Friday, February 24, 2012
2012 NYC WTD blog starts 2/27
Every year on March 27th, World Theatre Day is celebrated internationally and messages of peace and social importance are distributed and read at thousands of performances around the globe.
Here in NYC we celebrate WTD for the entire month of March. Lots of events and performances are being scheduled (more details coming soon). In the meantime we have some incredibly insightful and talented theatre artists; local artists as well as from across the country and around the world who will be sharing their thoughts on theatre and WTD right here on our blog.
We are very excited to share their perspectives with our community. Please check back starting February 27th for the first post.
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Count Down to WTD 2012
Can it be that time already? World Theatre Day 2012 is just around the corner. Here in NYC we are planning some great events to commemorate this global day of celebration. There will be more details posted here as they become available.
In the meantime, mark your calendars for March 27th!
In the meantime, mark your calendars for March 27th!
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
How did you Celebrate World Theatre Day?
World Theatre Day is celebrated around the globe every year on March 27th.
Where were you on 3/27 and how did you celebrate?
We want to know.
Also, don't forget to check out the World Theatre Day blog.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Making the Political Personal
In celebration of World Theatre Day, hotINK hosted a panel discussion entitled Making the Political Personal.
Moderated by Kevin Bitterman, Associate Director of International Programs at TCG the event was held at the Lark Play Development Center and featured some very well traveled and well versed panelists: Elmar Maripuu, Canadian Playwright to be featured at HotINK festival of New Plays from Around the World; Barbara Lanciers, Program Officer at Trust for Mutual Understanding; Nilaja Sun, Actor/Playwright/Activist and Solo performer and writer of the Off-Broadway hit No Child; Melanie Josesph, Artistic Director, The Foundry Theatre.
The event began as Bitterman and the panelists posed some thought provoking questions:
How can theatre artists be good citizens? How can you serve your community?
How can your art help your community?
Since theatre is a form of communication and can provide understanding between cultures, does a lack of these kinds of arts breed intolerance?
Does government funding of the arts give it the right to make decisions about the art created and the message communicated?
Does you organization produce art AND artists? (Do you also nurture the development of both established and new artists)?
As they discussed these and other questions the panel sometimes found themselves agreeing with one another and sometimes their varied backgrounds and experiences found them at odds with one another.
Here are some of the most poignant quotes of the event:
"We [theatre] don’t need the same sized audience as movies or monster tuck rallies to make a difference. It's one at a time."- Melanie Joseph
"Working with kids is the best audience development that there is."- Barbara Lanciers
“If commercial theatre strives to entertain the audience, independent theatre strives to challenge the audience."- Elmar Maripuu
“Creating effective political theatre is about making the work accessible.”- Nilaja Sun
“There has to be an exchange between art & political action. We have to show up.”- Melanie Joseph
"If you are serious about changing the world, you have to be politically active"- Elmar Maripuu
"Oppressive governments are threatened by artists – they are imprisoned or punished and they try to silence them. And how is that different from what is happening to the NPR?"- audience member
"One of the best forms of political theatre is getting people of different cultures sitting next to each other sharing the same experience."- Nilaja Sun
How do you see the role of theatre in advocacy & the political arena?
Monday, March 28, 2011
The Big Leap
Contributed by Rogelio Martinez
He says, “We are sexually ready.”
It’s 2:30 in the afternoon and two actors are in the wings having sex.
Well, not really. It’s pretend sex. And they’re only doing it, so that our sound designer can get it down on tape. The idea of simulating sex six times a week, twice on Saturdays is less appealing than one might imagine.
In celebration of World Theatre Day I’ve decided to write about one of the more grueling aspects of theater: tech. It’s grueling but also magical. Tech is the time when the playwright’s vision makes the big leap -- sound, sets, and costumes come charging!
