New Play Commission: Kari Bentley-Quinn

I wanted to share some pretty exciting news…Boomerang has offered a new play commission (thru a generous grant from the New York State Council on the Arts) to playwright Kari Bentley-Quinn. Kari is a talented playwright who work has been seen in various Indie Theatre venues, as well as theaters across the country. One of her most acclaimed plays, Hyannis, was recently produced at Loyola Marymount University in sunny Los Angeles.

Why should you be excited about this commission? Well, it reaffirms Boomerang’s commitment to new plays and supporting the voices of female writers (Kari joins Gina Femia, Lia Romeo, Kristen Palmer, Amy Crossman, Ying Ying Li, Lauren Ferebee and Shelley McPherson in the cohort of writers Boomerang has supported recently).

​Kari will be developing this new play throughout 2024. The new work will be featured in the First Flight New Play Festival in December 2024.

Kari Bentley-Quinn is an internationally produced playwright based in New York City. Her plays have been presented at or developed with Lark Play Development Center, Lesser America, Halcyon Theatre, Animus Theatre Company, Theatre of NOTE, Premiere Stages at Kean University, Astoria Performing Arts Center, The Brick Theater, The Secret Theatre, Artemisia Theater, Project Y Theatre, Post Productions (Canada) Caps Lock Theater, Packawallop Productions, FringeNYC, Team Awesome Robot, and more.

Kari’s full length plays include Paper Cranes (Backstage Critic’s Pick), The Unlikely Ascent of Sybil Stevens (The Secret Theatre New Voices Project), The Ocean Thought Nothing (O’Neill NPC Finalist), Prepared (Kilroys List Honorable Mention), The Worst Mother in the World  (Bay Area Playwrights Festival Finalist), Wendy and the Neckbeards (The Relentless Award Honorable Mention), and Hyannis (Ashland New Plays Festival Winner).

Kari has an MFA in Playwriting from Hunter College under the late Tina Howe, and where she was the recipient of the Rita and Burton Goldberg Playwriting Award.​

Learn More About Kari

While there are more details to come about Kari’s play in the following months, we invite you to come along with us on this theatrical journey:

• Follow us on social media: Facebook and Instagram for exclusive updates, sneak peeks, and behind-the-scenes glimpses.
• Donate to support new work: Your generosity fuels our commitment to bringing innovative and impactful productions to life. Donate here

We can’t wait to share this electrifying new project with you!

Seeing Romeo and Juliet

Boomerang’s Free Shakespeare returns to Central Park this summer with the first production in our three-year cycle of plays we have never tackled before. In 2025 we’ll dive into Richard II, and 2026 will roll through the park with The Taming of the Shrew. But for now…we’re talking Romeo and Juliet!

This is not your typical Romeo & Juliet. We’re infusing the classic tale with fresh energy, perfect for an open-air afternoon performance. But fear not, traditionalists! The heart of the play, Shakespeare’s unforgettable language and the poignant themes of love, loss, and family rivalry, will remain beautifully intact.

Conversations continue with director Christina Rose Ashby as she dives deeper into pre-production. Christina’s preparations now include working alongside renowned theatrical illustrator Stefano Imbert for the promotional art for the show.

Christina’s process draws inspiration from powerful visuals, which mirror the play’s delicate moments of intimacy against a backdrop of violence and clashing ideologies.​ She and Stefano brainstormed ideas, sharing what images excited her and ways that light and dark, sunlight and shadow could influence this outdoor production. Check out a handful of the visual inspirations Christina shared recently…

With decades of experience and countless Boomerang illustrations under his belt, Stefano’s signature style promises to capture Christina’s vision and create stunning artwork to represent the show. Discover some of his most memorable works from past Shakespeare productions…​

Mark Your Calendar: Brace yourself for the greatest love story of all time. Romeo and Juliet opens its free performances on June 22nd, 2024, at our iconic 69th and Central Park West location in Manhattan.

Reservations will be available beginning May 1st, 2024.

***

This June, we’re returning to Central Park with a new Shakespeare production. When other theatres are closing or pulling back, we’re moving forward. But we need your help.

Your generous donation will allow us to present this outdoor production of Romeo & Juliet for FREE. This is a chance to share the power of theatre with a broad audience, fostering cultural enrichment and a love for the arts in our community.

