New York Theatre Workshop, which is the theatre I chose for my Antigone project and is still proving to catch my interest as a company, has a playwrighting and theatre-making series called Mind the Gap that was created in 2009.
The way it works: for 10 weeks a group of teenagers converse and share stories with people over 60, whom they’ve never met before. Starting off as a larger group, by the end of the program pairs will be formed and writings will be developed based on their partners life. And then read by a professional actor!
What an exciting series! Especially with our discussions revolving around the disappearing or confusing role of the playwright in theatre today. I think this is a really innovative way for theatre artists to become inspired by a completely blank slate. No prior judgement about telling a family story or a friends deepest secret. The way they set it up, you’re stories are being theatrically created through a complete strangers eyes – who will bring their own conceptions and thoughts to what you bring.
I remember last year in playwrighting and adapatation, I struggled to find the right inspiration that would fuel my process along. There’s a sort of healthy distancing in the way the NYTW has set up this workshop series – these plays don’t necessarily become therapeutic but purely artistic. In a world where this line can be easily blurred, this is a great opportunity to create something that is maybe non-existent in your own world.
It also brings up an interesting question about the art of telling stories:
“It’s interesting to see what people focus on, why they tell the stories they do,” Mr. Lewin says. “Who really knows what’s been a defining story in someone’s life? It might have been something small.”
I love this! Why do we feel the need to tell the particular stories we tell? Maybe we need an objective, random, complete stranger to figure out that spark in us. And how does a story build when being feed through the original source to a voice nearly 50 years older than you and then to an unknowing actor and then, hopefully, to an audience of hundreds? Its a really wonderful, innovation and simplistic creation by the NYTW.
