LAB 2001 -
Directors Lab West 2001 was held from Saturday April 7th through
Saturday April 14th, 10am-10pm. Lab 2001 also featured the new
"Lear Project". Directors Lab West, in collaboration with Los
Angeles Theater Center and Wordsmiths began developing, writing
and staging four productions inspired by William Shakespeare's
"King Lear." Rehearsals and workshops on the Projects were
scheduled in the evenings during the week of the lab.
The Directors Lab West produced projects expanded
the idea of the Lab to create an arena for Director/Writer
Collaboration and Development. The Lear Project was a
mission dedicated to the creation, production and publication of
new plays united by a common theme. The playwright/director teams
worked together from inception to production in this
process-oriented journey that uses classical text as a starting
point for the creation of new works. For 2001, that classical text
was William Shakespeare's King Lear. These were not adaptations.
Instead these plays were interpretations derived from the themes
of the source text. The plays are being guided through a
structured four-tiered process: Creation, Workshop, Production,
and finally Publication in an annual anthology with playwright and
director journals. The collaboration and creation stages have
begun for the Lear Project. In the evenings during the week of the
lab, those playwrights and directors workshopped their
pieces with Lab attendees. In the future, it is our hope that the
resulting plays will be produced for fully staged runs and
published.
Guests from 2001 included:
Luis Alfaro, John Beluso, Ernest Dillihay, Sheldon
Epps, John Glore, Dakin Matthews, Kelly Stewart, Mark Valdez, Kim
Weild, Lisa Wolpe, and Chay Yew.