Wanamaker’s Pursuit was commissioned a year and a half ago by the Arden Theatre Company along with the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts in Philadelphia. The one and a half year journey from page to stage has been very fast. It’s rare nowadays when a commission actually leads to production, it’s even rarer when a play moves from page to stage this quickly.
I sit in the dark while a curtain is added realizing just how lucky I am to be here.
Fireworks
The debate now happening on stage is whether to use both sound and lights to create the effect of fireworks. The fear being that lights will read as just a wash on the back curtain. We decide to use just sound. Suddenly, the director catches the set designer sneering at the idea. Apparently, he doesn’t want any fireworks. We work on the idea for five more minutes before Terry Nolen, the director, orders to table the fireworks. Tech is thinking on your feet and ideas get tabled just as quickly as they’re introduced. It helps that the collaborators on the play (myself included) have all worked together before. In other words, sneering at one another’s work is socially acceptable.
Later in the day.
“Hold please,” exclaims Terry. “Holding” comes the response from the stage.
We’re working on one cue involving lights, sound, and set. Six months ago I used one of my favorite stage directions: lights shift. Those words always work for me during the writing process. I seldom use blackouts or fade to black. Instead, I write “lights shift.” But what does that really mean? Six months after writing that stage direction down, we’re in tech figuring it out.
I think about this a moment. A scene transition written on the page and one on the stage are two very different things. As I reflect on World Theatre Day, I mourn the few resources available to writers to learn this. Working with a mentor can teach the playwright a great deal, but eventually what writers need most is a production to complete their education. In a time that sees less and less funding and fewer new plays being produced, I am grateful to sit in the dark continuing my education.
“Ah. Look at that! It makes me happy,” says Terry. Lights shift finally works.
Dinner break. Costumes next.
END
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Rogelio Martinez is an award winning playwright whose work has been developed, and produced by some of the largest regional theaters across the country. Plays include Wanamaker’s Pursuit (Arden Theater Co.), When Tang Met Laika (Sloan Grant/ Denver Center Theatre Co.), All Eyes and Ears (INTAR @ Theater Row), Fizz (NEA/ TCG Grant/ Besch Solinger Productions at the Ohio Theatre, New Theater, Miami), Arrivals and Departures (Summer Play Festival). Martinez’s play I Regret She’s Made of Sugar won the prestigious Princess Grace Award and will be published by Broadway Play Publishing later this year. He has received commissions from the Mark Taper Forum, the Atlantic Theater Company, the Arden Theater Company, and South Coast Repertory to list a few. Martinez teaches playwriting at Goddard College, Montclair University, and Primary stages.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
International WTD Message 2011: A Case for Theatre in Service of Humanity
by Jessica A. Kaahwa
Today's gathering is a true reflection of the immense potential of theatre to mobilize communities and bridge the divides.
Have you ever imagined that theatre could be a powerful tool for peace and reconciliation? While nations spend colossal sums of money on peace-keeping missions in violent conflict areas of the world, little attention is given to theatre as a one-on-one alternative for conflict transformation and management. How can the citizens of mother-earth achieve universal peace when the instruments employed come from outside and seemingly repressive powers?
Theatre subtly permeates the human soul gripped by fear and suspicion, by altering the image of self - and opening a world of alternatives for the individual and hence the community. It can give meaning to daily realities while forestalling an uncertain future. It can engage in the politics of peoples' situations in simple straightforward ways. Because it is inclusive, theatre can present an experience capable of transcending previously held misconceptions.
Additionally, theatre is a proven means of advocating and advancing ideas that we collectively hold and are willing to fight for when violated.
To anticipate a peaceful future, we must begin by using peaceful means that seek to understand, respect and recognize the contributions of every human being in the business of harnessing peace. Theatre is that universal language by which we can advance messages of peace and reconciliation.
By actively engaging participants, theatre can bring many-a-soul to deconstruct previously held perceptions, and, in this way, gives an individual the chance of rebirth in order to make choices based on rediscovered knowledge and reality. For theatre to thrive, among other art forms, we must take the bold step forward by incorporating it into daily life, dealing with critical issues of conflict and peace.
