NextStage - FREE Artist Professional Development at Village Theatre

Are you a professional artist? Join us for NextStage, a FREE online class series designed to illuminate, support, and encourage the professional artistic experience through practical instruction and conversation.

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May

NextStage at Village Theatre: Revitalizing Our Village

In August of 2020, Village Theatre’s Artistic Team embarked on a journey to discover an artistic purpose that focuses on the essential role storytelling has in public life and the responsibilities Village Theatre has to our community. This process of artistic discovery, community building, creating supportive structures, and diving deep into Village’s commitment to becoming an antiracist organization was focused into an artistic action plan called: Revitalizing Our Village.

This May we are shaking things up at NextStage! We will be welcoming Village Theatre’s Artistic Team, along with Jay Woods as facilitator, for two TOWNHALL CONVERSATIONS to share the Revitalizing Our Village commitment, where we are in this process, what we’ve learned and how Village Theatre’s production and artistic processes will look moving forward.

Revitalizing Our Village: Join us as we reflect on our past, connect through stories, invest in our community, celebrate musical theatre, and design a better and brighter future.

For more information on Revitalizing Our Village please check out our 2020-2021 Action Statement. You can also view information about Village Theatre’s Racial Equity Plan on our blog.

The Townhall Conversations this month will not be recorded, and the classes will be in the standard Zoom meeting format – no webinar this time! So be sure to attend live and register in advance.

Thursday May 6 at 7:30-8:45 pm
Season Selection Townhall: Join Village Theatre’s Artistic Team (Jerry Dixon, Brandon Ivie, Tim Symons, and Jes Spencer) as they discuss how Revitalizing Our Village has impacted the way they approach season selection. You’ll get to hear about the new structures and processes that are in place moving forward, in addition to advanced info about the upcoming season, and the artistic teams and artistic vision for the 21-22 season.
After the Artistic Team shares, Jay Woods will be facilitating a Q&A with the community.

Thursday May 20 at 7:30-8:45 pm
Moving Forward Townhall: Jerry, Brandon, Tim, and Jes will share out some of the changes theatremakers can expect moving forward at Village Theatre, including new details about the casting, rehearsal, tech and production processes. The team will discuss how Village’s commitment to becoming an anti-racist organization coupled with the national pandemic has impacted the future of Village Theatre and the support that will now be provided. Village is ever-evolving and constantly, intentionally growing, and we’d love to share with you where we are now and where we hope to be in the future.
After the Artistic Team shares, Jay Woods will be facilitating a Q&A with the community.

Village Theatre Artistic Team

Jay O’Leary Woods (Facilitator)

Jay Woods is an artist, theatre leader, activist, facilitator, and overall change maker. The Artistic Team is grateful to have spent time over the past several months with Jay collaborating and learning about equity, inclusion, community building, and leadership skills both as a group, within our teaching artist community, and in one-on-one coachings. Jay’s understanding of Village’s systems and her deep connections with the artistic community makes her a valuable asset in assuring the space is open, transparent, and productive.

Jerry Dixon (Artistic Director)

For Village Theatre Dixon has directed The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, The Full Monty, Show Boat, premieres of Take Me America, and A Proper Place, as well as developmental productions of Great Wall, and Hart Island. Dixon has developed, and directed world premiere productions of Ferguson, Barnstormer, and Funked Up Fairy Tales. Spanning over twenty years he has been a directing participant in the NYU Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program, Playwrights Horizons, Eugene O’Neill Theatre Festival, and the National Alliance of Musical Theatre (NAMT). As an actor, Dixon starred on Broadway, in original casts of Once On This Island, Five Guys Named Moe, If/Then, and Off-Broadway in Steve, Bright Lights Big City, and tick, tick… Boom. Television and film credits include “Blue Bloods” “He’s With Me”, “Gotham”, “Everwood”, “You’re Not Alone”, “Vineyards” and “Peacemaker”. Dixon’s concert work includes guest soloing for Belgian, Taiwan, Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestras, and directing Grammy-winner, Raul Midon, Tony-winners LaChanze, Norm Lewis, Idina Menzel, and Tony/Pulitzer Prize winners Tom Kitt & Brian Yorkey. His award-winning voice-over work includes audio-books DINOSAUR BONES, HENRY’S FREEDOM BOX, and ZANE AND THE HURRICANE, all now streaming on various services. Studio recordings for 2021, will find BROADWAY RECORDS re-releasing his holiday album “Season of Joy,” (2002), to raise funds for the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (the UNHCR). He will also be featured on the upcoming SONY 2021 release “My Voice… The Songs of Tom Kitt”. Dixon has written special material for USO, CBS, VH1, Comedy Central, and The View. His original musical “Guess Who’s Coming for Chitlins?” premiered at the Thalia Theatre, in Hamburg, Germany. As a teacher, dramaturg, and script consultant, Jerry Dixon offers one-on-one coaching for actors and actor-singers, as well a variety of master class curriculum, for groups, small to large.

Brandon Ivie (Associate Artistic Director) he/him

Born and raised in the Seattle area, he attended University of Washington School of Drama and is the Gregory Award-winning artistic director of the fringe musical theatre company Contemporary Classics. He has directed the world premieres of Lizard Boy, The Noteworthy Life of Howard Barnes, Jasper in Deadland, String, The Yellow Wood, and The Hinterlands. On Broadway he has assisted on Next to Normal, A Christmas Story, Catch Me If You Can, First Date. NYC/regional credits include The Public Theater/Joe’s Pub, Seattle Rep, Paper Mill Playhouse, Signature Theatre, Barrington Stage Company, Goodspeed Musicals, Ford’s Theatre, The Kennedy Center, TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, Diversionary Theatre, and The 5th Avenue Theatre where he spent four seasons as Casting Director. He is a Drama League Directing Fellow, Charles Abbott Directing Fellow, and member of the LCT Directors Lab.

Tim Symons (Resident Music Director) he/him

Tim is a Seattle-based music director, conductor and pianist. He has been the Resident Music Director at Village Theatre since 2005, with highlights including Into The Woods, Hart Island, Cabaret, The Who’s Tommy and Jesus Christ Superstar, which he also co-wrote new orchestrations for. At the 5thAvenue, he served as conductor for The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Rock of Ages, Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion and Assassins (with ACT). Symons also composes original scores for plays, most recently Corduroy at Seattle Children’s Theatre and As You Like It with Seattle Shakespeare Festival. He composes and plays Fender Rhodes with jazz trio Fawcett Symons & Fogg.

Jes Spencer (Casting Director & Artistic Associate) she/her

Jes is in her sixth year at Village Theatre and couldn’t be happier to work with the amazing artists in the thriving Seattle theatre community. Jessica has worked around the country in arts management, administration, and production for Arts Center Enterprises Inc., Nebraska Theatre Caravan, and locally for Taproot Theatre, Village Theatre and The Inverse Opera. As a director, Jessica has gratefully worked locally with: Taproot Theatre, ArtsWest, Showtunes!, SecondStory Repertory, KIDSTAGE, and Village Theatre! She is the Co-Curator & Co-Producer of NextStage, along with Dedra Woods, and is deeply passionate in pursuing the answer to the much-needed question “How can you feed an artist’s soul without asking them for more?”. Jessica is also an advocate for caregiver support, equity within the arts and harnessing the powerful impact of storytelling within one’s community. As a storyteller she believes that theatre creates moments and opportunities for change and transcendence through collective joy, vulnerability, and hope.

June

NextStage June: Let Yourself Bloom

Seeking opportunities to grow your artistic garden can feel overwhelming and oftentimes stagnant. Join us this month as we partner with SIS Productions to equip you with tools, information, and a joyful attitude of potential to help you prepare and best represent yourself when seeking grant opportunities, residencies or other artistic endeavors beyond auditioning. When we set our intention towards abundance and opportunity we will begin to bloom in ways we never even dreamed!

SIS Productions is a production company that strives to create, develop, and produce quality works that involve Asian American women, their themes, and Asian American issues.

Thursday, June 3 at 7:30pm

CONVERSATION: Kathy Hsieh will share from her years of experience in the grant and producing world how to do a true self evaluation of what your skills are so you can feel confident as you apply for opportunities. We’ll discuss how to find joy through the process of applying and how to seize an application process as an opportunity to create a work plan that will benefit you whether you receive funding or not. It’s all about your mindset. She’ll also share insight about what to expect throughout and after the process. A joy-filled conversation to help you discern what might be the right path for you.

