photo by Fred Hayes
Here is the fourth in a series of interviews devoted to people involved in the new play development sector. On Deck: Philip Himberg, Producing Artistic Director of the Sundance Institute Theatre Program. Previous interviews include: Polly Carl, Todd London, Wendy C. Goldberg.
Vijay Mathew : What is the Sundance Institute Theater Program's role in the new play development field?
Philip Himberg : I would say that we have a few roles to play. One is in identification of new artists, mostly playwrights but it can also include other artists who are making theater in a different way than from text: composers, directors, choreographers, solo performance artists. Our goal is to identify new emerging talent in the new arena. And in addition to identifying the people, we also identify the work, their projects that warrant serious support. The second piece is providing support, which is figuring out with the artist how we can tailor a kind of process by which they can continue to do their work without commercial pressures in an atmosphere that's most conducive to their exploring their work, taking chances and risks with their work so that they can focus on the art, and on the creation of the new project without distraction. Sundance is really good at taking people away from complicated everyday life into a place where they can breathe and be fed and be housed and give them a kind of freedom from everyday distraction. And just as important, supplying for them a group of mentors or advisers whom they can use to bounce their ideas off of - a kind of feedback mechanism. We call that group our creative advisers. So the first role of Sundance is identification and support, people and projects. Since we don't produce the work, we have no connection to the work in any way, shape or form in the least at Sundance, so we can do this fairly purely. We don't have an agenda, we don't have points in the projects or fees attached when it gets produced - its fairly altruistic. So it's really just about the best work. By the same token, we don't confine ourselves to just younger artists. We know that as with younger artists, mature artists always need a place to work. So we also count as one of our tasks to identify those mid-career or established artists who also need their work supported. And because we support emerging and established artists, the second thing that's important to us is creating a community. This program is always a creative community of artists, both younger and older working together sharing ideas, inspiring each other, providing a kind of forum for conversations, not just about the work that's happening but about the field in general. So I think all those things are what defines us. Our community, our ambition to identify, our goal to support through a cost-free workshop that has no ties to production, and our cadre of advisers that guides the work along.
Vijay Mathew : Why were the Sundance Theater development programs initially instituted? What were the challenges that the programs tried to address?
Philip Himberg : I think that the majority of development programs - certainly when there was more money back in the 70's and 80's - were very often tied to regional theaters, the producing organization. So many of the large regional theaters and even mid-sized ones had programs and budgets for workshops for developmental programs. But very often, because they were under the watchful eye of the producing aspect of these organizations, there was a different goal. The goal was to get the play produced for a particular audience in a particular community. And what Sundance provided - the O'Neill was a model for us because O'Neill came first - was a place where those producing pressures could be taken away. So the work was really about the work. And it even goes that far to say as we may choose work that we don't think necessarily is the best work by a particular artist or work that's going be guaranteed production, but we believe so much in the artist that we think that he or she deserves the opportunity to work on this piece, whether or not it ever finds production. And that wasn't true I think in the model of the regional theaters because they always had an agenda of course, which was to find the work to produce, which by nature has a different goal and can create different kinds of pressures on the artists. So ours is really about the work. I think that's one of the reasons why it was created. I think the other one was that, Redford when he created the Sundance Institute, being a man of the theater initially before he went into films, had a really strong belief that there were commercial Hollywood pressures on filmmakers and they weren't allowed necessarily to find their own voice. That was also true in theater. We believe it banned independent theater thinkers from which the culture could actually benefit if they were allowed to create work that was a real reflection of their ideas. So that's how it came about philosophically.
Vijay Mathew : What is the development process for the projects that are selected for the summer Theater Lab? How are they custom designed?
Philip Himberg : They are custom designed, but within a particular framework. For example, if an artist comes and says, you know what I really need is an audience of my peers or I need an objective audience to be coming in every 3 days to observe me doing an improv, like Josh Kornbluth did when he was at Sundance, we would then create a structure for that. Or if there is a need for different collaborative artists to enter the process at different times, for example, someone needs a designer to be present for a certain portion of the rehearsal or if someone needs a choreographer, we'd figure out when and how those people weave in and out of the rehearsal process. So we talk about what is attainable realistically for Sundance and then what the tasks are that the writer needs to get there. And we adjust those as we go along. But then there are certain constraints. We have an on and off day rehearsal schedule so that you're with your company every other day and then you have a day off in between to not be in rehearsal but to be doing rewrites or talking to your collaborators or your dramaturgs. We have learned that musical and ensemble work doesn't necessarily want that day off because there's so much music to learn. And in the case of ensembles, they need a kind of shared vocabulary to continuously build upon. It's for those reasons that we created the Theater Lab at White Oak as a place where there isn't a day on and day off, but instead two discrete rehearsals taking place without the sharing of actors like what usually happens at Sundance, so that they can cast the best talent for their particular kind of work. We try to make these plans based on conversations before the lab with what people need in the rehearsal hall. And its all within a certain framework and the fact that the Lab is doing 4 to 8 pieces together at one time.
Vijay Mathew : For the summer theater lab, how did you come to include artists who are not playwrights, where it's not just a focus on playwrights as the primary theater-maker?
Philip Himberg : Only because it became clear to me by looking at the field. I convened a group of theater makers in New York when I came to Sundance in 1996 and also in LA and in Salt Lake. And then later as years went on in other cities like Minneapolis, Chicago, Portland, and Seattle just to find out from the field how theater's being created. And it became clear that although the basis of much work is the writer and remains to be the writer as the impulse for work, there were other people creating works in other ways. For example someone like Lee Breuer who was reconstructing A Doll's House in a fairly radical way. He's not a playwright per se but a director, that's an example of creating work that's not text based and not on new text. And so I wanted to make sure that there was room for people like that. Or Steven Dillane who was reconstructing Macbeth as a one person performance piece. So I wanted to honor those theater artists that were not playwrights with a capital P. And I felt that the theater labs should always reflect what was happening in the field. So that's how that came about. Having said that, I would say that the vast majority of the work is still probably playwright centered.
Vijay Mathew : The playwright retreat at Ucross is exclusively for playwrights. How is this structured differently than the Summer Theater Lab?
Philip Himberg : It's completely different. There are no actors. It's really a model that's not unlike the MacDowell colony or Yaddo, those kind of writers colonies. The writers come out, and there are playwrights although there's always one or two composers in the works as well and they get a different kind of studio, and they come out for 18 days and just sort of hole up and write. They come together for meals and dinners and we provide a dramaturg and advisor during the part of the retreat so that if there's work that's generated that the writer wants feedback on, they can solicit that from a Sundance staff member. And that came about because people were applying to the lab or calling me with proposals to the lab for work that had not yet been created. And I felt that it was too early for us to be committing actors and a lot of budget to a work that hadn't been written. So we created Ucross so that there'd be a kind of early stage support at Sundance. And it was never really intended to be a first stage for work that would then go on to the theater lab. But it has become that a little bit. I would say about a dozen or so writers over the years have created work at Ucross that later ends up being worked on with actors at the Lab. Light in the Piazza was written at Ucross and then later came to Sundance, as did I Am My Own Life, and Annie Baker's Circle Mirror Transformation and The Good Negro, Tracey Scott Wilson's play. Those were all initially introduced to us when the writers came to Ucross. And then a year or two or three later when they were finished, more finished, they were worked on in the Lab.
Vijay Mathew : What kind of impact or influence is the diverse work that is happening in the Lab having on the field, especially within the producing theaters?
Philip Himberg : Huge. I mean its almost unbelievable. I would say that 85 to 90% of the work that comes out of Sundance ends up being produced within 2 to 3 years. And the vast majority of the work is produced at not for profit institutions or regional theaters. I like to say it's usually true that in any given year if you were in any major American City with a regional theater, there's usually a play being produced that has some relationship to Sundance where the artist was resident in one of our labs. But another way to look at it, even if you look at the commercial sector, the work that's come out of our labs that's ended up on Broadway over the last decade I think has really informed the Broadway landscape. And it's a really good way to look at it. Not that Broadway was our goal, it never is, but the fact the Spring Awakening, Grey Gardens, Well, 33 Variations, I Am My Own Wife all got there is pretty remarkable. Those are plays that we like to think are not typical of what Broadway likes to produce and would be really out of the ordinatry for a Broadway producer to nurture. And yet with the support of Sundance and other places like the Arena and other places - we don't do it alone, that's for damn sure - these pieces have found a life in the commercial sector. And I can't help but believe that they've had an influence what the landscape of that commercial sector is. So that's icing on the cake.
Vijay Mathew : The diversity of work getting out there is really great. That's a great outcome. How else do you evaluate the success of the Programs?
Philip Himberg : Yeah. When I talk to my Board of Directors and try to describe the work, I use these different ways to evaluate it. The most important way to evaluate Sundance is by talking to the artists who've been in the program. And having those conversations of what the program meant to them - how it literally changed the way they worked - is one of the most powerful ways to receive feedback on what we are doing. There's another way which is to look at the slate of regional theater doing new work and looking at what the range of work that Sundance has had its hand in. And then the other way is just to look at Broadway and just mention those 10 titles over the last decade and you get another sense of diversity. So yeah, I think it really plays out when you actually do the homework and evaluate it from different perspectives.
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