Every donation, big or small, brings us closer to lifting “the curtain” on this extraordinary production. Give the gift of theatre this summer, and help us make Shakespeare accessible to all.

Donate today and be a part of the magic!

I am a Camera

Earlier this week, a tourist was taking a photo of his friend in front of an office building in midtown Manhattan. They were laughing and posing, trying to find the right backdrop to capture their experience here in NYC.

As I was passing by, I offered to take a picture of both of them together.

They thought this was a great idea. They got together, arms around each other, one with a huge smile and one with his “tough guy/this is my world” face. I zoomed in, snapped a few and handed the phone back. They thanked me (“Obligado! Obligado!”) and we went on our ways.

Later in the day, I kept thinking about this interaction, and the simple ways that it made both me and my new tourist friends happy. And then, because I am tunnel visioned, I began to think about how it all related to theatre.

1. The Joy in the Simple…a one on one exchange, effective communication. We didn’t need anything other than “let’s do this”, and those simple results worked wonders. Maybe it isn’t the biggest set, the loudest pre-show music that can have the most lasting impact. Simple, personal moments.
2. Get by with a Little Help from your Friends…collaboration is key. The more smart people you get involved, often the better ideas you get. (yes there a limits here, but you get the point)
3. Make the Offer…We all have a lot going on, especially when a show is in rehearsal or in tech. As a producer especially, being interested in solving problems and making a better outcome for the artists and audiences is vital. Jump in, ask how you can help.
   (One example of this is our adjusted pay structure for playwrights and directors for this coming season, inspired by this article)
4. Different strokes, different folks…one person wanted a big smile, one person wanted the “tough guy”…all of it is good. People get to choose how they participate in your art, and what they bring to the experience is what they bring. Maybe the play you love and pour your heart and soul and every last dollar into isn’t for everyone. That’s ok, you make the work available, selling its virtues and getting people excited about it, and they’ll do that they’ll do. Good or bad, full houses or crickets. That’s the game.
5. Be there together…Enjoy the experience of being in space with other people. We only go around once. Let’s be present.

All of these ideas are being applied to our productions of Romeo and Juliet and Mercutio Loves Romeo Loves Juliet Loves in June/July 2024. We’ve got scheduling meetings going on, art work discussions in all the Zoom rooms, and marketing marketing marketing on the brain. So much good stuff happening.

If you’d like to support these projects, we’d love to have you join our team. You can make a contribution here that brings world-class theatre to life in small, intimate spaces for New York audiences. We create as a means of survival, and a means of contributing to the world. Join this movement.

(Sorry to those who came here looking for an in-depth discussion of John Van Druten’s Broadway play “I am a Camera“.)

The Super Season continues…’Mercutio Loves Romeo Loves Juliet Loves’, ‘Romeo & Juliet’ and ‘The Lucky Ones’

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Advice to the AD

Following up from the earlier post this week…Jon Jory retired from his position as Artistic Director of the Actors Theatre of Louisville over twenty years ago. At the time his retirement, American Theatre magazine published a profile on his career, including a list of advice for the next generation of Artistic Directors. You can read Jon’s playful and wise Sacred Rules here.

Inspired by Jon’s rules, Artistic Director Tim Errickson will share some advice for Artistic Directors, on the anniversary of Boomerang’s 25th Anniversary Season.

1) It’s always entertainment. Despite how serious the subject matter, and how deeply felt the journey is for the artists involved, it’s still entertainment. Thrill, inspire, scare, entice, seduce or challenge an audience.

2) Always remember that in New York City (or anywhere, really) there are a ton of choices for an audience to attend, or even to stay at home. Thank your audience for coming to this performance, and respect that they chose YOUR thing to give their time, attention and money toward.

3) Mistakes will happen. You aren’t perfect. You will make horrendous mistakes that will keep you up at night. Analyze them, figure out where it went wrong, and adjust to avoid the mistake next time.

4) The arts are insane. Gathering together to play Make Believe is nuts. And that people pay money to see that Make Believe is utterly wild. Embrace the madness, and leave space to discover answers “in the room”.

5) Pay people as much as you can. They’re worth it.

