Innovators Series
Supporting experimental women theatre-makers to create new artistic paradigms in non-traditional performance contexts
What:
3GT Innovators Series presents work-in-progress or "scratch" performances of experimental work by women and gender non-conforming theatre-makers who are:
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Re-imagining how theatrical mediums utilize plot, character, and other literary devices
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Rethinking the physical relationship between theatre and audience / giving audiences agency to get out of their seat and actively engage
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Reexamining the functional relationship between theatre and audience / questioning the role of theatre in communities
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Occupying non-traditional spaces / engaging non-traditional audiences
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Exploring themes not often seen in the SF Bay Area / exploring familiar themes from unique points of view
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Exploring themes related to the ethics, usage, access, and impact of technology or scientific progress
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Incorporating new technologies (such as projection, VR, apps, etc.)
Why:
Our wild and eccentric City on the Bay has always been a beacon for artists, writers, creative risk takers, dreamers of all kinds, and we mean to keep it that way! The role of the artist is to reimagine the world as it could be, and we support theatre-makers who actively engage in using art to make a better society for all of us.
Who:
You! We invite women-identified and gender non-conforming theatre-makers to apply year-round to 3GT Innovators’ development program. 3GT provides artistic and financial support to help creators move from concept to production with work that challenges formal convention and pushes thematic boundaries. Projects that transcend "raising awareness" about critical issues by proposing an active role for the artist in change-making will be given priority. To apply, or to learn more, please email zach@3girlstheatre.org.
2022 INNOVATORS
Burning Wild
Debórah Eliezer & Dr. Vindu Singh
Debórah Eliezer, (she/her), is the former Artistic Director of foolsFURY Theater, an Associate Member of Golden Thread, and an artEquity Arts Facilitator Alum. Passionate about the power of human transformation, her work focuses on disrupting assumptions about art, human values and society. An arts administrator, theater maker and cultural provocateur, she creates with a focus on ensemble collaboration. Passionate about the power of community, her work focuses on disrupting assumptions about the relationship to art, human values and society.
PROJECT: Burning Wild (Started in 2020)
BURNING WILD, created by Debórah Eliezer in collaboration with Vidhu Singh, Noor Adabachi and Cynthia Ling Lee is a devised performance, incorporating physical theater and dance, created in response to the California wildfires of 2020. It began as a community gathering circle to support Northern Californians affected by the wildfires. Recent 2020 fire survivors themselves, Debórah and Noor draw from their lived experience using personal stories of their relationship to home and placemaking from The Middle East to the Bay Area told through devised text, song, movement, documentary video and puppetry to tell a collaged docu-myth about the land, displacement, trauma and renewal offering artists and audiences an opportunity for resilience, hope and community healing in a time when a prolonged megafire season is an annual occurrence.
2020 INNOVATORS
The US in the U.S. Ensemble grew out of a Social Justice theatre project created by Professor A. Fajilan at California State University East Bay. In the Fall of 2016, "CSUFerguson" premiered with a cast of 15 multidisciplinary students seeking to put a “face on the faceless hoodie.” Following Theatre of the Oppressed philosophy, all of Us in the U.S.'s shows involve audience participation. They are devised from the ensemble and/or collaborations with other artists.
PROJECT: WRITE MYSELF FREE
US in the U.S. is dedicated to rebel against media and tradition telling us who we are and how to act. The country especially, focuses on creating identities for us rather than allowing us to create our own. Writing helps release tension because we store our blocked emotions and thoughts in our bodies and sometimes don't even know it there. We've developed protective habits so we can do go out into the world without feeling vulnerable; at the cost of our mental & physical healthy.
What Had Happened Was...
2019 INNOVATORS
Queer Cat Productions creates playful, perspective-queering, boundary-pushing theatre and immersive experiences at the intersection of theater, games, and storytelling that are committed to curiosity about evolving forms.
PROJECT: THE GAY DIVORCE PLAY (2019)
The Gay Divorce Play an interactive living room theater ritual of a queer marriage dissolution party. TJ and Luz have invited you, their friends, to celebrate their divorce. And you said you would come…
Writer Denmo Ibrahim is an award-winning playwright, actor, and poet of Egyptian descent. Director Erin Gilley specializes in immersive theatre, digital/theatre hybrids, devised work, and new writing. Together, they collaborated with First Person Travel to create a brand new interactive experience:
PROJECT: THE DREAM THIEF (2019)
The Dream Thief is a new urban fairytale in which you’ll embark on an adventure to reclaim your stolen dreams and unravel the mystery of a supernatural thief on the run. Along with a small group of participants, you'll enjoy a meal, drinks, and other surprises from favorite local establishments all woven into the story. You’ll meet live actors, examine notable street art, and be entranced by a musical soundscape underscoring the entire experience.
Liar Liar Theater Collective
AKAINA GHOSH & MADISON WETZELL
Liar Liar collective reinterprets Classical narratives through feminist lenses, utilizing unconventional methods of storytelling that recenter feminine voices and revolutionize the theatrical experience.
PROJECT: TWO COINS FOR THE FERRYMAN (2019, 2018)
Two Coins for the Ferryman is an immersive theatrical experience that sends six audience members on individual, heroic quests through the Greek underworld.
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2018 INNOVATORS
Cynthia Ling Lee instigates postcolonial, queer, and feminist-of-color interventions in the field of Asian diasporic performance. Her interdisciplinary performance work has been presented at major theaters and alternative venues throughout the United States, Asia, and Europe. Cynthia is an assistant professor of theater arts at UC Santa Cruz and a member of the Post Natyam Collective, a transnational, web-based coalition of dance artists whose work triangulates between art-making, activism, and theory. Learn more about Cynthia on her website.
PROJECT: LOST CHINATOWNS (2018) Lost Chinatowns, was selected for the inaugural 3GT Innovators Series in 2017 and presented at the 2018 New Works Festival. The project is a multimedia dance-theater work exploring the destruction, lost vibrancy, and historical erasure of Santa Cruz’s Chinatowns from 1860-1955. Santa Cruz, now known as the ultra-liberal “leftmost” city of the US, was once the center of virulent anti-Chinese racism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Lost Chinatowns aims to connect the historical othering of Asian bodies and current xenophobic regimes in the era of Trump as an act of interracial solidarity between communities of color.
PROJECT: STEAM (2018) Bowstring's fantastical and non-linear STEAM was inspired by the true story of three teenage siblings in the 1850’s who, to save the family farm, toured the country by steam train as dancers.
“I’m so gratified by 3GirlsTheatre’s support of my work, which has been instrumental to the artistic development of “Lost Chinatowns,” and impressed by their commitment to women’s voices and to the ethics of access that underpins their New Works Festival.”
-CYNTHIA LING LEE, PERFORMANCE ARTIST; 2018 INNOVATOR
