In keeping with the San Francisco Bay Area’s thriving startup culture, one of the region’s renowned theaters is launching a creative lab that will fuel 13 productions and promote collaboration among the notable local, national, and international artists selected to working intensively in a dramaturgical summer camp of sorts in Berkeley.
Berkeley Repertory Theatre, which in recent years has originated several Broadway hits, today announced The Ground Floor, an “incubator” space that will convene directors, writers, and composers for four weeks as they refine in-progress productions. The lab is meant to encourage cross-pollination among the artists, who will live, eat, and work together in shared space during their time in Berkeley.
The Rep is remodeling a West Berkeley warehouse that will house the lab. Madeleine Oldham will be The Ground Floor’s director, and its inaugural class includes boldface names like Danny Hoch and Lynn Nottage. Both will be working on The Food Project, one of the lab’s most compelling selections, which will immerse participants in the Bay Area’s culinary culture and engender “a sweeping cycle of short scripts that explore our intricate relationship with what we eat,” according to the Rep.
This story was originally published on TurnstyleNews.com on April 9, 2012.