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Three theater companies are selected to take part in Round 4 of the Innovation Lab for the Performing Arts
Jun-16-10
June 16, 2010—Denver Center Theatre Company, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company and The Wooster Group have been selected to participate in Round 4 of the Innovation Lab for the Performing Arts, an intensive training and immersion program that supports prototyping of innovations at nonprofit theater, dance, jazz and presenting organizations. Designed and managed by EmcArts, the Innovation Lab is funded by a generous $1.6 million grant from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation (DDCF). Since launching in 2008, 12 organizations from across the country have taken part in the program. EmcArts will deliver three Rounds (4-6) of the program to 11 participating organizations from across the country in 2010 and 2011.
Ben Cameron, Program Director for the Arts at DDCF, said: “In Round 4, the Lab selection panel has chosen what promises to be an exciting cohort of three theaters that are all looking to question and explore their connections to audiences internally and externally. As performing arts organizations contemplate the opportunities and challenges presented by this new era of participation and audience engagement, The Doris Duke Foundation is pleased to support EmcArts’ Innovation Lab for the Performing Arts because it offers a unique framework for exploration and experimentation with potential for impact on the field as a whole.”
Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company is marking its 30th season of innovative and challenging new plays, presented in Washington, D.C. Recognized as a national leader in the development of new plays, Woolly Mammoth’s mission is also highly focused on building access for its local audiences. Recently, the Company moved into its first permanent home, a $9.5 million facility located just steps from the National Mall. With the move into the space came questions about how to maintain its commitment to audience outreach, alongside new and experimental theater work, while also sustaining itself financially and artistically. Through the Lab, Woolly Mammoth aims to establish a new internal “connectivity” that will bring together disparate activities across the organization and channel them to build new relationships to audiences and community members.
The Wooster Group, founded in 1976, is among the country’s most distinctive producers of experimental theater, dance, film and video. Based in New York City, the company is a small ensemble of performers, artists, technicians, and administrators, producing and presenting its work in New York and on tour internationally. After 35 years of theater making and numerous awards for its productions and artists, The Wooster Group faces a dilemma: how to get bigger while also staying small. The Group wants to preserve the highly unique, intimate character of its productions and the company, while also working to attract a bigger and more diverse audience. Through the Lab, the Group will explore how to thoughtfully employ online technology to bring its productions to larger audiences, incorporating platforms for co-creation of experimental performance and online distribution.
Recognized as the leading nonprofit provider of innovation services to the arts sector nationwide, EmcArts (www.EmcArts.org) serves as an intermediary for arts funders, and as a re-granting agency and service organization for the arts field around innovation. Our innovation programs support the development and implementation of mission-centered new strategies by arts organizations of all sizes. The programs range from directly incubating specific innovation projects to introductory programs that enable new thinking and build a culture of innovation across local arts communities. EmcArts is a 501(c)(3) organization.
About DDCF
The mission of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation (www.ddcf.org) is to improve the quality of people’s lives through grants supporting the performing arts, environmental conservation, medical research, and the prevention of child maltreatment, and through preservation of the cultural and environmental legacy of Doris Duke’s properties.
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