Wrapping it up: Bon Voyage, A-ha! Round 1!

When we started the first round of the A-ha! program, all anyone could see was a bright horizon of innovation and creation. And of course, innovation never ends, it just keeps right on moving – Seema Sueko of Mo'olelo Performing Arts Center has become a fixture on the “green theatre” circuit, the Playwrights Center is taking time to evaluate their trailers project, Theater Grottesco soldiers on in pursuit of an alternative capital campaign model, and Woolly Mammoth is reporting on their final sabbaticals.

But A-ha! is about more than brilliant success – it’s about the process, and the challenges. And between you and me, the process is what took all of us by surprise. With projects so exciting and groundbreaking, it’s hard to foresee any turbulence on the horizon, but of course, the challenges are the parts of the process that teach us, and stay with us… for better or for worse. If you happen to be joining us at the TCG National Conference, a few of our A-ha! veterans will be discussing these sticky, hair-pulling parts of innovation in the breakout session: Turning Failure into Opportunity: Navigating the Unexpected. It’s a brave group, and we hope to see you there. (And if you haven’t registered for the TCG National Conference, sign up now!)

Thank you for taking this first leg of the A-ha! journey with us. We look forward to sharing more stories with you!

Welcome back to the Aha! Blog

Welcome back to the A-ha! blog: 2010 edition! To start the new year, Hayley Finn from the Playwrights Center reflects on their now-completed project:

After launching our trailers on the website and sending DVDs of the trailers to artistic leaders across the country, we evaluated the initiative through surveys and conversations with theatre professionals. To recap, the goal of the project is to promote new plays by creating high-quality online video trailers. That means working from a treatment rather than recording a performance, and using a professional videographer, equipment, and editing to approximate a movie theater preview.

The response from our survey was for the most part very positive. Respondents called the project “an outstanding way to showcase the playwright’s work in such a short period of time,” “an excellent concept,” and “a succinct way to introduce me to a play.”

Some, however, felt that the trailers, shot on location in an apartment, a restaurant, and in New York City, were too far removed from the theater, and risked becoming their own short films. Similarly, some respondents felt that two to three minutes was too long for a teaser. And others wanted more of a sense of the narrative arc of the play.

We have been able to continue the project with the support of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Our challenge for Round Two, then, was to maintain the visual excitement of the first three trailers while emphasizing that these plays are designed for the stage and fully capable of living and breathing there. We put some rules in place for the next five trailers: they would be filmed in our theater, be one minute long, and give the viewer an idea of the play’s plotline/themes, and style rather than focusing on a single scene.

We’ve got three of the five “Round Two” trailers on the website now, and the next two are coming very soon. Once we have all five up we will be launching another server on our website and talking with people about their reactions to this revised format.

I invite you to view the trailer at http://www.pwcenter.org/trailers.php.

We're so excited about the new round of Aha! Projects (you can get more information on them here) - keep an eye out for upcoming posts from this new group of recipients.

The Trailers Are in the Can. Now What?

As Aha! Blog readers know, Minnesota’s Playwrights Center has been hard at work producing trailers for unproduced plays. Now that filming is done and editing is underway, Erika Eklund reflected on the next steps for these digital synopses:

We are in the final throes of creating a DVD that includes an interview with PWC Producing Artistic Director Polly Carl about the genesis of the idea and the three trailers. The DVDs will be sent to 100 artistic directors across the country as well as our funders and major donors; our hope is to get them out the door by the end of April. At the same time we will launch the trailers and interviews on our website and we will be sending out a card announcing this launch to our mailing list of roughly 2000 people.

Because of the extensive amount of time and energy that the marketing effort has generated, we think we won’t create DVDs for the following trailers—that this will exist as an initial marketing effort for the launch of the project, but the next set of trailers created will be marketed solely through electronic means.

Effects of the project are yet to be determined. We think they’re great. The playwrights are thrilled with them. We are most eager to see—and have yet to see—the effect the trailers have on piquing the interests of artistic directors and literary managers to produce the plays. We have yet to see if this effort to “play Cupid” between script and producer really works.

Meet The Playwrights Center

Playwrights hear it constantly: “what’s your play about?” It’s a complicated question to answer, especially if your play hasn’t ever been published or performed. Minneapolis’ Playwrights Center (PWC), which has a long history of supporting playwrights at every stage of their careers, wanted to help answer that question. With trailers. That’s right, trailers.

PWC’s Do It! Grant was awarded to help PWC “play cupid” between playwright and producer. Three years ago, PWC launched a Profiles section for 40 of PWC’s Core writers, and a New Play Gallery. These areas of PWC’s website have become the most frequently used areas, and playwrights were contacted from as far away as Sao Paolo, Brazil. But PWC felt there was a crucial aspect of the “courtship” process still missing. They proposed to use their Do It! funds to produce a professional web trailer series, available to be downloaded for free in an audio-visual gallery on PWC’s website.

These trailers are being produced right now by PWC’s team. They’re not quite ready for public consumption yet, but as a kind of teaser-to-the-teaser, please enjoy these stills from the under-construction trailer for RASKOL by Kira Oblensky: