Blog
NET/TEN Shareback: Notch Theatre Company & Delta Cultural Center - Reflections on Black 'n da Blues
Notch Theatre Company (New York, NY) and Delta Cultural Center (Helena, AR) partnered on the first residency for Remember2019, an ensemble project created to reflect on and respond to the history of lynching in America. In a series of six artistic residencies over the next six years, Black cultural workers in the Arkansas Delta will create performances around topics of self-determination, memory, and reflection as related to the mass lynching of 1919. Titled Black 'n da Blues, the residency gathered local blues musicians to collect stories and create performance around the question: where’s hope in the Blues?
NET/TEN Winter 2020/21 Remote Connection Mini-Grant Recipients
With obstacles to gathering, NET was able to adapt our NET/TEN travel grants in Spring 2020 and Winter 2020/21 to micro-grants supporting virtual relationship building and artistic exploration among artists sheltering-in-place. Here are our NET/TEN Winter 2020/21 Remote Connection recipients.
NET/TEN Shareback: Community Forum-Beginning to Heal through Connection
On Friday, January 22nd, NET hosted a Community Forum: Beginning to Heal Through Connection. We heard from a group of our Spring 2020 NET/TEN Remote Connection Mini-Grants recipients about the activities they embarked on last year and then opened up the discussion to dialogue with one another.
NET/TEN Remote Connection Winter 20/21 Mini-Grants
Applying the adjustments to the NET/TEN Travel Grant round that we implemented in Spring 2020, NET will offer NET/TEN Winter 2020/21 Remote Connection Mini-Grants
NET Welcomes Patricia Garza as Director of Programs & Engagement!
The Network of Ensemble Theaters (NET) is thrilled to welcome Patricia Garza (they/them) to our staff as Director of Programs & Engagement. They will start their work with us on November 9, and will be based in Los Angeles, California; NET’s operations are fully remote and geographically distributed, with staff members located throughout the country.
Announcing the 2020 Ensemble/Playwright Collaboration Grant
HartBeat Ensemble with playwright Lonnie Carter and Out of Hand Theater with playwright Marcie Rendon Receive Grants - The Playwrights’ Center and Network of Ensemble Theaters Celebrate 10 Years of Partnership By Doubling “Collaboration Grant” Recipients
Announcing the 2019-20 Continuation Grant
Network of Ensemble Theaters (NET) is pleased to award the $10,000 NET/TEN Continuation Grant for 2020 to TeAda Productions (Los Angeles, CA), T-Shirt Theatre (Honolulu, HI), ʻInamona Theatre Company (Honolulu, HI), and Ka Hālau Hanakeaka (Honolulu, HI).
NET/TEN Shareback: Touchstone Theatre and Pregones/PRTT - Five Insights (with one Bonus) Towards a More Effective Cross-Cultural Collaboration
Touchstone Theatre (Bethlehem, PA) and Pregones/Puerto Rican Traveling Theater (Bronx, NY) engaged in a yearlong intercultural and intergenerational exchange centering on strategies for art-centered community engagement. Working in English and Spanish, the project engaged a diverse group of Anglo, Latinx, and other participants in ensemble-based playmaking, leading to a headline performance in the October 4-13 Festival UnBound in Bethlehem, PA.
NET/TEN Shareback: Guardians of the Flame Maroon Society & Deidre CreativeSoul - Experimental Installation as Container for Multiple Voices and Modes of Expression
Storytellers, singers, and musicians from Guardians of the Flame Maroon Society (New Orleans, LA) and poet, playwright, and performer Deidre R. Gantt (Washington, DC) created a performance inspired by 2019 (the 400th year since African slavery began in America), New Orleans' indigenous and Mardi Gras Indian culture, and the experience of being American in different parts of the African diaspora.
NET/TEN Shareback: Ninth Planet and Michael O'Bryan - Community Arts and Public Health: A Report
Ninth Planet (Philadelphia, PA) consulted with cultural strategist and youth advocate Michael O’Bryan (Philadelphia, PA) to design a new model of community responsive programming. Using Homeworld, a performance experience for 3-to-18-month-old babies and their caregivers, they reimagined their work to extend beyond a singular artistic experience and create potential for long-lasting community building opportunities.
