LITERARY MANAGERS AND DRAMATURGS OF THE AMERICAS

ANNOUNCES 2017 BLY CREATIVE CAPACITY GRANT RECIPIENTS

 

The Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas (LMDA) is pleased to announce the 2017 recipients of Bly Fellowships and Grants. “In the fourth year of this boundary-expanding grant program, applicants proposed nearly $250,000 in dramaturgical projects. I remain deeply inspired by the range of exciting proposals received from across Canada, the United States, and Central America,” said LMDA President Ken Cerniglia. 

The Bly Creative Capacity Grant awards are funded by LMDA Lessing Award winner and former Board Chair Mark Bly, who pledged the organization $100,000 to support artists as they explore and expand the boundaries of dramaturgy in the Americas. “At a time when on our Continent, especially in the United States, there is an urgent need for boundaries and walls visible and invisible to be challenged, diverse communities to be connected, we are pleased to support several Dramaturgs in their desire to explore the role artists and theatre makers can play in advancing justice in the face of widespread cultural and economic inequality and exploitation,” said Mark Bly. 

LMDA Bly Grants and Fellowship for 2018 have been awarded to: 

 

mia susan amir – Vancouver
Unsettling Dramaturgy: Crip and Indigenous Process Design in the Studio, on the Stage, and in the Street
Unsettling Dramaturgy is a research colloquium bringing together Crip (mad, d/Deaf, sick and disabled) and Indigenous dramaturgs and theatre makers from across the Americas, for a year of collaborative programming, starting spring 2018. This project considers the studio, the stage, and the street as porous and interconnected politicized spaces, where urgent critique can occur, and visionary futures can be imagined, practiced, enacted, and then disseminated to/co-created with a wider public.
– LMDA Bly Grant $7,500

 

Amy Brooks / Roadside Theater – Kentucky

Theater Building Community

Institutional dramaturgs from three Appalachian cultural centers of civic engagement will partner with the digital design cooperative CoLab to create a web-based organizing site to catalyze and support the development of community-based plays. This dramaturg-curated website will connect theater artists and cultural organizations with each other, with humanities and social science programs in higher education, and with other institutions exploring the role theater plays advancing justice in communities with histories of cultural and economic exploitation.

– LMDA Bly Grant $5,000

 

Haley Nelson / Kitchen Dog Theater – Dallas
Integrated Dramaturgy
Kitchen Dog believes that theater should look and feel like the community we serve and that our audience should reflect the diversity of Dallas. Yet, our audience demographics have yet to be meaningfully impacted. Through our “integrated dramaturgy” initiative we aim to meaningfully connect to communities whose stories are in the plays we present and begin to see them as active participants in our audiences.  We also strive to create positive change in Dallas by sharing our project results with our local sister theaters.
– LMDA Bly Fellowship $7,500

 

Rose Oser / Z Space – San Francisco
Problematic Play Festival
What makes a play too "problematic" to produce? The Problematic Play Festival, to premiere in fall 2018 at Z Space, will generate conversation about the play selection processes and the topics that are “off the table.” Through an open submission process, the panel will seek out playwrights who are willing to discuss, stage, and confront their "problematic" work, providing a space for in-depth, critical, facilitated conversation between artists and audiences.  

– LMDA Bly Fellowship $3,000

 

Hannah Hessel Ratner / The Welders – Washington DC
Dramaturg as Creator
The Welders playwrights’ collective allows each member artist an opportunity to bring their creative vision to fruition as the “Lead Producing Playwright.” In taking on that title to build their 2018 production In This Hope, Hannah Hessel Ratner will examine what it means to be a dramaturg at the creative helm of a production.
– LMDA Bly Fellowship $3,000

 

Mark Bly was among the founding members of LMDA, and served as the Chair of its Board of Directors from 2000-2006. Over the past 40 years, he has served as a Dramaturg, Director of New Play Development and Associate Artistic Director at such theatres as the Arena Stage, The Acting Company, Alley Theatre, Guthrie Theatre, Seattle Rep, Tectonic Theatre Project, Yale Rep, and on Broadway. He is the editor of Production Notebooks: Theatre in Process: Volumes I & II (TCG, 1996, 2001). In 2010 Bly received the Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas G. E. Lessing Career Achievement Award, only the fourth time the award had been bestowed in the organization’s history. For Bly’s full bio, click here.