In pursuance of social transformation and reformation of communities, theatre already exists in war-torn areas and among populations suffering from chronic poverty or disease. There are a growing number of success stories where theatre has been able to mobilize publics to build awareness and to assist post-war trauma victims. Cultural platforms such as the "International Theatre Institute" which aims at "consolidating peace and friendship between peoples" are already in place.
It is therefore a travesty to keep quiet in times like ours, in the knowledge of the power of theatre, and let gun wielders and bomb launchers be the peacekeepers of our world. How can tools of alienation possibly double as instruments of peace and reconciliation?
I urge you on this World Theatre Day to ponder this prospect and to put theatre forth as a universal tool for dialogue, social transformation and reform. While the United Nations spends colossal amount of monies on peacekeeping missions around the world, through the use of arms, theatre is a spontaneous, human, less costly and by far a more powerful alternative.
While it may not be the only answer for bringing peace, theatre should surely be incorporated as an effective tool in peacekeeping missions.
Saturday, March 26, 2011
U.S. WTD Message 2011: The Art of Listening
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Theater reshapes reality. Emboldened by the playwright's imagination, actor and audience conspire to rethink the world.
The theater I know best is primarily aural - deferring to the playwright's word as spoken by the actor. In spite of all else, the most powerful transformative tool for audience and actor is the capacity to listen.
If we listen well and observe, the theater's gift to us is the sly suggestion that what occurs within its walls can occur without them, too - that the world is changeable.
That idea is uplifting in the face of contemporary global challenges that leave too many of the planet's inhabitants vulnerable and without pathways to free and healthy lives.
Pray the people of Japan and Haiti and North Africa, the Middle East and everywhere historic suffering can be found today will prove the power of re-imagining reality.
I haven't much directed my thoughts toward the theater during my ten years of travel to Sierra Leone, one of the poorest nations on Earth; my focus has been on economic development, still recently, I experienced there what may be the purest theatrical moment I've ever known.
Last month, a dozen or so of us traveled to the country to celebrate a road rehabilitation project our group,Taia Peace Foundation, had completed. We rebuilt the road at the request of one of the country's remotest rural communities.
During an initiation ceremony, each of us was adopted into a ruling chiefdom family-some of us were even entitled honorary chiefs-out of respect for the improvements we'd brought to the community. At the ceremony's end, the everyday citizens who perform in celebration at significant community events, were called on to play, sing and dance.
Then at some point, upon no cue I perceive, a silent, motionless figure appears - it seems to materialize out of ether - like a mystery. Childlike, a boy - perhaps the age of my 9-year old son - the huge rectangular head almost half the size of his body - shuffling slowly, like a geisha, toward the middle of the space - people clearing the way-enter the gongoli, a character, I'm later told, celebrated for his ugliness, and yet his beauty floors me.
Next month, I will again travel the dusty roads back to where I first encountered him - my backpack full of ideas, plans and malaria pills. I will seek out Lucy Jibilla - the gongoli mask was brought to her house that previous night. I will ask her who keeps it, perhaps that person made it as well and will share his story with me.
If so, I will do that thing most critical for audience and actor and those who aspire to progressive roles in the theaters of social justice, poverty alleviation, or disaster relief - I will listen.
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by Jeffrey Wright
Theater reshapes reality. Emboldened by the playwright's imagination, actor and audience conspire to rethink the world.
The theater I know best is primarily aural - deferring to the playwright's word as spoken by the actor. In spite of all else, the most powerful transformative tool for audience and actor is the capacity to listen.
If we listen well and observe, the theater's gift to us is the sly suggestion that what occurs within its walls can occur without them, too - that the world is changeable.
That idea is uplifting in the face of contemporary global challenges that leave too many of the planet's inhabitants vulnerable and without pathways to free and healthy lives.
