How do I approach New Georges? I want to get involved!
We’re looking for artists with whom we might have an affinity, artists we think we might like to invest in for the long term. We support intriguing artists by building relationships with them and seeing what projects emerge through those relationships. We begin those relationships with an invitation to become an affiliated artist of New Georges.
When we read play submissions, for example, we’re not reading cause we’re in the market for plays to produce this season, or next. We read to find idiosyncratic or poetic or otherwise singular voices, sparks of ingenuity or vision… something that makes us want to meet you, which is often the next step. So don’t wait till your fourth or twelfth or most perfect play, and oh, please don’t wait till you've got something about women or otherwise woman-ish (see opportunity, not content, under “New Georges Close Up”) -- send us your work now! If you’re a director or other generative artist, send us your resume! Get on our radar! Help us get to know you! Cause we work with people we’ve gotten to know.
Then what?
There’s a lot more to New Georges than production, and a whole bunch of ways that we support artists and their work.
If we start by looking for artists, then really the most significant decisions we make are about which artists to invest in – in a sense, we’re curating artists rather than individual works. Which is why for many of our play and artist development programs we invite submissions from affiliated artists only. Our more than 150 affiliated artists – playwrights, directors, designers and actors -- work in a variety of aesthetic modes.
Most of our programs for affiliated artists take place in The Room, New Georges’ workspace. They support plays and playwrights by helping to develop the play on the page in both traditional and nontraditional ways, and support directors who want to make their own work, and support the development of productive collaborations. We also serve affiliated artists by providing subsidized workspace in The Room itself for artists’ own projects. And we’re working on providing more resources and programming all the time.
So again, the first step is: be in touch!
How do we choose what we produce?
We’ve been thinking about what’s drawn us to the some of the choices we’ve made over the last few years, and we’ve realized something pretty big.
We tend to produce projects, not plays.
We’re more interested than most in collaboration (usually the primary collaboration between playwright and director, but ancillary collaborations as well). Our most fulfilling and successful productions have come about because we could really just feel the combustion happening between potential collaborators. There are times we've up and said "let's do it!" because we’re in the room with a playwright and a director and can sense the energy they're going to bring to the work, how that collaboration will bring what's on the page forward in a way that's specific and exciting and something that we want to be a part of.
This might be because of the kind of plays we tend to do: heightened, highly theatrical, otherwise unusual work. To bring an unusual vision to the stage requires unusual cohesiveness of vision – we’ve seen many magical plays lose a little magic because of a mix-and-match approach to collaboration. So we believe that we give these plays their best chance when collaborators have a deep familiarity not only with what’s on the page, but with each other – each others’ understanding of magic and poetry and other ineffable things that can get lost when the playwright/director relationship (and the playwright/director/producer relationship, for that matter) is not quite right.
Another thing about our choices…. As creative producers, we look for works which will excite and challenge us as producers. A project where we get to try out cool production elements, or find a new audience, or meet new collaborating artists or companies, or develop a new process, or create a kind of theatrical event we haven’t tackled before.
And remember…. We’re a process-oriented, developmental theater. We produce plays we’ve had a hand in during the development process, or will be able to develop toward production, or because there is a clear need to create an opportunity for an artist with whom we have a history of support. We don’t have a mandate to only produce premieres (we’re no fans of premiere-itis!). But we’d probably have a specific reason for taking on a play that’s been produced: because there’s further exploration to be done, or because the collaboration or artist relationship is important to us.
Will you produce my piece? It was a great hit at Theater Blah Blah. Generally speaking, we're not a venue or presenting organization, we are a play development and producing organization. What's the difference? Well, we don't have our own theater to fill night after night, so we don't have the resources to present "finished" shows. We rent theater space on a project basis, in order to produce work we've developed or put together ourselves. We’re really not set up to produce solo work especially. But if you’d like us to read a solo play as an introduction to your work as a writer, please please send away!
Okay! How do I get started and where do I send my stuff?
Send play submissions, headshots, resumes via snail mail -- call us old-fashioned, but we promise, we're much more likely to look at it if it comes out of an envelope. Real mail is fun! E-mail is.... that thing we can't keep up with! We're so swamped, stuff just gets lost. Please include a good cover letter saying how you heard about us and expressing your interest. Feel free to send flyers about what you're doing via snail or e.
And come to our stuff! Introduce yourself to us and, more importantly, let us introduce you to what we do so that you will know whether this is a place for you. You can always find out what's happening here on our website under “current events” or by joining our mailing list.
Better yet, get involved! Volunteer - if you're helpful, we're happy, you'll get to know us, and when opportunities arise, there's a better chance that we'll be thinking of you.
Playwrights: feel free to submit your most representative work to:
Kara-Lynn Vaeni, Literary Manager
New Georges
109 W. 27th Street, Ste. 9A
New York, NY 10001
Directors, designers and actors: send resumes to Susan Bernfield, Artistic Director, at the above address.
Be friendly and persistent, but not insistent. We genuinely love getting your flyers - it's our job to pay attention to what you're working on and who you're working with. We can't make it to everything, however, no matter how much we want to, so please understand, forgive us, and keep sending.
Oh – and we’re a small company. Sometimes we take a while. We truly appreciate your patience.