Playwrights and Actors: What is their relationship today?

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The 2007 Lab had a very contemporary focus. It began by asking many questions: "How do playwrights and actors communicate in the creation of new work today?" "Do they communicate directly, or is the director always in between?" "How exactly does the communication between all the collaborators in new play development work today?" "How are the roles defined and what does each role expect in terms of input and feedback?" "Has the 'new play development movement' that is the way many new artists enter the field now in the American theater changed the way young artists collaborate together?" "Is the experience of making theater the same for young artists today as it was for the generation of Mamet, Fornes, Wasserstein, Shepard, or Wilson when they began?" "Are young artists participating in the process with adequate rehearsal time?" "Has this had the effect of changing the playwright-actor relationship?" "As a result of all this, do young writers today understand the actor's process as well as writers did in the past?" "Do directors understand it as well as they would like to?" "Are young theater companies being formed to provide an alternative to the opportunities provided young artists in the institutional theaters?" "Are gifted actors joining these theaters?"

We have been talking a lot about the realities of play development today. As the American theater has professionalized itself over the last 40 years, we have changed from an apprentice system where young theater artists learned their craft by working alongside their more experienced peers. It has been of concern to many of us, how much of the experience of young writers and directors in our theaters has been increasingly limited to readings and workshops with short rehearsal periods, away from the main stages, and how much the models of theater collaboration have been formed in training - not in the theater itself. With the 2007 Lab, we wanted to explore whether the downside of this professionalism is an environment now where everyone is trained to do their job alone and discouraged from loosening the definitions of how they contribute to a collaboration. Can young directors and playwrights learn their craft in a substantive fashion without the opportunities of production? Without using a rehearsal style of their own devising?

The Directors Lab this summer delved into this challenging area to explore the realities of the process of presenting new plays today and the ideals of what that collaborative process can be. How does the process affect the artistry of each of the participants? We investigated how we work today in theaters small and large, in showcases, and commercial situations, and in the making of various kinds of work - writer-driven, music-theater and devised work etc. Specifically, we started with the actor-playwright collaboration in the creation of new work. Are actors marginalized in the creative process today? Are their creative abilities underused? Why are playwrights criticized so much? Why do many directors feel they have to be "in charge" alone?" Are young writers given an opportunity to spend time with actors in a rehearsal process that they have some say over? Are young writers getting to work with really good actors in a way that gives them an insight into the actor's process? How do both playwrights and actors function in the rehearsal room today - how is this different than it was in the past - or might be in the future? Where do young directors fit into all of this?

Our three weeks together attempted to open this dialogue about new play development with rehearsal work. With the help of playwrights and actors' organizations here in the city, young writers, designers, a company of actors working alongside directors, and master artists with experience discussing other alternatives, we hoped to create some models for change and figure out how to get them out into the world.