Sitting in the third circle.

How do we devise work? And how best can we support that work, these artists? Rather, how can we provide a sustainable model for these companies for funding, presenting, travelling? We’re talking about groups like Universes, the Rude Mechanicals, SITI Company, the Civilians, Taffety Punk and more. Their process is different from that of a theatre putting on a play, new or old, from a solitary authorial voice. Naturally, that makes their process harder to define and harder to find funding for the support of that process.

Travis Bedard and I are at the Arena Stage New Play Development Project’s convening on “Devised Work” this weekend. He’s live-blogging at the New Play Blog, and I’m guest-tweeting on their @new_play_blog account. You can follow the account (if you don’t already), or you can search the #newplay hashtag to follow a stream of quotes and ideas coming out of the conversation this weekend.

The beauty of the structure here is the circles. There is a central circle with conference participants, then a listening circle of observers, and finally the third circle. That’s us, folks. It’s not the same as sitting in the room or taking an active role in the conversations, but we’re listening as well and, at times, able to contribute questions, ideas, challenges to the room. So if you’re on Twitter, please, feel free to join in and interact with any of us and with the @new_play_blog account once it reverts back to Arena at the end of the weekend.

We’ll also provide our views from the outside after the convening wraps up. Because a lot of these issues and ideas apply to theatres at all levels, which is what #2amt is all about…