The Bly Grant adjudication committee: Mark Bly; LMDA President Ken Cerniglia; LMDA Board Member Liz Engelman; playwright/dramaturg Jacqueline Lawton; playwright/director/dramaturg Yvette Nolan; LMDA Board Chair, Brian Quirt.

 

Full Project Descriptions:

mia susan amir – Unsettling Dramaturgy: Crip and Indigenous Process Design in the Studio, on the Stage, and in the Street
Unsettling Dramaturgy is a research colloquium bringing together Crip (mad, d/Deaf, sick and disabled) and Indigenous dramaturgs and theatre makers from across the Americas, for a year of collaborative programming, starting spring 2018. This project considers the studio, the stage, and the street as porous and interconnected politicized spaces, where urgent critique can occur, and visionary futures can be imagined, practiced, enacted, and then disseminated to/co-created with a wider public.

This project proposes that it has never been more urgent within the North American theatre ecology to amplify work and process design grounded in the narratives, bodies, practices, and dissent of communities confronting increasing risk in light of the current political climate. This project aims to promote greater leadership from within our communities by providing a critical platform for those engaged in Crip and Indigenous dramaturgy to centre our ethics, aesthetics, questions and practices. This project aims to move the conversation from “inclusion,” to centering, from “reconciliation” to unsettling and decolonization within the mainstream theatre community. This project will also forge active alliances with grassroots movements to explore the intersections and applications of dramaturgical process design outside of conventional theatre practice.

mia susan amir is an educator, cultural organizer, writer, director, dramaturg and theatre artist creating immersive, interdisciplinary works. Born in Israel/Occupied Palestine, mia lives on the unceded and occupied territories of the x?m?θkw?y??m (Musqueam), Skwxwu?7mesh (Squamish), and S?l?i?lw?ta?/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. mia is the Creative Director of The Story We Be, a Dramaturgy Research Associate with PTC, and a Dramaturg with the Virago Play Series. mia teaches Creative Writing in Extended Learning at UBC. In her creative practice, mia explores the ways in which sociopolitical events are manifest intergenerationally in the space of the individual and collective body. Her hybrid practice engages juxtaposition as a critical strategy to bring breath to the unnamed, or ineffable.

 

Amy Brooks / Roadside Theater – Theater Building Community
Institutional dramaturgs from three Appalachian community centers of cultural power – Amy Brooks of Appalshop’s Roadside Theater, Ben Fink of Appalshop’s Letcher County Culture Hub, and Bob Leonard of Virginia Tech‘s VTArtWorks Initiative – will partner with the digital design cooperative CoLab to create a web-based organizing site to catalyze and support the development of community-based plays. This dramaturg-curated website will connect theater artists and cultural organizations with each other, with humanities and social science programs in higher education, and with other institutions exploring the role theater plays advancing justice in communities with histories of cultural and economic exploitation.

Central to the platform’s development – as well as to Brooks’s work as a 5th-generation Appalachian exploring how community-based arts can foster democratic civic engagement – will be the investigation and sharing of new knowledge about three related challenges:

• How can ensemble play creation and presentation build an artist-activist space for sustainable, inclusive community development which intentionally breaches lines of race, place, class, gender, ability, and sexuality?
• How can dramaturgs effectively organize other theater artists to help communities tap their rich cultural assets for equitable development?
• How can performing artists and arts organizations work with colleges and community organizations across sectors to advance community well-being?

Amy Brooks, Program Director and Dramaturg for Roadside Theater, holds a BFA in acting from West Virginia University and an MFA in dramaturgy from UMass Amherst, where she co-founded and produced the first two seasons of the UMass New Play Lab. She is the former Humanities Director of the Contemporary American Theater Festival and the co-creator and moderator of Rural Arts Weekly, a Twitter forum for policy and practice in rural creative placemaking. Amy received the 2016 LMDA Residency Program Grant for her work with Roadside, where she explores the intersection of dramatic and public narratives in intercultural rural-urban performance.

 

Haley Nelson / Kitchen Dog Theater – Integrated Dramaturgy
Now in its 27th season, Kitchen Dog Theater has a proven reputation for presenting challenging, provocative, and diverse plays. We are firm believers that theater should look and feel like the community we serve and that our audience should reflect the diversity of Dallas. Despite this commitment, our audience demographics have yet to be meaningfully impacted. Frustrated by these results and driven by a desire to do better, we, alongside dramaturg Haley Nelson, came to this idea of “integrated dramaturgy”.

