The cool stuff we’re doing!

* We will be streaming these events live on the Web! You can check them out at http://livestream.com/newplay. Tweets at #NewPlay and at #NSET

Wednesday August 10, 2011

Thursday August 11, 2011

Friday August 12, 2011

Saturday August 13, 2011

Sunday August 14, 2011

Workshop Descriptions

The Art of Storytelling in Social Media – Anthem Salgado
Enough with the theory. This is about application. In this session, facilitator Anthem Salgado will cover all the social media basics. Not just the tools (we all know those) but best practices in community service, narrative, and effective sequencing in marketing! Summit participants will also have the opportunity to share with one another ideas and “bright spots” in their own practices in promotions and communications.

Introduction to Meyerhold’s Biomechanics - Theatre Novi Most
We will teach an introductory overview of the physical training system created by Vsevelod Meyerhold in Russia in the 20's to address the demands on actors in non realistic work. Includes very formal work with wooden dowels and learning one of the five "etudes". We trained in Biomechanics in Russia extensively. Includes some video and demonstrations as well as hands on learning."

What’s the Big Idea? Strategic Planning for Ensemble Theaters – Lisa Mount
Because ensembles often know how to create together, collaborative strategic planning uses systems and processes that already make sense. Taking those cooperative processes and galvanizing them with a “big idea” can put a theater on a path to new levels of achievement. This workshop will present the fundamentals of strategic planning, with a focus on how those are applied to ensemble theaters. Case study discussions about planning processes at several ensembles and a lively interchange of ideas will ensure that this conversation has real utility for those who attend.

Ensemble Creation: Working With a Playwright
Sandbox Theatre ensemble members Heather Stone and Derek Lee Miller, together with playwright Alan M. Berks, will facilitate a workshop on the practice of collaborative creation and writing. This is a participatory “discussion in action.” Attendees will have the opportunity to work in a live creation session to bring a script in progress from Berks to life using Sandbox’s collaborative techniques. Dive in headfirst and explore how playwrights and ensembles can collaborate.

Directing & Ensemble Creation: A National Field Dialogue
This conversation addresses the lack of professional training and development opportunities for directors in the U.S., particularly directors of color and women, as well as in-depth exchange among ensembles working in multiple aesthetics. What do directors and ensemble artists need to enhance their artistic development and advance aesthetically? What would you want to see in a National Institute for Directing & Ensemble Creation?

Performance Responses
Colleagues will respond to Red Resurrected and Fletcher and Zenobia Save the Circus. Using a “Twin and Opposite” format – artists who shares similar and radically different aesthetics will talk with directors/creators for each piece. Focus for this session is on generating a constructive and critical space for peers to dialogue about intentions, aesthetics, craft, and structure for new work. This facilitated session is open to all Summit Attendees and will create an opportunity for multiple voices to provide feedback about their audience experience.

TRUST: Second Acts in Young Lives
A documentary about Chicago’s Albany Park Theater Project - Nancy Kelly and Kenji Yamamoto
Located in one of America’s most diverse communities, Chicago's Albany Park Theater Project (APTP) is a neighborhood theater project dedicated to helping young people re-imagine on stage their own experiences or those of working-class Chicagoans. Moving, intimate, and celebratory, TRUST follows these teenage actors as they transform through courage, storytelling and community. TRUST is about creativity and the unexpected resources inside people who are often discounted because they are poor, young, or of color.