Elissa Adams has been the Literary Manager of Minnesota’s famed Children’s Theatre Company for the last ten years. And the last ten years have certainly been successful as far as new work is concerned, with 25 commissioned plays seeing the end game of full production on one of CTC’s two stages. And the really cool part? You don’t have to be a playwright who writes for young audiences. They may just take you as you are.
Coinciding with the vision of Artistic Director Peter Brosius, Miss Adams has found herself in the midst of creating the modern collection of youth centered plays from the ground up. “Unlike adult theatres, the canon is still being created. New work in a children’s theatre is not fighting for production space against Chekov and Miller,” says Adams. “We at CTC are completely committed to making commissioned work a central part of our season. At any given time we have between thirteen and fifteen commissioned pieces in various stages of development,” she adds.
With so much experience developing new plays, Miss Adams has found a winning, albeit adaptable, formula for bringing a play from a germinal idea to a fully realized production. “We frontload a lot of conversation with writers, taking the time and care at the beginning of the process to make sure that the work fits our vision,” she says, adding, “I have found that each piece takes between two and three years. Once it feels like its found itself or it knows where its going, then it becomes a part of the puzzle, figuring out what season it goes into and who will be a part of the artistic team.”
So what would it take to be a part of that same movement and see your work on the CTC stage? As a whole, the company usually seeks out writers whose work they have an affinity for or whom they believe they can successfully collaborate with. In other words, no solicited scripts. In fact, very rarely will CTC produce an already existing script as they are a company devoted to in-house development. But, because so many playwrights, composers, librettists, book writers, etc. are off of CTC’s map, and because there are only so many agents out there, they do highly encourage interested parties to contact the theatre with proposals or simply to introduce themselves and their work.
Twin Cities
BY JAYME MCGHAN
Elissa Adams has been the Literary Manager of Minnesota’s famed Children’s Theatre Company for the last ten years. And the last ten years have certainly been successful as far as new work is concerned, with 25 commissioned plays seeing the end game of full production on one of CTC’s two stages. And the really cool part? You don’t have to be a playwright who writes for young audiences. They may just take you as you are.
Coinciding with the vision of Artistic Director Peter Brosius, Miss Adams has found herself in the midst of creating the modern collection of youth centered plays from the ground up. “Unlike adult theatres, the canon is still being created. New work in a children’s theatre is not fighting for production space against Chekov and Miller,” says Adams. “We at CTC are completely committed to making commissioned work a central part of our season. At any given time we have between thirteen and fifteen commissioned pieces in various stages of development,” she adds.
With so much experience developing new plays, Miss Adams has found a winning, albeit adaptable, formula for bringing a play from a germinal idea to a fully realized production. “We frontload a lot of conversation with writers, taking the time and care at the beginning of the process to make sure that the work fits our vision,” she says, adding, “I have found that each piece takes between two and three years. Once it feels like its found itself or it knows where its going, then it becomes a part of the puzzle, figuring out what season it goes into and who will be a part of the artistic team.”
So what would it take to be a part of that same movement and see your work on the CTC stage? As a whole, the company usually seeks out writers whose work they have an affinity for or whom they believe they can successfully collaborate with. In other words, no solicited scripts. In fact, very rarely will CTC produce an already existing script as they are a company devoted to in-house development. But, because so many playwrights, composers, librettists, book writers, etc. are off of CTC’s map, and because there are only so many agents out there, they do highly encourage interested parties to contact the theatre with proposals or simply to introduce themselves and their work.
jmcghan@dramatistsguild.com