6) An Artistic Director’s job is not to direct every show, or manage this or that. It is to inspire people to believe. Because without belief, the meager money isn’t enough to get you through the hard times.

7) Be gentle to your interns. In fact, be far better to your interns. They are going to emulate your behavior, and in the process of learning, they’re going to do a lot of work. Your job is to train them to become your collaborators, and ultimately take your job.

8) Plan for success. Sometimes the process is so harried of making a play come to life, that just getting it to opening night is all you can see. Make sure on your to-do list is the plan for how to distribute the amazing opening night photos, how to get the funder in at the last minute, how you’ll plan to add extra shows when the New York Times raves about the show. Plan for the success now, because if you wait until the success comes to make a plan, it’s too late.

What are your rules for Performing Arts Leadership? Got any favorite mantras? Share in the comments below!

Jon Jory’s Advice to Artistic Directors

Friends, one of the memorable articles over the years from American Theatre Magazine (published by Theatre Communications Group) was a profile of departing Actors Theatre of Louisville Artistic Director Jon Jory.

A little history: Jon, along with many other pioneers including Zelda Fichandler, was at the forefront of the regional theater movement, showing that not all theater talent was centralized in New York City and Los Angeles. Jory served as artistic director of the Long Wharf Theatre from 1965 to 1966; his contract was terminated once the fledgling theater hit rough financial waters. In 1969, he took over the helm of Actors Theatre of Louisville, a small regional theater that, at the time, was just five years old. Under his leadership, it became one of the top theaters in the country. Jory’s major accomplishment was the foundation and cultivation of the historic Humana Festival of New American Plays in Louisville, which ran from 1976 – 2020. In 2017, Jory began teaching at the UCLA Department of Theater as a Visiting Professor.

As part of the profile, Jon wrote a list for future Artistic Directors that he might leave in his desk drawer…here it is.

…..

Okay, I’M OUTTA HERE THIRTY-ONE, YEARS is enough. I get the general idea. It’s time to make way for a new generation, but I would be shirking my responsibility if I didn’t pass on the Twenty-Five Sacred Laws that each retiring artistic director is supposed to leave, handwritten, in the center drawer of the office desk–only sometimes we forget. Nobody knows where they came from; a lot of people think they began with Bill Ball and Adrian Hall, whoever they were. Before I cut to the chase, a word of encouragement: Don’t worry, young people, anybody can do this job. Only a genius could screw this up. Personally, I have only two regrets: Robert Brustein never gave me the secret handshake, and I’m still not sure how to pronounce Peer Gynt. 

All right, here’s the good stuff; don’t tell it to anybody-I’m trying to give you a leg up. 

1. The hard thing is to find enough rewarding and creative tasks to make everyone feel fully used but not murderously overworked. 
2. Remember you’re building the institution and not simply your own career. 
3. Psychological realism may be dead, but the audience forgot to read the obituary. 
4. Don’t do a Boston season in Boise, or vice versa. 
5. The profession loves novelty, and the audience loves the familiar. Now what? 
6. What principle is at work when the carpenters make more than the stitchers? See, you already knew. 
7. When everyone is underpaid and you buy a state-of-the-art lighting board, or renovate the executive offices, it’s a political act. 
8. Get as much mind as possible into the building. 
9. Have passions and pay attention to what they cost. 
10. You only get fired for losing money, but the board will say it’s because “your work wasn’t really exciting.” 
11. Only a few plays are guaranteed to make money: The Wizard of Oz, A Christmas Carol and Dracula. 
12. If you produce any of those three plays, it will be bruited about that you are not an artist. 
13. If you don’t produce them, you will be fired because your work “isn’t really exciting.” 
14. A small-cast play is three. A large-cast play is eight. Once a year, you can have 12. If you do three two-character plays in a season, you can do Shakespeare. But you mustn’t do plays anyone else does. Now plan a season that amazes everyone. 
15. Since no theatre of any size ever played to more than two percent of its potential audience, you can stop worrying about being elitist. 
16. To do new plays. To do classics. To do American plays. To do nonrealistic work. To do Shakespeare. To do seasons thematically. To have politics. To do musical theatre. To be an actors’, directors’ or playwrights’ theatre. To do theatre that’s sort of like dance. To be text-based. To do community-based work. To have puppets. To be a culturally exclusive theatre. To be a culturally inclusive theatre. Combine any two to have a fundable artistic policy. Combine any three to be profiled in American Theatre. 
17. Process is the only reward. Concentrating is the only happiness. And hire people more talented than you are. 
18. If you have a great success with a play in a rural setting, don’t send it to New York. They can’t follow the psychology of any character who wouldn’t eat a bagel. 
19. Don’t forget to mention that you want to be “world class,” and then–three years later–say you are. 
20. It is important to remember that no artistic director notices when they are funded by corporations they ought to abhor. I mean, we’ve got casting to think about! 
21. Directors who bar playwrights from rehearsal go to hell. Forever. Barefoot. 
22. Have a life outside the theatre. 
23. If the play isn’t blocked after two-and-a-half weeks and the director tells you, “That’s just the way I work,” fire his ass. 
24. After the third audition when you’re sure she’s the right actor, the agent will tell you she’s unavailable, but she really wanted to meet you. 
25. You’ll know it’s time to leave when there are more people in middle management than you ever have on stage, and you would rather kill someone than write another program note. 
    
