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!

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.

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:

Meet Theater Grottesco

Theater Grottesco (based in Santa Fe, NM) had a string of bad-renovation luck. One space was condemned after a flood. One lease fell through when a co-lesee ran into administrative troubles. Then when the company found the perfect space and renovated it for a site-specific performance, the company realized they just didn’t have the network and resources to raise several million dollars in a capital campaign.

Grottesco is renowned for its organizational agility and adaptability. The company was founded in Paris in 1983, then moved to Detroit, and then again in 1996 to its current home in Santa Fe. So when faced with these real-estate setbacks, Grottesco decided to look at the bigger picture. There were other groups in Santa Fe whose work didn’t exactly fit into the traditional proscenium stage at the local community theatre, and none of them had the resources to start a campaign. What to do? Form an LLC.

As far as performance space real estate goes, this is a pretty radical idea. Everyone who purchases a share of Grottesco’s Limited Liability Corporation (LLC) will own a share in the venue. Shareholders are investors rather than donors, and shares will be sold for as little as $1,000 each.  As the project develops, TCG and Grottesco will report on how this new strategy is panning out. In the mean time, if you are interested in learning more about Theater Grottesco, visit their website.

Meet Woolly Mammoth

It’s a story every theatre practitioner knows by heart: scrappy company of artists with a daring approach to art sets out to change the world, scrappy company encounters success and makes some money, scrappy company hires a few staff members, scrappy company buys a building… and suddenly scrappy company’s daring approach to the art form is in jeopardy.

Sadly, this story usually ends with a slow, steady drift away from the company’s core values. But Washington, D.C.-based Woolly Mammoth is determined not to let success get in the way of a good thing.

Woolly Mammoth’s Think It grant is intended to stimulate creative thinking among the Woolly Mammoth staff – by giving them all time off. Every staff member will be taking one- to two-week paid sabbaticals, and shadowing someone who works in another profession. Staff members hope to return to the theatre with new ideas, new energy, new approaches, and new relationships and inroads into audience and donor bases.

Not every theatre company would have zeroed in on staff members as key players in the company’s continued commitment to innovation. But Woolly Mammoth is interested in integrating new ideas at every level of the company. Woolly Mammoth wants to ensure that the cutting-edge thinking they bring to the plays they produce gets translated to staff members. Check back as these sabbaticals take shape – we’ll be talking about what worked, and what didn’t work.

A-ha!: Share the Process

The first round of A-ha! recipients’ projects are building up steam, and TCG is proud to share their process with the field as they move their projects from lightbulb-above-the-head to reality.

To bring everyone up to speed, 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. 150 TCG Member Theatres submitted proposals for the first round of grants, and the following four theatres were awarded grants:

Think It!

Mo’olelo Performing Arts Company will research and develop a tool to measure the environmental impact of theatre, helping the industry to make choices that do not damage our communities.

Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company will send its staff on 1-2 week sabbaticals to shadow professionals working in analogous jobs or fields to help provoke new thinking about their work at the theatre.

Do It!

Theater Grottesco will create a state-of-the-art intimate performance venue for smaller, not for profit organizations by inviting partners to invest in downtown Santa Fe property through a Limited Liability Corporation (LLC).

The Playwrights’ Center will take its cue from the film industry. PWC will create a professionally produced web trailer series, available by free download in an audio-visual gallery on its website.

Over the coming months, this blog will fill up 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 any way you can think of! This blog is for you, the field!