The David Dower Friday Phone Call # 37: Ed Sobel
Today I get a chance to talk to one of the people who was a consistent contributor to the early thinking behind the American Voices New Play Institute and the whole notion of the #newplay initiative. Ed Sobel is now the Associate Artistic Director of Philadelphia's Arden Theatre Company, and prior to that was at Steppenwolf. At the Arden Ed continues to experiment with play development processes and programs and he's got an important one going on right now. The Writers' Room is an experiment in rapid prototyping in new play development. He's creating residencies where the playwright starts and completes a draft of a new play, the play is designed, cast rehearsed and performed—all in the space of four months. Throughout, the writer is embedded in the institution and in the artistic community. We get into the details of this program, just now heading into the performance part of the first residency with Wendy MacLeod (to see Wendy’s thoughts on this process, check out her Artistic Home blog post here). I am very eager to see what Ed and the playwrights learn from The Writers' Room and will be checking back with him regularly.
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