Anti-Racism Resources
As the May 2020 uprising in support of black lives has sparked national reckoning on ways white supremacy culture has perpetuated violence in our society and our theaters, we are sharing some of the resources that have been assembled in the field to provoke awareness and action towards justice. These are in no way meant to be comprehensive; more of a few starting points that may be of particular relevance to our community.
NET/TEN Shareback: Sandglass Theater and Linda Parris-Bailey-Close Encounters
Eric Bass of Sandglass Theater (Putney, VT) and Linda Parris-Bailey (Knoxville, TN) shared and learned each other's approaches to writing, dramaturgy, puppetry, and song; they will examine how both artists stand in the moment of passing the legacy of their theaters into younger hands, while continuing to be creators of theater. The resulting project addresses both an exchange of creative practices and the act of leadership succession.
Announcing the 2019-20 NET/TEN Exchange Grant Recipients
NET is pleased to announce the 2019-20 NET/TEN Exchange Grant Recipients!
Artist's Laboratory Theatre (Rogers, AR) and Mateo Ozelotzin (Los Angeles, CA) will exchange theatre devising techniques and other methodology used to generate new work. Both collaborators come from different backgrounds of performance training, and offer each other a myriad of theatre making methods.
NET/TEN Shareback: TAPIT/new works, St. Mary's Care Center, & Verona School District - Sample Lesson Plans
TAPIT/new works (Madison, WI) engaged in a series of theater and movement workshops with St. Mary’s Care Center (Madison, WI) and Verona School District’s 18-21 Year Old Transition Program (Madison, WI) in order to create a multimedia theater work titled Our Stories, Our Process. This process refined and expanded TAPIT/new works’ model for community-based artmaking with social services partnersSt. Mary’s Care Center. The work concluded with a performance featuring an inter-generational cast of participants, including skilled nursing facility residents and youth with disabilities.
NET/TEN Shareback: Swim Pony Performing Arts & Toasterlab - Storytrails Immersive Storytelling Guide
Swim Pony Performing Arts (Philadelphia, PA) collaborated with Toasterlab (North Hollywood, CA), tech specialists in location-triggered performance, to develop Philadelphia Story Trails. Together the companies prototyped a unique mobile app that invokes the experience of immersive theater through a real-time drama delivered to audiences at specific points as they travel along the Philadelphia Circuit Trail system.
NET/TEN Shareback: Albany Park Theater Project & Third Rail Projects - Building an Immersive, Site-specific Production with Youth Ensemble
Albany Park Theater Project (Chicago, IL) partnered with Third Rail Projects (Brooklyn, NY) to continue the exchange of methodologies and collaborative creation process that previously resulted in the 2016 world premiere of Learning Curve. During Summer 2018, APTP and TRP will came together in Chicago for the first stage of devising a new, immersive, site-specific production that was created with and performed by APTP’s youth ensemble.
NET/TEN Shareback: Cleveland Public Theatre - Showing Core Values as a Host
Raymond Bobgan, Executive Artistic Director of Cleveland Public Theatre (Cleveland, OH) visited Mondo Bizarro (New Orleans, LA) to foster a deeper and reciprocal relationship, gain knowledge about Mondo Bizarro’s artistic creation techniques, and lead a week-long workshop. Bobgan was joined by Faye Hargate, CPT’s Director of Community Ensembles and a member of the Cleveland Core Ensemble (a resident ensemble company at CPT).
NET/TEN Shareback: Under the Table - Hosting a Fruitful Work-In-Progress Showing
Under the Table (Brooklyn, NY/Oakland, CA) traveled to the University of Idaho (Moscow, ID) to work with Professor Matt Foss on a new physical comedy inspired by heists, both real-life and fictional. Foss shared his expertise in creating simple yet innovative visual moments and worlds.
