Stage Door News
Stage Door News
Outside the March is seeking submissions from playwrights and creators across the country interested in working with the company to develop original, large-scale immersive experiences. OtM will fund the development of three new pieces of immersive theatre through the inaugural FORWARD MARCH program, an initiative that Artistic Director Mitchell Cushman describes as “the incubator of OtM’s future creative identity”.
FORWARD MARCH will provide a $5000 commissioning fee to each of three selected playwrights. Throughout our ‘15/’16 season, each writer will work with the company to create a ‘first draft’ of a new immersive show. Each participating writer will work in close collaboration with a “Co-Conspirator” hired by OtM—an artist who will occupy the role of ‘director/dramaturge’ for these works in development. A design dramaturge will also work closely with each project. The program will culminate in the summer of 2016 with a triple-barrelled public presentation, occurring in three different site-specific locations around Toronto.
“The vision of FORWARD MARCH is to create an environment in which script and production concept are developed symbiotically” describes Cushman, “each enriching and deepening the other.” The program is partially inspired by OtM’s 2014 production of Vitals, the company’s first fully original immersive production—a piece that earned the Dora Award for Outstanding Production for the company, and Outstanding New Play for playwright Rosamund Small. Vitals took place within a residential house in Roncesvalles, with much of the script broadcast live to the audience over audio headsets—a production conceit which grew out of Small’s and Cushman’s two year collaboration in the lead-up to the show.
Building on the success of Vitals, and the company’s track record of creating intricate and epic experiences, OtM is encouraging writers to dream as large as possible in the ideas they submit to FORWARD MARCH, and to think outside the traditional boundaries of what constitutes an evening at the theatre.
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
Interested playwrights/theatre creators, should submit a one-page proposal (seriously, that’s all we’ll have time to read), outlining an idea for a project you would like to develop
with us, and a description of how you envision the project unfolding in an immersive and/or site-specific way. The projects submitted may be grounded in any genre; we are particularly excited to receive applications connected to disciplines we’ve yet to work in (documentary theatre, musical theatre, TYA, puppetry, circus, etc.), as well as pieces which aim to blur the lines between different disciplines.
A few other things to bear in mind:
1.A) Theprojectmustbewhatwecall“site-engaging”:itmusteitherbeconceivedof to be performed in a space other than a theatre, or it must radically unearth new experiential possibilities within a more traditional theatre space.
2.B) The project must be in a very early stage of development (i.e. before a completed first draft).
3.C) The project must be LARGE in its scope of vision. Each application will supply their own definition of what LARGE means to them: large in the ideas the project tackles, large in its envisioned running length, large in its cast size, large in its imagined location and/or scenic design etc.
and, importantly,
D) The proposal must be submitted anonymously; from a temporary email account the applicant creates specifically for this purpose. Applicants are to include no bio, CV, or any personal information about themselves or their career. It is important to us that artists of all levels of experience have an equal opportunity to shine through the strength of their ideas, rather than their resumes.
*For the ease of the jury’s deliberation, we encourage applicants to create a pseudonym to accompany their application—the more fun you have coming up with this, the better!
All applications will be reviewed by a selection committee compromised of OtM’s core artistic team: Mitchell Cushman, Amy Keating, Katherine Cullen, Sebastien Heins and Ishai Buchbinder. Select applicants will engage in a second stage of conversation with OtM, where further information will be required.
SUBMISSION DEADLINE: Friday October 9th, 5:00pm.
Please submit all applications, and any questions about FORWARD MARCH to OtM’s Literary Manager Katherine Cullen, via email at submissions@outsidethemarch.ca. Please put “FORWARD MARCH” in the subject line.
2015-09-16
Toronto: Outside the March invites applications (due October 9) from creators of large-scale immersive work