Pray the people of Japan and Haiti and North Africa, the Middle East and everywhere historic suffering can be found today will prove the power of re-imagining reality.
I haven't much directed my thoughts toward the theater during my ten years of travel to Sierra Leone, one of the poorest nations on Earth; my focus has been on economic development, still recently, I experienced there what may be the purest theatrical moment I've ever known.
Last month, a dozen or so of us traveled to the country to celebrate a road rehabilitation project our group,Taia Peace Foundation, had completed. We rebuilt the road at the request of one of the country's remotest rural communities.
During an initiation ceremony, each of us was adopted into a ruling chiefdom family-some of us were even entitled honorary chiefs-out of respect for the improvements we'd brought to the community. At the ceremony's end, the everyday citizens who perform in celebration at significant community events, were called on to play, sing and dance.
Then at some point, upon no cue I perceive, a silent, motionless figure appears - it seems to materialize out of ether - like a mystery. Childlike, a boy - perhaps the age of my 9-year old son - the huge rectangular head almost half the size of his body - shuffling slowly, like a geisha, toward the middle of the space - people clearing the way-enter the gongoli, a character, I'm later told, celebrated for his ugliness, and yet his beauty floors me.
Next month, I will again travel the dusty roads back to where I first encountered him - my backpack full of ideas, plans and malaria pills. I will seek out Lucy Jibilla - the gongoli mask was brought to her house that previous night. I will ask her who keeps it, perhaps that person made it as well and will share his story with me.
If so, I will do that thing most critical for audience and actor and those who aspire to progressive roles in the theaters of social justice, poverty alleviation, or disaster relief - I will listen.
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Friday, March 25, 2011
World Theatre Day 2011
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World Theatre Day (WTD) celebrations have been going on all week. The NYC WTD Coalition has a ton of exciting, fun and informative events. Here are some suggestions of how you can honor this international day of celebration.
To get involved, email info@nycwtd.com or sign up on the NYCWTD website.
Check out details about the events at www.nycwtd.com.
Check out the blog at www.nycwtd.blogspot.com.
Follow us on Twitter @nycwtd
Friend us on Facebook
World Theatre Day (WTD) celebrations have been going on all week. The NYC WTD Coalition has a ton of exciting, fun and informative events. Here are some suggestions of how you can honor this international day of celebration.
- Theatrical Performances: Shows throughout the city where the WTD messages will be read and/or distributed. Check out the listings.
- NYC World Theatre Day Celebration: Party with friends and theatre artists from around the world, hear the International Message read by a NY theatre luminary, and watch footage from the NYC SPLAT Performance and from celebrations in other cities from around the world. On 3/27, 4:00pm - 7:00pm at Dixon Place.
Attendees are also invited to attend a special work in progress showing of Nuevo Laredo by Gabriella Barnstone at 4:30pm at Dixon Place. - Making the Political Personal: A brunch and panel discussion of notable New York artists will be hosted by hotINK and moderated by Kevin Bitterman, Associate Director of International Programs at TCG. While this event IS FREE, space is limited and an RSVP is required. March 27, 2011 at 10:00am at the Lark Play Development Center - 311 West 43rd Street, 5th Floor.
Panelists include:
- Elmar Maripuu, Canadian Playwright to be featured at HotINK festival of New Plays
from Around the World
- Barbara Lanciers, Program Officer at Trust for Mutual Understanding
- Nilaja Sun, Actor/Playwright/Activist and Solo performer and writer of the Off-Broadway
hit No Child
- Melanie Josesph, Artistic Director, The Foundry Theatre
To get involved, email info@nycwtd.com or sign up on the NYCWTD website.
Check out details about the events at www.nycwtd.com.
Check out the blog at www.nycwtd.blogspot.com.
Follow us on Twitter @nycwtd
Friend us on Facebook
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Why Work in Theatre?
