As 2011 was coming to a close, the big news on the Boston theatre scene was that David Dower and Polly Carl of the American Voices New Play Institute would be moving from their base of operations at Washington, D.C.'s Arena Stage to Emerson College. In the midst of this excitement, The real question was what this means beyond Rob Orchard's aim to make ArtsEmerson a major regional player in the performing arts.
As outlined by Dower on the Arena Stage blog, this is essentially means that efforts that had previously been grouped under the hashtag of "#newplay" are branching in two directions under the auspices of two separate organizations. The first, staying at Arena Stage and retaining the American Voices New Play Institute name, will, amongst other things, focus on the much lauded resident playwright program and on Arena's own developmental work.
The second branch, now using the name "Center For the Theater Commons at Emerson College" will focus on the tools and initiatives designed to advance the national infrastructure for new work and the people who make it. So, where the AVNPI will house Arena's activities, this new entity, The Center for the Theater Commons, will develop and maintain the tools of the #newplay commons and act as staff to the nationwide effort. The map, the live stream channel, the journal, the research projects, and the activities of Howlround will be housed at the new Center, situated in the Office of the Arts at Emerson College. The web portal for this platform becomes Howlround.com.
Polly Carl and Vijay Matthew, writing at Shareable while explaining the needs that brought the New Play Institute into being, outline the projects that the Commons will continue to develop at Emerson. Most of these involve using technology both to both build and document the "new play infrastructure." The two most visible of these initiatives that the Commons will be bringing to Emerson, are the online journal Howlround and the New Play Map, of which I've written about twice before.
Given my position in the industry: entering the field of playwriting without the connections that comes with an MFA, not having a salaried position at a regional theatre, I have had little use for the Howlround. The contents had sadly struck me as being more about omphalloskepticism than about theatre featuring often cryptic essays by more connected figures than myself wondering if they were reaching an audience or not.
The New Play Map, on the other hand, was a project I have supported enthusiastically since it went online last year. It is a crowd sourced map, documenting the new play infrastructure, presenting the artists, collaboratives, conferences, venues, and companies writing, developing, and presenting new plays. I even explored the possible uses that could be explored since the source code was released (New Dance Map anyone? New Opera Map? New Performance Art Map?)
The question, for the Boston theatre scene returns to "how do we use this?" Theater Commons, despite being local, is under no obligation to show Boston playwrights or Boston theatre companies any special favor, especially when the new staff understandably come with any number of professional obligations to past collaborators, however it does become incumbent on the Boston theatre scene to become aware of what is going on in its own neighborhood.
I have already suggested to the newly elected board of the Small Theatre Alliance of Boston to strongly urge that member companies, and individual artists working in new play development document their efforts on the New Play Map. Some already have started to do just that, some already had. This longer essay is for those who have not responded to the Alliance's urgings. Placing our work on the map is not just to advertise our presence to the larger national scene, but to document how we operate, so that organizations like the Theater Commons have a better grasp on what tools we (both nationally and locally) need.
What this means for the local theatre community is what we are willing to make it mean.
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
The Theater Commons Comes to Emerson and What This Means for the Boston Theatre Scene
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2 comments:
Ian I appreciate your thoughtful comments here. I think you're asking some good questions. You're right to point out that the work of the Commons isn't "local" per se, especially the communications platform which is all about reconfiguring space to create more opportunities for participation no matter where you are. New Play TV is a good example here. The idea that not everyone can be at a new play festival or in NYC to hear an interesting panel but these tools make that possible.
My hope, however, is that the Commons will bring interesting conversations, convenings, and artists together in ways that will benefit artists of Boston. I also hope that over time we will form deep ties to Boston artists and find ways that what we're doing will be of benefit to the local community.
I haven't been in DC long enough to see how that might have played out. But David Dower has been there five years and my sense is that the Institute has brought some very positive things to that community but will let others jump in here to confirm or deny that.
As to your dismissal of HowlRound. I certainly accept that the journal may be your cup of tea. But I will say that many of the writers writing in the journal don't have MFA's -- see Matt Ocks' piece about that very issue. And the journal is really a reflection of the community that has reached out to me and now the Institute to participate. It's a crowd sourced journal and I receive random pitches from artists every week, more than half of the articles come for the readership. I invite you to pitch an article anytime, even if to complain as to what's wrong with the articles currently being posted there. We also have a blog on our new site and you could pitch a blog post as well.
Look forward to meeting you in the coming months.
Polly
Polly,
After your visit to my blog, I decided that it was only fair to revisit HowlRound, and over the last few days, I have to admit that the content is far more relevant than I recall it being in the past. So clearly, some of the kinks that had irritated me in the past, notably too many essays written from a highly subjective, even cryptic, perspective, are being worked out in favor of essays that help me, as both an artist, an occasional evangelist for the art form, get a better understanding of the theatrical landscape, the challenges, and the possible solutions.
Thank you, for your invitations, and on behalf of my colleagues with whom I have been discussing the impending move over the last couple of weeks, I do want to state that we are excited that The Theater Commons will be opening shop in our neck of the woods, and while we understand that your mission statement is not to serve us specifically, we hope that we can serve as a microcosm of the larger new play sector.
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