“Building on Arena’s legacy of inquiry intrinsic to the theatre since its founding; our record of success with new work; the expertise of current staff and programs and the expanded capacity of our new home, the Institute is a logical next step in the evolution of one of the first resident professional theatres in the U.S.,” said Arena Stage Artistic Director Molly Smith. “The Institute’s programs will test promising advances around the country, with the intention of developing the infrastructure for new plays and new voices nationwide. For more than two years Associate Artistic Director David Dower and I have laid the groundwork for this Institute, and now with the support from the Mellon Foundation, we are ready to build.”

“The ideas for the Institute started percolating while I was traveling the country to explore the infrastructure for new play development on a grant from the Mellon Foundation in 2006,” said Dower. “They became central to the conversations with Molly that brought me to Arena three years ago. So, it’s both exciting and daunting to have launched. It feels so right that Arena Stage would take on this work and its presence in our new building will keep the Mead Center jumping as a true center for American theatre. I can’t wait for people to experience it in full swing!”

The Institute will be under the leadership of Smith, guided by Dower and will work in partnership with Georgetown University’s Theater Department, led by Dr. Derek Goldman.

“We have been privileged over the past three years to see our unique partnership with Arena Stage blossom,” said Goldman. “With the establishment of the Institute, we look forward to ever richer opportunities for students, artists and the wider community.”

When Arena opens their new Mead Center next year, it will include the Arlene and Robert Kogod Cradle. Designed to be a birthplace for American plays, the Kogod Cradle will be a 203-seat, technically sophisticated theatre designed to mount plays in their first, second and third full productions; to host readings and workshops.

Addressing the challenges of developing new plays in America, the Institute is intended to be a full-spectrum laboratory for testing and disseminating promising advances in the field; an incubator for practices, programs, and processes; a place of convening for new play leaders and a centralized hub for information and activity in the new play sector. Arena intends to use the Kogod Cradle’s capacity to develop and produce new plays thereby living up to the name of its new home as “The Center for American Theatre.”

The American Voices New Play Institute will begin operation with a suite of interrelated programs, each of which will be built upon innovative models currently operating in the field that demonstrate potential for replication in other communities. 

Playwright Residencies
According to a stated belief that “the presence of artists in an organization’s daily life is a source of renewable energy as well as a moral compass for the company,” the Institute will host three-year residencies for three playwrights—one senior, one mid-career and one local—to write and develop new plays. The Institute will provide each playwright a living wage with benefits for the practice of writing plays. The Resident Playwrights will engage with Georgetown University’s Theater Program as guest lecturers and workshop leaders, attend Arena artistic staff meetings and participate in Institute convenings and other Arena activities that draw their interest.

The Institute intends for the Residencies to advance professional outcomes for the participating writers as well as to help test and develop best practices for such residencies in theatres around the country. Arena will refine the Residency model through consultation with existing residency programs and resident playwrights around the country. Ultimately, the Institute will be attempting to make the case for the power, practicality and impact of resident playwrights in regional theatres nationwide.

The first Resident Playwright will be D.C. native Karen Zacarías. Some of her plays include Legacy of Light, The Book Club Play, Mariela in the Desert, the adaptation of How the García Girls Lost Their Accents and The Sins of Sor Juana.

”I feel lucky and amazed to have been selected as the inaugural Resident Playwright within the Institute, and I cannot wait to start working right away,” said Zacarías.

New Works Producing Fellowships
The Fellowships will expand the scope of Arena’s ongoing Allen Lee Hughes Fellowship program, which trains future leaders for careers in the professional theatre. The New Works Producing Fellowships will immerse budding artistic producers in the best practices of creating, resourcing and managing a new play’s development path from first impulse through production. Each year the Institute will accept three Fellows, to produce the development processes of the Resident Playwrights and support the producing of the Institute’s public programs.

These one-year Fellowships will be designed with the consultation of the leadership at Foundry Theatre in New York City. The New Works Producing Fellowships will not only provide professional development opportunities, but will also enhance the capacity of the field to effectively support the process of new plays from idea through premiere and beyond.

Theater 101 Audience Enrichment Seminar
The Institute will produce an extended seminar each year for audiences interested in deepening their understanding of the process of new play development. Built around the annual showcase of plays in progress produced by the Institute Fellows, Theater 101 participants will have full access to the entire process; including selection, the Showcase planning period, the casting process, the design process, the rehearsal process and the eventual presentations.

Modeled on the Steppenwolf Theatre Company program, First Look 101, the Seminar is designed to develop a deeper understanding of the play development process among audience members in hopes of creating ambassadors for new work and a more engaged audience for the resident playwrights and new plays at Arena Stage.

Each Theater 101 Seminar will be limited to 100 participants who will be drawn from interested Arena patrons and area college students to create an intergenerational community of new play advocates.

NEA New Play Development Program (NPDP)
The Institute will house the ongoing National Endowment of the Arts (NEA)’s New Play Development Program hosted by Arena Stage, featuring the NEA Outstanding New American Play and Distinguished New American Play projects. The NPDP manages the panel process of selecting each round of honorees; produces a culminating festival of the honorees’ works-in-process; documents the progress and outcomes of these new plays and aggregates the various development paths pursued by the projects. For more information visit http://npdp.arenastage.org

In addition to these four major programs, the American Voices New Play Institute will host national new work showcases; hold new play development convenings and symposia and establish a “wisdom bank,” an extensive web-based clearinghouse of information and multimedia relevant to understanding the new play infrastructure in America.

The Institute’s programs address a significant gap in the national new play development infrastructure. While there are many promising and productive practices scattered around the field that could help strengthen the overall ecology for new plays and playwrights, there is no central focus for advancing the sector as a whole. Promising innovations remain locked inside their originating context, with no way to test their capacity for successful replication around the field.

The Institute will be informed by the work that has already been done to chart the landscape for new plays and will work to document and disseminate ongoing dialogue from around the field in hopes of creating a centralized hub in service of new play development. With the $1.1 million provided by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the American Voices New Play Institute has become reality and will have a home within Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater.

For more information about the Arena Stage and all their programs, please visit www.arenastage.org .

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