A warm thank you to the kind Nello McDaniel for encouraging us in our work and in this thoughtful process.

Identity

When I founded The Deconstructive Theatre Project in 2006, I was looking to create a safe space in which artists from a myriad of different disciplines would come together to think about creative process.  I wanted to create a playful arena in which company members might discover how the different vocabularies of performance could work together or push against one another to create dynamic theatre.  I wanted the artists to find as much surprise and delight as audiences did, and I wanted audiences to understand the full life cycle of a piece of theatre.

These goals remain the foundation of the company’s activities.  I hope that The Deconstructive Theatre Project will continue to serve as an instigator of questioning: how is something made?  How can it be made differently?  How do artists and audiences communicate both inside and outside of the performance arena?  How can performance reveal process?  I want The Deconstructive Theatre Project to prove the value of collaboration and to steer individuals away from a concern over individual ownership.  All art is by nature stolen.  The Deconstructive Theatre Project champions a collective trading and shaping of ideas and a shared ownership of curiosity, process, failure, and success.  When we produce a performance, I want the collaborators to stand together and wonder where one person’s contribution ends and another’s begins.

I want our community to be an extension of this collective mindset.  It is frustrating to see communities lose investment in the presence of art.  It is frustrating also to be driven to seek funding for artistic process outside of the community in which the work is being made.  This happens, I think, because artists and their larger communities do not communicate with one another as regularly as they ought to.  There has been a lot of talk about transparency lately.  I think the entire artistic process should be transparent and the community should be invited to view and partake in it.  The rehearsal room is sacred, yes; but keeping it sacred is not a matter of barring the outside world from entry, but rather a process of empowering that outside world with the tools necessary to understand that sacredness and its local, national, and global value.  Just as I hope The Deconstructive Theatre Project teaches artists to forsake concerns over individual ownership in favor of the powers of collective mentality, I aim to inspire the company’s audiences with that same shared investment in the failures, successes, and livelihood of our members and of our work.

The Deconstructive Theatre Project (DTP), a New York-based process-oriented theatre laboratory and production company in its fifth year, is currently seeking a flexible part-time Managing Director.

This new leadership position offers a unique opportunity to steer the development and future shape of a young, non-traditional theatre company with an annual budget under $50,000 and a growing profile.  The ideal candidate has a vigorous enthusiasm for successfully addressing the unique administrative challenges facing a not-for-profit ensemble/devised theatre workshop and an interest in developing and executing innovative management models, non-traditional funding solutions, and cooperative production strategies which support the life-cycle of long-term process-oriented work.

Responsibilities:
The Managing Director is one half of a two-person management team.  He or she will collaborate with the Founding Director to shape programming structures, and will take a lead role in administrative, fundraising, fiscal, and outreach management in the following specific ways:

Administrative Management:

• Work with the Founding Director and Board of Directors to develop and implement short and long-term strategic operating plans sensitive to the company’s non-traditional workshop-oriented production model.
• Work with the Founding Director and Board of Directors to expand and enrich the Board of Directors and committees.

Fiscal Management:

• Develop and monitor annual operating budgets, workshop and production budgets, and other programming budgets as applicable.
• Maintain accounts payable and receivable.
• Provide regular financial reports to the Founding Director and Board of Directors.

Fundraising & Development Management:

• Work with the Founding Director and Development Assistant to identify funding possibilities, create grant proposals, and steward relationships with current and prospective donors and sponsors.
• Manage the organization’s donor records.
• Develop innovative funding solutions and cooperative production strategies sensitive to the company’s non-traditional workshop-oriented production model.

Outreach Management:

• Oversee all publicity efforts for productions and events including press releases, press kits, postcards, and posters.
• Act as an advocate for the company at social events, seminars, and gatherings.

Education & Skills Required:
The ideal candidate is innovative, self-motivated, and possesses the flexible all-hands-on-deck enthusiasm necessary to thrive in a young company.  A personable and social demeanor, a sense of humor, and superb written and oral communication skills are required.  Computer, Internet, and social media proficiency are necessary, and experience with Quickbooks and FileMaker are a plus.  BA/BS in arts administration/producing (or equivalent training) required, MA (or in progress) in arts administration/producing a plus.

