The Planning Stages

Image from Trak.in

Before I delve into this week's post, I just wanted to thank everyone who graciously provided me with feedback on last week's entry. I'm truly grateful for the time everyone took to jot down their ideas and look forward to creating this blog along with your help. Just like there's no "i' in team, there's no "i" in blog so please keep your suggestions coming! Feel free to post your comments below or send them to me directly (carlenne@gmail.com). Thanks in advance!

Now, on to the topic at hand. Some of you may have noticed that Native Voices is oddly quiet during this time of year. Why, it was just last month that we were seen at San Diego State University, La Jolla Playhouse, and the Autry National Center for our 2010 Festival of New Plays. Since then, there haven't been any posts about our plays, no contests for free tickets, not even a peep about an artist we're working with. Well, that's because at the end of every season, Native Voices likes to take a step back from our work to examine our successes, areas we can improve in, and strategies we'd like to adopt for the upcoming year. As Artistic Director Randy Reinholz puts it:

"Our goal remains clear - we want to serve the writers and collaborative artists in the process of developing new work - to that end we always review our processes at Native Voices looking for ways to be inclusive, clear, generous and evaluative of our process, and the new play development across the country."

To that end, July and August have been designated as Native Voices' planning months. We've spent the last few weeks discussing the company's mission and philosophy and have been thinking of new ways to increase our efficiency and effectiveness. In fact, the genesis of last week's post arose from those very conversations. Not only do we have a new look to our blog but we're also analyzing our website and social networks to ensure we're using each outlet effectively. We know you don't want to be bombarded with sales pitches at every turn so we're figuring out better ways to disseminate that information to you. We've also re-written our Call for Scripts to include a more detailed description of what our selected playwrights have to look forward to in regards to developmental opportunities and personnel support and have had numerous discussions regarding our play selection process.

 I'm also very pleased to announce that we've confirmed the chair of our 2011 National Reading Panel, Julie Jensen, who recently served as a dramaturg during our Festival of New Plays.

We have a lot of exciting activity planned for our 2010-2011 Season including a development 

production of The Frybread Queen by Carolyn Dunn at Montana Repertory Theatre as well as two public presentations of the play during the American Indian Arts Marketplace at the Autry all leading to its Equity production in the spring of next year. We'll also feature Diane Glancy's new play, The Bird House, this fall for our First Look Series and will be selecting the plays for our 2011 Playwrights Retreat and Festival of New Plays at the end of the year.

Needless to say, more information about each of these events will be posted as the date of their presentations near. If you have something specific you want to hear about or have a particular question you'd like to ask one of our artists, please let me know and I'd be more than happy to oblige. Remember, we're building this blog together, so I need all the help you can possibly provide!

Our next post will be in two weeks - hopefully I'll have more info about the Montana Rep production of Frybread Queen to share with you. If not, perhaps I can wrangle a frybread recipe out of Carolyn to post on here. ;-D

Till then!