Labyrinth Theater Company's Barn Series and Play Development https://grants.dudleytdoughertyfoundation.org/proposals-2014/labyrinth-theater-companys-barn-series-and-play-development https://grants.dudleytdoughertyfoundation.org/@@site-logo/sitelogo-75x75.png

Labyrinth Theater Company's Barn Series and Play Development

Additional Information
Used for	Support from the Dudley T. Dougherty Foundation will help to underwrite Labyrinth Theater Company’s 15th annual Barn Reading Series and play development activities. This year’s Barn Series will have both a fall and a spring session, each of three to six new works. We will present staged readings of plays by the Company members and guest artists whom we are shepherding through our play development pipeline.
Benefits	Labyrinth is a home for diverse theater artists and the daring and visceral work that they create. For 22 years, we pushed the boundaries of contemporary American theater by performing stories that portray a mosaic of experiences. Our commitment to different voices and viewpoints extends offstage, where we offer resources to artists at all stages of their career, providing them the time and support to take risks as well as give voice to people and neighborhoods that might otherwise go unseen. We teach and mentor aspiring young actors who might not have access to traditional conservatories. Finally, our low starting prices and audience development efforts are aimed towards giving all audiences, regardless of economic, social or ethnic background, the opportunity to experience theater.
Proposal Description	On behalf of the board, staff, and artists of Labyrinth Theater Company, I’m writing to thank the Dudley T. Dougherty Foundation for its generous contribution of $10,000 in 2014. Your assistance has gone a long way towards helping us support the works-in-progress through our Barn Reading Series. Last year, our play development efforts, which includes the Barn Series, resulted in the development of 50 new pieces of American theater. Since Mimi O’Donnell took the helm as Labyrinth’s first full-time paid Artistic Director in 2012, we have been evaluating our existing development models and moving towards providing increasingly more individualized support of playwrights. We’ve found that this results in a higher quality and quantity of work. During the 2014-15 season we will be deepening the tailored resources we offer to each playwright under our support. We would be thrilled if the Foundation would consider again supporting our play development efforts in 2014-15 by contributing $10,000 towards underwriting the costs of our Barn Reading Series and growing roster of play development opportunities. Mission Labyrinth is a home for diverse theater artists and the daring and visceral work that they create. For 22 years, we pushed the boundaries of contemporary American theater by performing stories that portray a mosaic of experiences. Our commitment to different voices and viewpoints extends offstage, where we offer resources to artists at all stages of their career, providing them the time and support to take risks as well as give voice to people and neighborhoods that might otherwise go unseen. We teach and mentor aspiring young actors who might not have access to traditional conservatories. Finally, our low starting prices and audience development efforts are aimed towards giving all audiences, regardless of economic, social or ethnic background, the opportunity to experience theater. Over our 22-year history, Labyrinth’s creative approach has nurtured more than 60 new American plays and resulted in many accolades, including six Tony Award nominations, 15 Drama Desk Award nominations, and an Edinburgh Fringe First Award. Project Description The Barn Series Support from the Dudley T. Dougherty Foundation will help to underwrite Labyrinth Theater Company’s 15th annual Barn Reading Series and play development activities. This year’s Barn Series will have both a fall and a spring session, each of three to six new works. We will present staged readings of plays by the Company members and guest artists whom we are shepherding through our play development pipeline. Labyrinth works with playwrights to create a personal work schedule for their needs- whether these be mentorship, editing, an individual workshop opportunity, research help, or more. The Barn Reading Series is a longstanding development program that we offer. It allows playwrights to present a work in progress to direct audience feedback and may have production values, depending on what best serves the needs of the playwright. Each play will be presented after 15 hours of rehearsal, and the playwrights remain actively engaged throughout this stage of the process. Through workshop rehearsals and the presence of an audience at culminating performances, the Barn Reading Series helps writers to focus on "what works" and "what doesn't.” In FY14, in response to our playwrights’ feedback, we reduced the number of public readings for each play from 2 to 1 and increased the number of working hours at the table for the playwright, actors and directors. Playwrights are encouraged to deeply analyze their work through the guidance and support of Labyrinth's artistic staff and selected directors. This series, which is presented free to NYC audiences, gives our artists new opportunities to make their voices heard and gives audiences the chance to play their part in the process. In the past, many plays presented in the Barn Reading Series have gone on to be produced on Labyrinth’s mainstage or at other regional theaters. This fall’s Barn Series session ran November 4th, 6th and 9th and feature EMPANADA LOCA written and directed by Aaron Marks and starring Daphne Rubin-Vega; PRISONER written and directed by Lyle Kessler; and NORA GETS