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About me:
I fell into theater by mistake in 1998, while on my way to a masters degree in medieval Jewish philosophy and theology and driving a horse and carriage in central park to pay the bills. I am very happy to have helped to firmly establish Horse Trade's reputation in the downtown theater scene and to create a well respected, self sufficient organization that has created and continues to create a home for some the New York City's most innovative, talented and hard working theater artists. Today Horse Trade is a thriving theater company operating 3 spaces in the East Village, and touring shows nationally and internationally. I still drive a horse and carriage a couple of days a week to help pay the bills.
About theater:
There are many good reasons to work in theater, and only one excellent reason not to. Clearly theater has not in the past, and does not in the present have the capacity to provide most of its practitioners with a decent regular income; and the future does not look much brighter. So why are there so many people coming to New York City to build their theater careers and why are so many staying to toil in an industry that, for most, requires a second and even third job? I would imagine that no one actually realized on their way here how hard the work will be and how little financial reward is to be achieved. I know that if I had known 13 years ago what I would be getting paid for running such a busy company today I would have certainly gone another route, it would have been impossible to describe the rewards in vivid enough detail to override the sticker shock.
Why not work in theater is a pretty easy question to answer, why work in theater is another story. I suppose we have all had to slightly redefine for ourselves the reason for which we work, for any kind of answer to make sense. We don’t, for the most part, see our Labor as the relationship between employee and employer they way economists regard the term Labor in our economic system, but rather as a triangular relationship between a production team the product we produce and our intended audience. Money is a means we need in order to accomplish our tasks, and sometimes it is a measure of our success but unlike with our day jobs, it is not the goal.
Many of the people in our community get very little financial compensation for our many hours of hard work, even spending our hard earned money on creating work. But until we each get to a point in our career where we are actually making a living doing what we love, and please keep in mind that this is not an entitlement it is a hard fought luxury, here are some things to remember that will help you keep you head up and your feet firmly stepping.
Theater is one of the ancient Arts that helped Man walk out of the cave and look both backwards and forwards, to get a more complete vision of the world around; it is a necessary part of our collective existence. Without the Arts our world would hardly be worth living in. Theater practitioners in NYC specifically are members of the second biggest financial generator in the city, and this city generates a great deal of money so good on ya. While we in the indie theater world do not interact much with the Broadway world which is the primary generator of this precious income, we routinely provide not only Broadway, but Television, Films, Off Broadway and other performing arts with the work they will be doing, the talent they will be using , and the direction they will be taking in the future. our work is a long term investment, but do remember, that by the time great work makes it into the commercial markets, and of course some never does, it has already had a great deal of effect on the next generation of artists, and this is only possible if there is a thriving community to work and grow in.
Contributed by Erez Ziv
About me:
I fell into theater by mistake in 1998, while on my way to a masters degree in medieval Jewish philosophy and theology and driving a horse and carriage in central park to pay the bills. I am very happy to have helped to firmly establish Horse Trade's reputation in the downtown theater scene and to create a well respected, self sufficient organization that has created and continues to create a home for some the New York City's most innovative, talented and hard working theater artists. Today Horse Trade is a thriving theater company operating 3 spaces in the East Village, and touring shows nationally and internationally. I still drive a horse and carriage a couple of days a week to help pay the bills.
About theater:
There are many good reasons to work in theater, and only one excellent reason not to. Clearly theater has not in the past, and does not in the present have the capacity to provide most of its practitioners with a decent regular income; and the future does not look much brighter. So why are there so many people coming to New York City to build their theater careers and why are so many staying to toil in an industry that, for most, requires a second and even third job? I would imagine that no one actually realized on their way here how hard the work will be and how little financial reward is to be achieved. I know that if I had known 13 years ago what I would be getting paid for running such a busy company today I would have certainly gone another route, it would have been impossible to describe the rewards in vivid enough detail to override the sticker shock.
