Why did you form New Voices?

Bottom line, New Voices was formed to give actors, designers, and technicians the opportunity to find their own creative voice and have a different theatrical experience than they can get with some of the more traditional theatre offerings.  After looking over the community/non-professional theatre offerings in the North Dallas/Plano/Allen area, we noticed a couple of patterns:

• With some notable exceptions, a lot of local theatrical offerings are either musicals or what can only be described as “time honored classics” (Agatha Christie, Neil Simon, Ken Ludwig, Ray Cooney, etc.). We totally get why local theatres select these types of plays – people have heard of them, and they can make the theatre a respectable amount of money. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that (Heck, we perform in, direct, and actively promote those kinds of shows when we are not doing this stuff!), but we want to offer a different experience – one that gives actors, designers, and technicians the opportunity to broaden their experiences in terms of performance and production skills, subject matter, and theatrical styles and genres.

• Local theatre is often more about the product than the process. That is not to say that things like character and context are never explored during rehearsals, but because of time constraints, having to learn songs and choreography, etc., rehearsals can and often do quickly devolve quickly into “move here,” “say it this way,” “think about your character at home,” etc. We plan to only do a few productions per year, but we build in enough time in each to really delve into a play and experiment with different ways of staging, developing character, and conveying meaning. We want the members of the ensemble to make as many decisions as possible and feel like they have creative ownership of the ultimate product. We also plan to create theatrical experiences from scratch, and they are almost all about the process.

 

Wait. Didn’t you used to be called Teen Voices?

We did! Teen Voices was formed by Eric Levy and Stacy Winsett to achieve many of the goals described above but with a focus on students between the ages of 13 and 18. And some of its earlier productions (Elephant’s Graveyard and The Laramie Project) were hailed as a breath of fresh air for teenagers who were often faced with a limited array of performance and production options (if you think local and community theatres do too many musicals, check out the high school theatre scene!).

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But the pandemic, family tragedies for both Stacy and Eric, and the growing realization that teenagers have a rather bewildering number of other commitments made it difficult for Teen Voices to sustain its initial momentum. Thus, we expanded the scope of Teen Voices and changed the name to reflect more accurately who we would be working with going forward.

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We always want to remember the outstanding work of these talented teens, so please see our Honoring Teen Voices page or the Teen Voices Facebook Page for more info, photos and videos. 

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So, you’re done working with teens?

Not necessarily. We simply need to see how well our concept takes off (given our limited resources) and develop a base of performers and patrons who enjoy participating in and seeing this kind of work. If that happens, reintroducing similar theatrical experiences for teens is definitely a possibility!

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I’ve heard you all hate musicals. Is that true?

Not exactly. Musicals are fine – we’ve even been involved in a few as actors (not Kathleen – she cannot sing to save her life) and directors. But as we said above, this part of town has plenty of places where performers who want to sing and dance can do so. For the performers who don’t want to only do musicals or who do not have the voice or the movement skills to be in them (and who always wind up in the ensemble with such compelling roles as “Man Crossing Street” or “Woman Wearing Hat”), we want to offer them the opportunity to get more involved and really contribute.

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And most of the places that do musicals (some almost to the exclusion of anything else…) do a really awesome job staging them. They have the facilities, the staff, and the money to really make the productions slick and fun to watch. Being a new and itinerant theatre company, we simply cannot compete with that. So we don’t try to.

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So New Voices Will Never Put on a Musical?

Well, we’ll never say never! If an interesting and cost-effective musical with parts for singers and non-singers came to our attention, and it was not being done in every other theatre in the country, we might give it a go. But that’s a lot of ifs!

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The more likely scenario is that one of our Collaborative Theatre productions has the ensemble creating a musical from scratch. If the entire group gets behind that idea and wants to put in the work to make it happen, we will do what we can to bring it to life!

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We also do not include in the definition of “musical” plays that have some singing in them. If the main focus of the production is the acting, and it has a few songs, we’re fine with that!

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What the Heck Is “Collaborative Theatre”?

Quite simply, it is theatre put together almost entirely by the ensemble, working collectively and using their diverse skills, backgrounds and viewpoints. The initial plan for our Collaborative Theatre offerings will begin with a series of workshops that will give the participants the tools they need to create a piece of theatre from scratch and work as an ensemble, as well as develop skills such as storytelling, use of movement and space, theatrical genres, etc. The ensemble (which will typically include both Eric and Kathleen) will then decide on a topic, event, or theme upon which they would like to create a piece of theatre and work to develop both the “script” and the staging of the piece. After a “work in progress” period, the devising process will culminate in a public performance at a professional venue (or someplace else – space is just one of the aspects the ensemble will have to consider when creating the piece), so the fruits of the group’s creativity and hard work do not go unnoticed!

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Who picks the plays that you produce?

For the moment, plays are selected by Eric and Kathleen based upon the level of the challenge, cast size, cost, issues presented, suitability, etc. However, we are certainly willing to consider proposals from interested directors (we’ll eventually put up a set of criteria for what we will consider – and what we will not – on our website), and we are considering hosting regular “play reading parties,” where people can read through plays under consideration and give us their thoughts (no charge – but bring snacks).

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Have any other general questions about what we do or why we’re doing it? Email them to us, and we may add them to the FAQ!