Thursday, June 17 at 7:30pm

PRACTICAL: Representing yourself and your craft in ways that feel authentic and empowering on paper can be difficult. Sara Porkalob will lead us through this workshop that will use immersive storytelling exercises to mine individual experience, objectives, and tactics to develop personalized, specific language that you can use for grant writing, cover letters, artistic statements, and other such documents. Being aware of what you need to flourish and being ready to receive with open us to our full potential to thrive and grow.

BIOS

Kathy Hsieh is a founder and Co-Executive Producer for SIS Productions and is also an award-winning actor, writer and director whose honors include the National Association of Asian American Professionals in Seattle as their Artist of the Year, an International Examiner Community Voice Awardee in the Arts, and a Gregory Award for Sustained Achievement. Her scripts have been experienced in Vancouver, B.C.; Chicago; Minneapolis and Seattle. Artistic projects in the last year include Notes for My Daughter as part of Macha Theatre Works’ 17 Minute Stories, 14/48 Projects’ It’s a Wonderful Life, Harlequin Productions’ radio version of Snow in Midsummer, and Parley’s Patch and Piper Save the Multiverse. She has also worked with SIS Productions, Pratidhwani, Pork Filled Productions, Raisins in a Glass of Milk, Sound Theatre, ReAct, Seattle Rep, Book-It, ACT, Intiman, Taproot, ArtsWest, Living Voices, Seattle Shakespeare’s Wooden O and more.

Sara Porkalob (she/her) is a theatre maker, cultural worker, and creator of the DRAGON CYCLE. She’s based in Seattle but soon will be working all over the nation. Awards and nominations include: 2020 nominee Seattle Mayor’s Arts Award, Seattle Times “11 Movers and Shakers to Watch this Decade”, 2019 nominee for Americans for the Arts Johnson Fellowship for Artists Transforming Communities, Seattle Magazine’s 2018’s Most Influential People , and 2017 City Art’s Futures List. She will be making her Broadway debut in 2021 playing Edward Rutledge in the official revival of the musical 1776.

DRAGON CYCLE is a trilogy of matrilineal musicals about her Filipino American gangster family; one play for each generation built around a central female protagonist. The first in the cycle, Dragon Lady, is the recipient of three 2018 Gregory Awards for: Outstanding Sound/Music Design, Outstanding Actress in a Musical, and Outstanding Musical Production. The second in the cycle, Dragon Mama, premiered at American Repertory Theatre (ART) and won Best Original Script and Best Solo Performance for the 2019 Elliot Norton Awards. ART has commissioned the third in the cycle, Dragon Baby; it will premiere on their stage in the near future.

Her areas of expertise can be divided into three categories: storytelling, creative consultancy, and relational culture building rooted in social justice application. Last year, she collaborated as a writer and consultant with the City of Seattle and their Creative Strategies Initiative (CSI), a new City effort that uses arts- and culture-based approaches to build racial equity in non-arts policy areas like the environment, housing, workforce and community development. Earlier this year Cafe Nordo produced her queer Victorian revenge thriller, The Angel in the House, and Artswest will produce her new play Alex & Alix, and she along with Justin Huertas and Kirsten De Lohr Helland are currently developing their new musical, The Lamplighter, in collaboration with 5th Avenue Theatre. www.saraporkalob.com, @sporkalob.

More about SIS Productions:

SIS Productions is a production company that strives to create, develop and produce quality works that involve Asian American women, their themes, and Asian American issues. Founded in 2000, SIS began through the creation of Sex in Seattle, a 20-episode Asian American romantic comedy that ran for 12 years to popular and critical acclaim. SIS produces Northwest premieres of new Asian American plays, often introducing Seattle to playwrights like Lauren Yee, Michael Golamco and Julia Cho. We also partner with others to bring relevant work centering the voices of Asian Americans to the region. One of the first companies to do site-specific work locally through our Revealed theatrical walking tours of the International District, we partnered with The Hansberry Project, eSe Teatro and Pratidhwani, to create Represent! A Multicultural Playwrights’ Festival to showcase new work by playwrights of color. SIS serves as a resource for connection, diverse casting, and racial and gender equity in theatre.

You can find out more about SIS Productions at https://www.sis-productions.org/

Twitter: @SeattleSIS Facebook: facebook.com/sisproductions