Function to Form
Support for Three New Theater Projects
- by Andrea Thome, Cusi Cram and
Jorge Ignacio Cortiñas - Summer 2014
- Various Venues in New York City
- Fulcrum Theater gave three playwrights-of-color the means they needed to develop three new pieces of theater. Each playwright needed different kinds of studios, different lengths of rehearsal, different sorts of collaborators and different kinds of presentations. Each playwright wanted function to drive form.
Andrea Thome wanted a company of ten collaborators (including actors, musicians and a director) to work on a piece titled The Necklace of the Dove. She needed a large studio with room for movement because she wanted to generate material using devised theater techniques.
Cusi Cram co-wrote a piece with Peter Hirsch titled The West Village Project. In this play, two artists start a business giving walking tours of the neighborhood they moved into decades ago but that gentrification has transformed right under their feet. The final presentation was a site-specific feat of theatrical magic – an actual walking tour of Greenwich Village. Cusi also needed a videographer to generate footage she hopes will find itself into the final project.
And Jorge Ignacio Cortiñas needed to rehearse and present the first act of a yet untitled piece.
Starting by asking the artist what they need and then making those needs drive the form of the workshop: that’s why we are an artist-centric company.
Associate producer: Bess Rowen
Graphic design: Alejandro Morales
