WHERE TO FIND ME
Thursday
9:00 AM - 12:00 PM The Launch Pad: Activation Fair and Makers Market
As a member of the Steering Committee’s Marketing/Communications Task Force, I will be managing a welcome table with my colleagues. We’ll be there to answer all your Chi Theatre 101s.
2:45 PM - 4:15 PM Opening Plenary: From the Ashes: Provocations on the Future of our Field
Along with 5 intergenerational speakers across the country from varying theatre disciplines, I will present a manifesto for the future of the field.
In November of 2021, as we were coming out of Covid lockdowns, a group of over 100 theatre leaders, artists and changemakers assembled in a TCG-hosted convening in New York City, co-curated with theatre leader and Sundance advisor Jesse Cameron Alick, to engage in deep conversation inspired by Alick’s provocative study, Emerging from the Cave: Reimagining Our Future in Theater and Live Performance. The purpose of that in-person convening was to catalyze fieldwide conversation and action in response to the findings of the study, which distilled interviews with over 70 artists and arts workers about their experiences during the events of 2020, analyzing the impact those events had on the field and offering potential pathways forward.
In this kickoff plenary, nearly three years later, we’ll revisit some of the throughlines of those conversations that continue louder than ever today, and have permeated this year’s conference programming, specifically: labor challenges and pay equity for theatre workers; the new ways of holding leadership and sharing power; the courageous practice of innovating in lean times; and the receding infrastructure of our field’s most significant new work development programs. An intergenerational group of some of the American theatre’s most audacious dreamers will activate our imaginations around these themes, and spark three days of worldbuilding conversations with their provocations on the future of our field.
Friday
4:30 PM - 6:00 PM New Writing Programming and Literary Working Session, with DG and LMDA
In my capacity as VP of Freelance Dramaturgs for the Literary Manager and Dramaturgs of Americans, I will speak on a panel alongside new works colleagues.
Part panel discussion, part engaged brainstorming and idea/resource-sharing amongst attendees: the Dramatists Guild and Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas share space to speak on how integrating new writing development programming can contribute to a theater’s legacy.
This breakout session will offer models, tools, and open dialogue on how we can actively support one another toward a future of robust and diverse new play development methodologies. Dramatists/theatre writers, dramaturgs, and literary managers all play an essential role in the ecosystem of bringing new, dynamic stories to the stage and contributing to breakout theatrical seasons. Yet, the journey of a script from submission to production can be a labor intensive one with many moving parts and infrastructure involved. To some, we’ve heard it expressed as unclear or painstaking altogether. How can we change this? Participants should expect to engage in discussion on what each role might hope from one another, including topics in the new writing pipeline such as submission guidelines, reader/volunteer training, reading rubrics, script feedback, resources, and how we might engage as collaborators in discovering potentiality in existing play development processes.