of a long-term partnership between Book-It and other non-profits to create a literacy-based theatre arts complex that nourishes their entire community.

Childsplay will convene experts from theatre design, manufacturing, recycling and sustainability to explore in depth strategies for implementing green initiatives (renew/reuse/recycle) in stagecraft.

East West Players proposes to develop an artist talent agency and diversity advocacy prototype, leveraging their theatre as a resource for performing opportunities and artistic career development and establish them as a resource for Asian Pacific American talent.

Salvage Vanguard Theater will undertake an exploratory process to develop and test a business plan for a production element co-op (scenic, lighting, costume) for small to mid-size companies in the Austin, Texas theater community.

Do It!
Clubbed Thumb seeks to partner with a larger theater to co-curate an upcoming production. Both partners will mutually choose, staff and cast a play to be produced at Clubbed Thumb’s June festival and then in a longer run at the larger theater.

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Over the coming months, this blog will be updated with images, text, video, quotes – anything we can think of that might help the field learn from these projects. We want to share what’s working and what isn’t working.

Feel free to comment, email or interact with us and the recipients in any way you can think of! This blog is for you, the field!