Why not work in theater is a pretty easy question to answer, why work in theater is another story. I suppose we have all had to slightly redefine for ourselves the reason for which we work, for any kind of answer to make sense. We don’t, for the most part, see our Labor as the relationship between employee and employer they way economists regard the term Labor in our economic system, but rather as a triangular relationship between a production team the product we produce and our intended audience. Money is a means we need in order to accomplish our tasks, and sometimes it is a measure of our success but unlike with our day jobs, it is not the goal.
Many of the people in our community get very little financial compensation for our many hours of hard work, even spending our hard earned money on creating work. But until we each get to a point in our career where we are actually making a living doing what we love, and please keep in mind that this is not an entitlement it is a hard fought luxury, here are some things to remember that will help you keep you head up and your feet firmly stepping.
Theater is one of the ancient Arts that helped Man walk out of the cave and look both backwards and forwards, to get a more complete vision of the world around; it is a necessary part of our collective existence. Without the Arts our world would hardly be worth living in. Theater practitioners in NYC specifically are members of the second biggest financial generator in the city, and this city generates a great deal of money so good on ya. While we in the indie theater world do not interact much with the Broadway world which is the primary generator of this precious income, we routinely provide not only Broadway, but Television, Films, Off Broadway and other performing arts with the work they will be doing, the talent they will be using , and the direction they will be taking in the future. our work is a long term investment, but do remember, that by the time great work makes it into the commercial markets, and of course some never does, it has already had a great deal of effect on the next generation of artists, and this is only possible if there is a thriving community to work and grow in.
----------------------
Erez Ziv is the co-founder and managing director of the Horse Trade Theatre Group.
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Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Being a Generous Mentor
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I remember reading Ted Chapin’s wonderful book Everything Was Possible as I rode a bus into Manhattan for one of many interviews to try to get my first internship in professional theater. And I distinctly recall thinking to myself as I finished the book, “The world he describes is amazing. Now how on earth do I get to be a part of that?”
Somehow, I’m now a part of that world that seemed so incredibly foreign back then, but it has taken some time to understand how that actually happened. I now realize that the answer comes down to people who I consider to be true theatrical heroes -- those who work to open doors, to artists and audiences alike.
I don’t know of a single person in the theater who doesn’t think that there was a little bit of luck involved in getting them to where they are today. And if you ask a few questions, it almost always comes down to a similar story: along the way, we’ve all felt lucky because we met up with someone who pulled back the veil on this mysterious mixture of art and business and said, “Let me tell you how this works.” And nothing could be more important.
So many of us choose to make our living in this business because we want to share our love of the theater, not just with audiences but with the people we work side by side with. We have put ourselves into an industry that encourages – perhaps even demands – collaboration. What I have come to love is that this is a business full of mentors, eager to share knowledge, stories, advice, experiences – the invaluable things that can take someone new from outside to inside, from lost to found.
Unlike in so many other industries, I don’t see my colleagues in the theater trying to bar the door to keep people out. The very nature of the theater is to invite in an audience, and each time we engage that audience, we are inviting in the next group of people who may find themselves saying at the end of a performance, “Now how on earth do I get to be a part of that?”
Whether it’s through true person-to-person mentors, or from talking to a group of students about how to get started, or by giving a playwright her first production, or by making ticket prices low enough for anyone to come see your show, the heroes of theater today are those who are making sure that the dire predictions for the future of this art form do not come true. They are the people who are letting in the new, who share stories so that we all work from a shared sense of history, and who do work that does more than reaffirm the beliefs of the existing audience. They give opportunities and they push boundaries. They know that the way to keep theater essential as a cultural institution is to make sure that the institution itself is ready and willing to not only accept newcomers, but to educate and encourage them.
We all remember what it was like to be on the outside looking in and we share what we’ve learned because we’ve now had encounters, experiences, moments so fantastically special that it wouldn’t have even occurred to us to dream them up. To create theater is to cause an emotional response in another person, and the desire to share that emotional response is in all of us who have chosen this path.
