Venues

At the core of the Department of Theatre Arts' program is its varied venues that allow graduate students to hone their dramatic skills in a variety of roles and settings. The department is located in the cultural center of campus: the Staller Center for the Arts. Staller Center is home to the department of Theatre Arts' classrooms, offices, and Theater One, Theater Two, and Theater Three. The Center features a Main Stage, seating 1,050, and a Recital Hall, seating 380.

Theatre One is a large black box with flexible seating for about 150, primarily configured in 3/4 or arena stage. Theater Two is a 180-seat proscenium space boasting state-of-the-art lighting and sound capabilities, and will soon have new seating and a new stage. Theater Three is a small black box used primarily as a lighting lab, acting class space, and for student–directed productions. It has modest lighting and sound capabilities and flexible seating for about 50. The theatre has recently received some updated equipment, including new sound and light boards. It is managed by a student technical director.

Two additional dance and theatre spaces are also available on South Campus. The department has a Laboratory for Technology in the Arts and an Electronic Classroom.

The Stony Brook Cabaret
The Stony Brook Cabaret is run by the Stony Brook M.F.A. Dramaturgy students as a “living classroom” and theatrical laboratory. The new Stony Brook Cabaret Theatre is currently being built in the lower level of the Student Union, and will be ready for full production in the fall of 2007. In the meantime, the venue will be used as a “raw” theatre space and continue to promote experimental and new theatre on campus. Until the new space is completed, Stony Brook Cabaret productions will use existing Theatre Arts and alternate university spaces for their productions. Each year up to a dozen productions are presented. Theatre Arts students in the M.F.A. program select the season and supervise the productions, act, direct, write, design, and serve as producing dramaturgs and literary managers. A major emphasis is put on new plays, experimental work, and performance pieces. It has featured the voices of top theatre artists such as JoAnne Akalaitis (Ti Jean Blues), Mark Ravenshill (Shopping and F*#$ing), and Richard O'Brien (Rocky Horror Show); and it has nurtured the creative instincts of our graduate students who become working artists in today's theatre. The Stony Brook Cabaret has no limits. Dramaturgy students foster the creation of truly unique theatrical experience. They are in every sense makers of theatre.

In it the students are able to explore their dramaturgical visions and push theatrical boundaries in search of their own distinct theatrical voices. The goal of the Stony Brook Cabaret is to challenge students and our audiences to re-imagine our world, our lives, and our theatre.

For more information on the Cabaret, visit www.stonybrook.edu/clubs/cabaret .

The Long Island Play Project

Paula Vogel wrote in the introduction to her play Hot N' Throbbing that she worries “that there is no longer a place for audiences to come to a civic space—the theatre—to confront the disturbing questions of our time.” It is precisely the mission of the Long Island Play Project (LIPP) to bring to our community meaningful and thought-provoking theatre, and to fuel and sustain, as Vogel wishes, “a communal light in the darkness of our theatres.” Since The Project was founded in 2002 the focus of the LIPP has been on the work of emerging and mid-career North Amercian playwrights.

Work on the LIPP is a culmination of three years of graduate work in the M.F.A. It is a capstone experience where M.F.A. candidates perform various roles as associate artistic directors, literary managers, and dramaturgs in a professionally run repertory season. Graduate students have a powerful voice in LIPP season planning.

The LIPP has produced work such as How I Learned to Drive by Paula Vogel, Stop Kiss by Diane Son, SubUrbia by Eric Bogosian, Pteradactyls by Nicky Silver, Proof by David Auburn, Omnium Gatherum by Teresa Rebeck and Alexandra Gersten Vassilaros, Escape From Happiness by George F. Walker, Boy Gets Girl by Rebecca Gillman, Two Sisters and a Piano by Nilo Cruz and Las Meninas by Lynn Nottage.

We plan to use LIPP to find, explore, and chart a future for theatre in our culture and our society.

The John Gassner New Play Festival
In 2003, the Department of Theatre Arts honored the centennial of the birth of American dramaturg John Gassner by instituting the first annual John Gassner New Play Festival. The JGNPF has evolved into a national playwriting contest that receives submissions from all over the United States and provides our graduate students with first hand experience in literary management and new play development.

The JGNPF has completed its fourth year and is already accepting submissions from playwrights across America . Second year M.F.A. candidates become part of a literary management team who organize, read, and report on the multitude of submissions. Three finalists are chosen by the team and their work is performed in staged readings before the public. Our dramaturgs and literary associates then develop one of the finalist n a workshop production in the Stony Brook Cabaret. Credit may be received as an independent study in new play development. The JGNPF provides the integral opportunity for our emerging dramaturgs to work with playwrights.

Since the resounding success of the inaugural John Gassner New Play Festival caught the attention of community leaders, the press, and theatre-goers in 2003, the festival continues to garner support that will secure the future of new play development and dramaturgy at Stony Brook University .

The Groundling
The Groundling is a quarterly newsletter published by the dramaturgs at Stony Brook University . The purpose of The Groundling is to inform our growing audience, alumni, and the theatre community at large of department happenings and advances in dramaturgy. Each issue features articles on theatre artists who have contributed to the field, and supplies many opportunities for our students to publish their scholarly work and publicize their current productions.

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