Remember the old Palm Beach Dramaworks location on Banyan Boulevard—the shoebox-sized space near the train tracks, where you could see every pore on the actors’ faces no matter where you where sitting? That intimacy will be retained in the company’s latest expansion of its brand: the 35-seat Diane and Mark Perlberg Studio Theatre on the second floor of Dramaworks’ lavish Don & Ann Brown Theatre, which enjoyed its ribbon-cutting Tuesday afternoon.
(Photo by Nanique Gheridian)
The black box space will accommodate Artistic Director William Hayes’ latest creative venture. It will provide a home for the Dramaworkshop, a program of world premieres entering its second year. Like Lou Tyrrell’s Theatre Lab at FAU, it will provide an indispensable outlet for playwrights to receive their first inchoate productions of new works, at an affordable cost to the public.
The first Dramaworkshop “developmental production” in the new theater is Jennifer Fawcett’s “Buried Cities,” opening April 8 for a two-weekend run, complete with a top-notch professional cast, costume design, sound design and scenic design.
“As a regional theater producer, I have the responsibility to develop new work and new voices,” Hayes says. “There are not nearly enough opportunities to encourage playwriting.”
The Dramaworkshop is the result of three years of planning and some $400 thousand in startup funding. Prepared to have to persuade new donors to provide the seed money, Hayes found that no solicitation was necessary: Funds came quickly and efficiently from eight of the company’s valued contributors, who wanted to be a part of the project.
The venture has since become a labor of love. With no literary department to peruse the 150 scripts submitted for Dramaworkshop’s second year, Hayes enlisted a de facto lit committee, comprised of actors and directors, who read scripts and offered their assessments for a modest stipend.
The process of producing these plays is flexible. It will vary based on the playwright’s methods and needs. To that end, Hayes has not announced a season of Dramaworkshop plays yet, but he hopes to mount a second show in the fall.
“We’re starting slow,” he says. “It’s my hope to do three or four productions a year, starting by year two or three. I need to figure out what my shop can handle. It has to be a little freer in the scheduling; I don’t see it being a season of shows. You don’t know how quickly a show will get ready, because it’s a living document, and they’re developing it. [Playwrights] all have different styles, and it’s my job to provide the most productive environment for them to be creative.”
(Photo by Samantha Mighdoll)
As for “Buried Cities,” the Perlberg Studio Theatre will open with a bang—perhaps literally. The play deals with the aftermath of a home break-in, in which a couple, which is expecting its first child, is robbed at gunpoint. It will star Ethan Henry, Margery Lowe, Joe Ferrarelli and Katherine Amadeo.
“It deals with guns and violence, but it’s much deeper than that,” Hayes says. “There’s no bigger topic, and it’s something I’m pretty passionate about.”
“Buried Cities” runs April 8-17 at Palm Beach Dramaworks’ Studio Theatre. Tickets cost $25. Call 561/514-4042 or visit palmbeachdramaworks.org.