We define the objectives of integrated dramaturgy as:
1) Using textual dramaturgical practice to identify the communities represented on our stage;
2) Using civic dramaturgy to identify parallel groups in our own community with goals of:
   a) enhancing the specificity and accuracy of our on-stage representations;
   b) eliminate any barriers (real and/or perceived) to audience participation for these       communities;
3) Developing/generating new programs in response to civic dramaturgy data collection;
4) Integrating/interfacing with audiences through thoughtful/innovative engagement.

Through this method, we hope to meaningfully connect to these communities whose stories are in the plays we present and begin to see them as active participants in our audiences.  We also strive to create positive change in Dallas by sharing our project results with our local sister theaters.

Haley Nelson is a Dallas-based dramaturg, producer, and playwright. Her dramaturgical home is Kitchen Dog Theater, where she is New Works Festival Co-Coordinator and Lobby Display Dramaturg. She was Literary Associate for Dallas Theater Center’s inaugural New Play Week, and is the dramaturg for their commission from playwright Kenny Finkle. She is also the dramaturg for Artstillery’s Dirty Turk, a devised, multimedia, site-specific piece premiering later this year. As a producer, Haley seeks to amplify women’s voices, and the incredible grassroots theatres in Dallas. Her playwriting has been produced at the Dallas Museum of Art, and several local theatre festivals.

Rose Oser / Z Space – The Problematic Play Festival
Literary managers, dramaturgs, and artistic directors often carry the responsibility of deciding which stories are worth telling. If we, the gatekeepers, dismiss plays that are too “problematic” by certain standards, what kinds of conversations are we stifling? What work is slipping through the cracks? Can theater, as a direct and confrontational form, provide a platform to analyze the “problematic”? The Problematic Play Festival, to premiere in fall 2018 at Z Space, will force us into conversation about the play selection process and the topics that are “off the table.” Through an open submission process, we will find playwrights who are willing to discuss, stage, and confront their “problematic” work, providing a space for in-depth, critical, facilitated conversation between artists and audiences.  

Rose Oser is the Literary & Grants Manager of Z Space and the Co-Artistic Director of FaultLine Theater. She has developed, directed, and/or produced new work by Andrew Saito, Karina Cochran, Nayia Kuvetakis, Barry Eitel, Dan Giles, Luna Malbroux, and Jake Jeppson, among others. She produces and hosts Tinder Disrupt, FaultLine's monthly dating show that invites performers to make PowerPoint presentations to pitch their single friends like a tech product. Prior to Z Space, she was the grant writer at A.C.T. She holds a B.A. in Rhetoric from U.C. Berkeley.

 

Hannah Hessel Ratner / The Welders – Dramaturg as Creator
The Welders playwrights’ collective allows each member artist an opportunity to bring their creative vision to fruition as the “Lead Producing Playwright.” In taking on that title to build In This Hope I’m interested in exploring what it means to be a dramaturg at the creative helm of a production. I’m not a dramaturg taking on the role of a playwright, rather I’m a dramaturg-creator. I am learning my process is one of questioning: it is highly collaborative and focused on bringing the audience into the story.

At the core of the project is Shakespeare’s Pericles. The play is haphazard, yet filled with moments of breathtaking language. Just as Shakespeare stacked history, political and personal stories, I intend to do the same. With a team of artists a variety a backgrounds, many of which are underrepresented on the stage, I will lead the creation of a highly theatrical, norm-challenging epic storytelling experience that questions the Godlike vision of the Bard, our patriarchal systems of culture and audiences’ expectations. In This Hope asks a contemporary audience to reflect and dialogue about how our own stories might overlap with those of our neighbors.

Hannah Hessel Ratner is in her seventh year as the Audience Enrichment Manager at the Shakespeare Theatre Company. She is a Producing Playwright for The Welders, a DC-based playwright’s collective. She has served as a production dramaturg at the Source Festival, Olney Theatre Center, and Forum Theatre where she has been an ensemble member for over a decade. For three years she ran the Project Gym, a center for creative development. For five years she served as the Literary Director at Theater J. A graduate of Sarah Lawrence College, she holds an MFA in dramaturgy from Columbia University.