New Play Workshops

The New Play Workshop series introduces Chautauqua audiences to important new voices in the theatre and to the staged reading as a thrilling theatrical event in its own right. In a uniquely Chautauquan twist, CTC/NPW selects plays that correspond with the Institution's weekly morning lecture theme. All performances are followed by a discussion with the author, director and cast. Be a vital part of the process of developing great new American plays.

CTC will be accepting submissions for its summer 2008 New Play Workshop series in January of 2008.

Each of the six-day workshops rehearse for four days and are performed three times in CTC's 269-seat Bratton Theater. The readings are offered technical support and are cast with a combination of professional actors and CTC's conservatory company (a very talented company of 15 actors ranging from 20 to 30 years old). The playwright is expected to be in residence for the entire week. Round-trip travel, housing, and an honorarium are provided.

At Chautauqua, each week is given a theme around which the Institution's celebrated morning lecture platform series and other daily programming are oriented. The plays selected for the CTC/NPW are chosen to reflect the themes of the week in which they are performed. The theater does not choose the themes -- the Institution does that -- but we are committed to finding plays that will engage with these ideas.

The themes for 2008 are:

Week 3: On Writing - Essayist, author, playwright and television commentator Roger Rosenblatt has lectured nine times from Chautauqua Institution's Amphitheater platform. For this week on writing, Roger will be joined by his friends and fellow authors E.L. Doctorow, Joyce Carol Oates, and Amy Tan, and poet Billy Collins and cartoonist Garry Trudeau.

Week 6: Healing the Globe - In this Global Village, the health of one affects the health of all. In partnership with the Global Health Council, we will examine such twenty-first century challenges as maternal and child health, AIDS, TB, malaria, diseases related to global warming, the consequences of natural disasters, and response mechanisms to famine and pandemics. We will bring to the platform powerful voices who have invested themselves and their resources in this struggle for a healthy world.

For further information on the CTC/NPW, contact the Literary Manager at NPW@CTCompany.org

In 2005, our New Play Workshop series was elevated to a central feature of CTC's summer programming - putting new play development at the core of our mission as a company. In a uniquely Chautauquan twist, CTC looks for new plays that converse with or comment upon the corresponding lecture theme of the week around which Chautauqua's intellectual life is organized. In this way, CTC/NPW introduces Chautauqua to important new voices in the theater, to the staged reading as a thrilling theatrical event in its own right, and to the power of theater, unique among the performing arts, to speak directly and immediately to contemporary issues as well as our common humanity.

• "Coming to Chautauqua was one of the highlights of my summer. It was a chance to work on my play with a group of truly world-class artists but without any of the usual stresses and pressures. The audiences were intelligent and receptive and the setting - from the sparkling lake to the gorgeous old theater with its high wooden ceiling - was an inspiration. I am going to hurry up and write another play so they'll let me come back."
  ----- Kate Fodor, 100 Saints You Should Know (NPW '06)
  
  "I came to Chautauqua with a still straggly, up-to-the-last-minute draft of a play…and was welcomed by an organized and enthusiastic staff; a talented bunch of actors; and a dedicated, perceptive director…. Chautauqua provided a profoundly valuable step in the growth of my play, and I sure did have a nice time sitting by the lake as the sun set, too." ----- Rinne Groff, What Then (NPW '05)
  

Past workshops have included Quincy Long's Aux Cops (in the week centered on "Applied Ethics: The Obligations of Citizenship"), Kate Fodor's 100 Saints You Should Know ("Belief in America"), Rinne Groff's What Then ("The Land and Justice") and David Zellnik's Ariel Sharon Stands at the Temple Mount and Dreams of Theodore Herzl ("Europe Today and Tomorrow").