    So, that’s about it. I have to get going. I’ve had a really good time doing this stuff, and you will, too. Work from the heart, try to make sure everybody has a good time, respect your audience, take learning your craft seriously, trust your coworkers, and whenever they start talking about art, run like the devil was chasing you. 
    
    Bon voyage.

An Origin Story

In the beginning…back in the yesteryear of 1997, the year it all began.

A young director was moving through the Off Off Broadway landscape, directing both a unique new production of Shakespeare’s AS YOU LIKE IT and a breathtakingly intimate production of Chekhov’s UNCLE VANYA at the storefront theatre Expanded Arts on the Lower East Side. In these days, that neighborhood was bruised and battered, rents were cheap, and the artists were abundant.

The director’s next project for Expanded Arts, riding high on the success of his first two efforts, was an outdoor/indoor hybrid production of A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM, set in Hawaii and performed on the piers on the lower West Side of Manhattan/Hudson River Park. In these days, the piers were also battered and bruised, not like the sparkly waterfront of today.

The production was another hit…in a way. The outdoor performances were a smash, playing to huge crowds and rapturous applause. However, the production was also asked to play INDOORS (aka the hybrid part) as well, back at the Expanded Arts storefront home base, on dark nights. Well, when you have a free show on Saturday and Sunday afternoons, and then the same show is SELLING tickets for indoor performances, you can do the math and surmise that no one came to the indoor shows.

Suddenly, the gorgeous sun-dappled production on the piers wasn’t good enough; the actors and crew needed to hustle and “sell” the indoor show too. All in all, a beautiful Hawaiian fantasy barely survived poor management, terrible communication, jealousy, megalomania and some people just being out-n-out whack jobs. Artists, amiright?

From this flaming pile of poo came the idea for a new company. One that would include outdoor performances of Shakespeare, but also an indoor rotating repertory of plays performing together in one space, by one company. The goal was to incorporate the things that worked for Expanded Arts (intimate, artist-driven theatre; cost controls; a huge hungry talent pool) with a repertory model similar to the Royal National Theatre in England, where three or four shows would run simultaneously in one venue.

With this concept, the finances of Off Off Broadway could be maximized: why do one small show in a theatre for three weeks when you could do three, saving on rent and certain elements and capitalizing on three box office revenues?

And artistically, what could be created by having three plays be in conversation with one another? Could plays written years or decades or centuries apart speak to each other as collaborators? Do they show us how much humans have improved over time, or how much we still trip on the same emotions, ideas, bigotries?

And with that, New York City begot Boomerang Theatre Company in the summer of 1999. The “boomerang” being a reference for rotating repertory, where plays might go away and come back onstage night to night. There was an evening of pitching the idea to a few people in a lowly apartment in Park Slope, Brooklyn, and a feeling of excitement, of possibility. We could learn from previous experience, bring joy to the theatre every day…plus couple that with selflessness and a desire to put the artist at the center of the work. Maybe, just maybe, something interesting might happen.