A BOYFRIEND written by Megan Mostyn-Brown and directed by Mia Rovegno. Barn Series will continue into the spring and we anticipate that the spring 2015 session will include plays by Dominique Morisseau, Daphne Rubin-Vega, Alex Lewin, and Carlos Murillo, among others. Play Development During the 2014-15 season Labyrinth will be working to deepen the individualized support we provide to playwrights. Our goal is to create an artistic home that playwrights can return to each time they create a new piece. When examining what unique resources Labyrinth could bring to play development, we found our greatest strengths to be our talented and diverse Company members and the size of our organization which can bring a level of responsiveness and flexibility to the process that other companies cannot. We decided to build a completely artist-centric system where the full strength and resources of the company would not only be brought to bear on the complete life-cycle of a work in development but also pivot as needed. The needs of a work of art can change rapidly as it grows and to support this path to production, a company needs to be able to respond just as quickly. Labyrinth’s size and strength of community put it in a unique position to do just that. Play development begins in fall with the submission of hundreds of script proposals from Company members and guest artists at all stages of their careers. Ms. O’Donnell evaluates the proposals and selects up to 50 projects to support to varying extents. Our staff then works with artists and helps them shape a development schedule best suited to the strengths and weaknesses of their project. Support provided may include participation in workshops, mentorship, editing, research assistance, or more. We anticipate that this program will result in risk-taking and the creation of vital new pieces for the American stage. Each year, we create far more pieces than what we can show on our Mainstage, and many of these plays find their ways to regional theaters. Below is a full list of the programs and resources we offer: • Summer Intensive: A traditional program where actors, playwrights, and directors come together to work on new pieces within an intensive, ensemble setting. • Barn Reading Series: A reading series that gives playwrights the opportunity to extensively workshop their pieces with Company members and then present a production of their works-in-progress to live audience feedback. • One-Act Experiment: Launched in FY14, the One-Act Experiment commissions six emerging or established playwrights to each write a piece for Labyrinth’s diverse Company member actors. Each playwright is paired with an established director who serves as a mentor and dramaturge and helps to guide the process over several months • Pre-production Workshops: Labyrinth began offering these workshops in FY13 as a way for playwrights to rehearse and hone their script prior to Mainstage premieres. This workshop allows unique collaborative opportunities between the playwright, director and cast. • 29-hour Development Workshops: These workshops are provided to support promising plays that could benefit from an extended rehearsal period with actors and a director. This is a program offered to work that is often close to production-ready but which has a final problem to be solved. • Commissions: We anticipate that starting next season we will begin to commission both emerging and established writers at a competitive fee to write pieces for our talented Company member actors. • Mainstage Productions: The above development avenues all lead to the selection of three plays to be produced on our Mainstage each season. Each production is a New York or World premiere and has a strong tie to a Company member, whether it be written by one or feature a Company Member in a role. • Customized Artist Support: In addition to our more traditional programs, Labyrinth might offer support including artist work residencies, presentation opportunities, research and editing help, or mentoring. Activities Update During the 2014-15 Mainstage season we will be premiering three plays from very distinct voices. Already Craig “muMs” Grant’s A Sucker Emcee has successfully shown at Bank Street to great audience responses. The play blended Hip-Hop, slam poetry, and traditional theater to explore Hip-Hop’s roots against an autobiographical coming of age tale. Lucy Thurber’s The Insurgents, about one working class young woman’s journey across America, will premiere in February 2015. Finally, we will end the season with Nice Girl, a play by longtime Company actress and emerging playwright Melissa Ross. Nice Girl takes place in the 1980’s and tells the story of a 37 year old woman who begins to take tentative steps towards a new life. Conclusion As Labyrinth continues to refine our play development pipeline, our goal is to provide an increasingly artist-driven model that helps playwrights take risks, grow, and create innovative new pieces for the American stage. Our new, flexible process allows artists the resources to effectively create regardless of their style, approach, or needs. It lets artists bring us an idea in its very early, experimental stage, and explore what sort of play it will become. Finally, we believe the opportunity for artists to share ideas in a community with an institutional history and shared language results in richer and deeper pieces. Thank you so much again for your interest in our programs. We’re incredibly grateful to the Dudley L. Dougherty Foundation for its continued support of Labyrinth. Your continued assistance will help us provide artist-driven, tailored resources to playwrights who are creating new work, and support the development of innovative new pieces for the American stage. Sincerely, Danny Feldman Executive Director