This is a flexible part-time position with a modest annual stipend.

Please submit cover letter, resume, and two writing samples to info@deconstructivetheatreproject.org with “Managing Director” in the subject line.

The Deconstructive Theatre Project, Inc. is an equal opportunity employer.

About the Company:
The Deconstructive Theatre Project was founded in 2006 with a mission to create bold original work for the theatre that is intensely collaborative and uniquely theatrical.  The company does not present a season of extant plays; rather it dedicates its resources to extended periods of collaboration toward original, interdisciplinary, visually rich productions.  The company is primarily concerned with the relationship between performance structure, content, and perspective and is dedicated to the idea that theatre is the mutilation of the probable.

The Deconstructive Theatre Project inaugurated its existence with Moisés Kaufman’s Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde, and has since developed five original or re-concocted productions, including Brecht & Co., The Girlie Show, and the site-specific Lilies, or the Revival of a Romantic Drama.  DTP most recently collaborated with Vermont’s Strong Coffee Stage to premiere a contemporary two-actor adaptation of Antigone, our first touring project, which will play San Francisco in June 2011.

For more information: http://www.deconstructivetheatreproject.org

Congratulations to all of our colleagues and friends involved!

Click the image for today’s Playbill.com article on the production’s opening night!

As you probably know, The Deconstructive Theatre Project has grown a lot during the past two years that I’ve served on the Board of Directors. We’ve produced successful readings, workshops and fundraisers, always continually expanding our family. It’s been great meeting and working with many of you and I expect to see the rest of you at an event soon.

Can you help us quickly right now?

One of our main goals in 2010 is to grow the DTP online community and we need your help. Forward this message to your friends and ask them to join us. For every new email address we collect over the next week, I’m donating $1 to DTP. Just join our email list my using the box to the left and send this message along to your friends and you’ll help us raise money and increase awareness.

Need another reason to forward this? We’re holding auditions for our upcoming project The Orpheus Variations. Forward this to your actor friends and help them get an audition.

Remember, I’m only doing the $1 email pledge for one week, so please forward this along today.

Thanks for your support,

Ryan J. Davis
Board of Directors
The Deconstructive Theatre Project

PS: Make sure you share this letter on Facebook & Twitter!

Ryan and Adam working together on “Lilies” in 2009

As one character asks another what “deconstruction” is, the second responds as follows:

“It’s like, he’s takes something apart, right? And you see all of it’s threads. You see that all of these threads have different meanings and examine how these meanings were imposed upon these threads. I guess, you kind of reveal all the contradictions and inconsistencies and you see that there’s no one truth expressed; there is no one absolute truth.”

I’ve been doing a series of paintings inspired by our current project “Orpheus Variations”.  This one is inspired by our attempt to create Persephone in the Underworld during workshop.  We saw Persephone as towering, elegant, and able to see memories by touching and smelling old photographs.

To see more of my work inspired by “The Orpheus Variations”, click here.

Liz Duffy, Core Artist

Please join us on Sunday evening, November 22, 2009 for The Deconstructive Theatre Project’s Autumn Benefit Party, THE LOWER EAST SIDESHOW.

Hosted by DTP and The Delancey Lounge, “The Lower East Sideshow” is a a carnival romp through a wide variety of music, dance and solo performances – including appearances by Billboard Recording Artist Ari Gold (http://www.arigold.com), Passing Strange and A Boy and His Soul’s Colman Domingo (http://www.colmandomingo.com), Street Lights’s Kevin Curtis and Kristen Starks, music duo Claudo & I (http://www.danielkoren.net & http://www.claudiovibes.com), Caligula composer and rock pianist Eric Svejcar, and dance-theatre artist Kimberley Wong.

Performances will be on-going throughout the evening, beginning at 8:30 PM (doors open at 8:00 PM), with a casual view-party-and-chat atmosphere.

The bar will be slinging 2 FOR 1 DRINKS all night, and the evening’s silent auction will feature Broadway and off-Broadway theatre tickets, aerial corde lisse and silk lessons, vocal coaching, original art, and more.

$10 at the door – all proceeds support DTP’s current project, “The Orpheus Variations”.