Rotating rep, new plays, Shakespeare. At the core of it all, the creating of an artistic home for thousands of artists and audiences.

And the adventure continues today.

Announcing The Great Divide

Support The Great Divide

Boomerang is proud to announce our next production will be the world premiere of Amy Crossman’s new one-person play The Great Divide. The show is directed by Scott Ebersold. Performances will begin on October 5th at HERE Arts Center (145 Sixth Avenue, NYC) for a three-week limited engagement.

About The Great Divide:
Everything is fine!  No, seriously, it is – it’s super duper extra never been better everything’s  – wait, do you think Eli’s gonna kiss her tonight at midnight? Do you think he loves her back? Do you think he – no, no, no one’s got a drinking problem, and the panic attacks are just, no, they’re – it’s fine, everything’s fine!!  Right?  Right!  A comedic exploration of what it means to love, to be heartbroken and to choose life in the face of incalculable loss. 

A comedic exploration of love and relationships, The Great Divide follows a young woman’s journey to find her place in the world and stand on her own two feet.

We could not be more excited to bring this show to our audience. Amy is a clown by trade (many may remember her in The Comedy of Errors at The Prince George Hotel in 2021), and her talent onstage is enormous. Now, she’s pairing that with her writing talents to bring something completely unique.

Anthony Michael Martinez (left) and Amy Crossman (right) in 2021’s The Comedy of Errors at The Prince George Hotel

From the producer side of things, mounting a one-person show is tricky. New plays (without big stars) are notoriously complicated to market and sell tickets. “What’s it about?” “Will it be good?” “Where is it, again?” are just a few of the audience questions that have to be addressed in preparing materials to entice audiences to come. Additionally, one-person shows can often get a bad rap, with audiences thinking erroneously that they’ll be bored hearing/seeing only one person for 75 minutes.

We’re combating that by highlighting the contrasts within the piece – Amy’s natural charm and humor against some of the darker topics; the play’s gallows humor contrasted against a brightness of hope. We’ll also be using all the tricks up our collective sleeves…email, great photography, video snips, interviews with cast, crew and creatives, and so much more to give you a flavor of the show, and why is it a must see.

The Great Divide is the first of a nine play “super season” covering three years. You can check out the full announcement here on Instagram. To support this work, please make a donation here.

 

Money….It’s a gas….Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash!

(Tip of the hat to the one and only Pink Floyd)

One of the things I love about this blog is showcasing the work of producing for a small non-profit. We’re a successful, tenured organization that still goes thru the grind to make things happen. I love it, and I love sharing it. Here’s the latest look behind the scenes around our recent grant applications!

We just completed our two New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) grant applications. These applications are challenging, and are anxiety inducing because the results can often yield significant income. So you don’t want to get it wrong and lose out of thousands of dollars! We are lucky to have two things in our corner: 1) Benvenuti Arts and their grants team work hand in hand with our Boomerang grants team (myself and Susan Atwood, with administrative help from Sue Abbott) to craft an application that is complete and tells a meaningful story of our work; and 2) we had just completed a similar application for NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, so some of the material could be carried over into this application with only minor editing.

Applications, Applications, Applications…

Grant writing and grants planning are so many things all at once: They should be the commonsense additive to an organization’s annual funding and (considering we live in the richest time in human history) there should be enough for everyone. But instead, grant funding (in my experience) is elusive, inconsistent and always less that what you need to create something. Even so, hours and hours of effort goes into applying for one, often to find out 6-8 months later you didn’t get it. These disappointments then affect season planning and artists lives in a major major way, and that is only heightened right now due to theatre’s struggles in a post-Covid recovery.

So, if they are so troublesome, why keep applying for them?

Well, dear readers, because they are often large enough sums (when they are awarded!) to make the difference between a “just getting by” project and a “ok, let’s relax and do the fulfilling work” project. Grants don’t need you to sweat over how many people are coming that night to a performance or a fundraiser so that you can pay all the actors; they don’t worry about the subway delay that keeps your audience all 20 mins late for curtain or the snowstorm that turns your closing weekend into a disaster, wiping out all the full houses. They can feel like, instead, winning the lottery or finding a hidden treasure. I look forward to the day when we have built up enough muscle memory for grant writing that each application doesn’t feel so much like throwing darts blindfolded.

this guy knew how to throw darts, he’d probably be a great grant writer!

