DG National Report: Houston by William Duell
Most Houston dramatists know that in 2014-15, the Alley spent $46 million renovating its building, focusing much of this effort on the Hubbard Theatre, the backstage areas and the public spaces. The results are breathtaking, and beautiful. The redesigned Meredith and Cornelia Long Lobby is brighter, feels much loftier and gives me the sense when I walk through it of wanting to hold my head high, as if in a vaulted church. The Hubbard Theatre stage is much larger than before. It commands your attention and, because of this, the theatre actually has a more intimate feel.
The Alley set up an Extended Engagement Capital Campaign and through it received the requisite private and public contributions to fund the renovations. What Houston dramatists may not know is that Artistic Director Gregory Boyd decided to include as part of the campaign an Artistic Enhancement Fund to develop new work year-round, and to kick off this Alley All New initiative as soon as the building re-opened. The Alley has reopened and, as I write this, the inaugural Alley All New Festival, a presentation of workshops and readings of new plays and musicals in process, has just completed.
I talked to Elizabeth Frankel, Director of New Work, and Skyler Gray, Literary Manager, about the fest just a few days after it completed. Liz came to the Alley from the Public Theater where she worked as literary manager, leading the literary department and the Emerging Writers Group. One of her first tasks as director was to hire Skyler, who had worked most recently at William Morris Endeavor in New York. Both are thrilled to be able to create a comprehensive new works program, of which the festival is a part, at one of the oldest, most respected theatres in the country.
“The Alley All New Festival is an exciting intersection of artists, industry professionals and local audience members coming together to celebrate the development of new work,” Skyler told me. “This year’s Festival was a fantastic kick-off to our new play initiative and is the first of many exciting things to come.”
They explained that three plays received one or more readings: Cleo by Lawrence Wright; The Harassment of Iris Malloy by Zak Berkman; and Songs from Ms. Mannerly (score by Michael Moricz, lyrics by Jack Murphy). Three plays received three or more workshops: Miller, Mississippi by Boo Killebrew; Roz and Ray by Karen Hartman; and Syncing Ink by NSangou Njikam. You can imagine how excited the playwrights were. Zak Berkman wrote about festivals in general and the Alley All New in particular, “you feel at the center of a creative exchange that is empowering and rejuvenating…I have never been to Google or visited the campus of a Silicon start-up, but I fantasize this is what it’s like for those employees every day: one idea ricochets off another idea until there is a whole new molecular entity that could have only been discovered in such an interactive setting.”
“We’re focusing on great writers, nationally and internationally, not just well known names. This includes Texas writers, too, of course,” Liz added, “Lawrence Wright from Austin was one of the six in this inaugural fest. And we’ve opened the submission process to Texas writers who don’t have an agent.”
They are not stopping there—Alley All New is a year-round initiative. The Alley will now commission more writers and engage in new play development activities on an ongoing basis. Upcoming seasons will have more world premiere productions, in addition to the Alley All New Festival.
The Alley will continue to produce reinvigorated classics and regional premieres, as well. Fans of new work will be happy to learn that as of this publication date they can buy tickets to The Christians by Lucas Hnath and The Nether by Jennifer Haley. Also, check out Remote Houston, an interactive theatre experience and the result of the Alley’s collaboration with the University of Houston Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts and Rimini Protokoll, a group of German and Swiss artists sometimes credited with being the inventor of the newest wave of documentary theatre. If you want to attend Remote Houston, wear your walking shoes – it starts out at Evergreen Cemetery.
Actor Kevin Mambo as Banga and Kara Young as Sweet Tea in the workshop performance of NSangou Njikam’s Syncing Ink at the Alley All New Festival; photo credit – Peter Yenne
wduell@dramatistsguild.com