We make theater for ourselves, and we make theater for each other. But most importantly, we make it for the people coming next, for the people who are about to have that first moment of seeing a piece of theater so staggering that it makes them ask in wonder, “Now how do I get to be a part of that?”
I aspire to be the person who reaches out to answer, “Let me tell you about that…”
Jill Rafson is the Literary Manager at Roundabout Theatre Company, where she also serves as Associate Producer for the Roundabout Underground program. Jill is also a member of CollaborationTown, for whom she is a frequent Dramaturg. She has read scripts for the O’Neill Conference and the Vineyard Theater and has been a guest lecturer for the Commercial Theater Institute. Jill is a graduate of Johns Hopkins University.
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Contributed by Jill Rafson
I remember reading Ted Chapin’s wonderful book Everything Was Possible as I rode a bus into Manhattan for one of many interviews to try to get my first internship in professional theater. And I distinctly recall thinking to myself as I finished the book, “The world he describes is amazing. Now how on earth do I get to be a part of that?”
Somehow, I’m now a part of that world that seemed so incredibly foreign back then, but it has taken some time to understand how that actually happened. I now realize that the answer comes down to people who I consider to be true theatrical heroes -- those who work to open doors, to artists and audiences alike.
I don’t know of a single person in the theater who doesn’t think that there was a little bit of luck involved in getting them to where they are today. And if you ask a few questions, it almost always comes down to a similar story: along the way, we’ve all felt lucky because we met up with someone who pulled back the veil on this mysterious mixture of art and business and said, “Let me tell you how this works.” And nothing could be more important.
So many of us choose to make our living in this business because we want to share our love of the theater, not just with audiences but with the people we work side by side with. We have put ourselves into an industry that encourages – perhaps even demands – collaboration. What I have come to love is that this is a business full of mentors, eager to share knowledge, stories, advice, experiences – the invaluable things that can take someone new from outside to inside, from lost to found.
Unlike in so many other industries, I don’t see my colleagues in the theater trying to bar the door to keep people out. The very nature of the theater is to invite in an audience, and each time we engage that audience, we are inviting in the next group of people who may find themselves saying at the end of a performance, “Now how on earth do I get to be a part of that?”
Whether it’s through true person-to-person mentors, or from talking to a group of students about how to get started, or by giving a playwright her first production, or by making ticket prices low enough for anyone to come see your show, the heroes of theater today are those who are making sure that the dire predictions for the future of this art form do not come true. They are the people who are letting in the new, who share stories so that we all work from a shared sense of history, and who do work that does more than reaffirm the beliefs of the existing audience. They give opportunities and they push boundaries. They know that the way to keep theater essential as a cultural institution is to make sure that the institution itself is ready and willing to not only accept newcomers, but to educate and encourage them.
We all remember what it was like to be on the outside looking in and we share what we’ve learned because we’ve now had encounters, experiences, moments so fantastically special that it wouldn’t have even occurred to us to dream them up. To create theater is to cause an emotional response in another person, and the desire to share that emotional response is in all of us who have chosen this path.
We make theater for ourselves, and we make theater for each other. But most importantly, we make it for the people coming next, for the people who are about to have that first moment of seeing a piece of theater so staggering that it makes them ask in wonder, “Now how do I get to be a part of that?”
I aspire to be the person who reaches out to answer, “Let me tell you about that…”
----------------------
Jill Rafson is the Literary Manager at Roundabout Theatre Company, where she also serves as Associate Producer for the Roundabout Underground program. Jill is also a member of CollaborationTown, for whom she is a frequent Dramaturg. She has read scripts for the O’Neill Conference and the Vineyard Theater and has been a guest lecturer for the Commercial Theater Institute. Jill is a graduate of Johns Hopkins University.
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