If funded, both the Department of Cultural Affairs and the NYSCA funding would be for our 2024 season. What is the season, you wonder? Subscribe to this blog for the announcements coming out this week and next about the projects! (See what I did there? You love it.)

If you’d like to support this blog and our work, we’d love to you to make a donation. All funding raised goes directly to artists and new work.

More details for follow later this week about programming, marketing and contracts!

Fundraising Diversification

Friends, a lot of the news right now is that the non-profit theater industry is struggling (perhaps even more severe than that). Audiences, grants and donations (aka earned income and unearned income) remain under pre-pandemic levels. This was a major topic during the Indie Theatre Convocation last week, and how we can shore up our resources to continue fulfilling our mission statements.

A refrain among professional fundraisers I listen to and learn from stresses the idea of diversification. If all of your eggs are in the donations and ticket sales basket, that’s not leaving any room for error. To me, the key is engagement with the audience and donors, to get them invested in the Big Why aka “Sell me on why are you doing this thing and didn’t become a lawyer like everyone else?”

“Sure, that all sounds great. But I run a small theatre! What else can I do that isn’t insanely labor intensive or expensive to implement?”

Glad you asked, lucky reader! 🙂

How about sponsorships? No, these are not the lightest lift in the world, but getting even a small contribution from a business in exchange for advertisement or materials handed out onsite can add more the bottom line. I think people are scared of this because you can’t get Whole Foods or Facebook to sponsor without a lot of labor, but how about your friend the accountant? or your dentist? Might be worth it.

Maybe you are more interested in Merchandise? So many online options exist for drop-shipping posters, T-shirts, mugs, tote bags, etc. directly to your audience members. Honestly, there might not be an overwhelming demand for the mug from your show that ran for three weeks, but you never know…So many people have design skills now, there’s an opportunity to make somethings cool and sell it easily. Maybe a souvenir booklet? A custom poster for opening night? A limited edition fidget spinner? There’s lots of options.

If you’ve attended one of Boomerang’s free Shakespeare productions, you know the importance of the donation bucket. Everyone knows “free admission” doesn’t mean the show didn’t cost money to produce. Get that donation bucket out there, tell everyone how happy you are that they are here, and let them make their appreciation felt with a donation. Can you do this with a paid admission show? Sure you can do anything you want.

Donation bucket or box…whatever you like!

High risk, high reward more your speed? Let’s talk Concessions! No one has a problem with the $5 glass of wine or bottle of water, but does that do enough? What about theme concession nights (maybe “Caramel Night” or “$3 Malbec night”)? Or a pop-up concession night with a local bakery on Wednesdays or Sunday matinees?

Contests… a friend was recently mentioning that they were having a hard time nailing down the title for their new project. My suggestion? Make it a contest…give three options and leave a fourth blank for “other” and let your audience/donors make a donation to cast their vote! $5 per vote, 5 votes for $20. Maybe you like the results, maybe you dont, but you are a) crowd sourcing ideas, b) engaging your audience, and c) raising money for the project. Will you get “Boaty McBoat Face” or something as the people’s choice? Maybe. But in the end, you’ll use your best judgement on what to call your show.

Are we all still sick of Zoom? Eh, probably a little. But the opportunity to raise money for a project with an Online Event, asking very the smallest effort from your audience, might be your key. Can you make this engaging enough (and short enough)(and smart enough) to get people to donate. YES. How you monetize it gets really interesting…free admission and calls to donate throughout? Or a cover charge then smooth sailing and a call to donate at the end?

Give people multiple opportunities to put money into your organization

Events (In person)…modern times are telling us people only go out for a “can’t miss” event, so if you’re audience is clamoring for getting together, by all means get them together! Doesn’t have to be anything too fancy either, if that seems intimidating. You run a small theatre, so you know performers. Get them together, let people request songs from musicians in exchange for a donation, put out the donation bucket, and remind everyone that being together is worth the time and the money.

Bottom line is…we, as small theatre producers, constantly need to think about diverse funding streams. The money is out there, so let’s go find it in all the different places it’s hidden.

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