Bedlam Theatre

10×10 FEST: the 10^th Annual Bedlam Community Ten-Minute Play Festival

BEDLAM MISSION is to produce radical works of theater with a focus on the collaborative process and a unique blend of professional and community art. Bedlam values artists that challenge not just form and content but process as well on their adventure to reflect, celebrate and reinvent themselves and their society.

Please Scroll down for submission forms.

10FEST DRIVING PRINCIPLES:

• Facilitating, seeking and inventing experiments, impulses and juxtapositions that fuel aesthetic diversity.
• Community engagement in the creative process

The Bedlam Ten-Minute Play Festival was created in 2002 in response to increasing demand for hands-on engagement within the community to creating new work for the Bedlam stage. We see the “access” of the 10FEST as mutually beneficial, creativity & collaboration benefiting community as well as community & collaboration benefiting creativity. For BEDLAM and PARTICIPANTS (professional and community) Ten Fest is a chance to meet new artists, new potential projects, new genres of performance. Over the years, many larger Bedlam projects have had their start as a Ten Fest experiment.

Festival Partners include the Playwright Center (since 2009), Juxtaposition Arts, The Northside Arts Collective,  and the Unit Collective.  The Festival this year will be produced at the Capri Theater in North Minneapolis.

10FEST IMPORTANT GUIDELINES and DETAILS

• TEN MINUTES is strict.
• PLAY is interpreted as broadly as possible.
• Projects, project design and project leaders ARE CURATED by festival directors.
• We blend “Community” & “Professional” in 10FEST PARTICIPANTS.
• by “Professional” we mean someone for whom theater or performing arts is a career (from emerging through established). A person who has committed to theater/performing arts as a major aspect of their personal identity.
• by “Community” we mean someone who has an alternate career or vocation, maybe doing art quite a bit, but it isn’t their identity. Theater or performing arts may be an important part of their life, even if this is their first time on stage.
• for 10FEST PARTICIPANTS, this is a free and volunteer opportunity (both professional and community) to explore, create, perform, add to their experience, resume and tool kit.
• This year, 10FEST also will employ a group of CORE ARTISTS* who work with the Festival Directors to support the festival driving principles and engage in the festival as participants.
• Participation in workshops and project development is open to everyone.
• Likewise, we offer a role to everyone who auditions.

Projects are curated for a mix of processes and content:

• the starting point may be a script, it may be visual, thematic, musical, movement, concept, puppet, film, dance etc.
• work intended as a ten-minute piece or seed/excerpt of larger project
• community-based, issue inspired, politically motivated, audience interactive, site-specific
• absurd, sober, comedic, tragic, ecstatic

HOW TO SUBMIT A SCRIPT OR PROJECT TO 10X10FEST:

Submissions should be sent to tenfest@bedlamtheatre.org. ALL SUBMISSIONS MUST INCLUDE THE SUBMISSION FORM. AVAILABLE HERE.

.doc SUBMISSION FORM

(Click to download .doc file.)

TXT SUBMISSION FORM

(right click and “save as” a .txt file, which can open in myriad word processors)

* Ten-Minute Play SCRIPTS (Non-local (Minnesota) writers by invitation only.)  Submit an electronic copy of your script. Please include the 10×10 Fest Submission Form: Scripts as your cover page. Attach resume if available. FOR PLAYWRIGHTS WHO ARE SUBMITTING MORE THAN ONE SCRIPT: PLEASE SEND A SUBMISSION FORM FOR EACH PLAY.  PLEASE USE DISCRETION WHEN CHOOSING TO SUBMIT MORE THAN ONE SCRIPT. WE WILL READ THEM IN THE ORDER YOU SUBMIT AND MAY NOT READ ALL OF THEM IF YOU SUBMIT MORE THAN ONE.

* Ten-Minute Project PROPOSALs: Answer questions on 10×10 Fest Submission Form: Projects. Use additional pages if necessary, Attach a resume for creative artist(s) if available.FOR ARTISTS SUBMITTING MORE THAN ONE PROJECT PROPOSAL: PLEASE FILL OUT A SUBMISSION FORM FOR EACH PROJECT.

MORE ABOUT THE FESTIVAL:

WHO are the CORE ARTISTS:

A core group of artists (Scroll Down for Core Artist Bios)  have been hired to work with the festival coordinators in producing the festival. At many times, the core artists engage in the festival as with any other participants.  Core artists distinct responsibilities come in helping to further the festivals two prime objectives: sharing the process of imagination broadly, welcoming the community and championing aesthetic diversity.

Core Artists will

• attend (in some cases lead) ideathon workshops and project development sessions
• share in the curation process to determine projects and project leaders
• work to support and invent new ways to share the process of imagination, opportunities for experimentation and production quality with the full range of festival participants.
• work fully on at least one, likely more than one, ten minute piece, whether as a creator, writer, director, performer, designer, etc
• Core artists may individually serve additional roles suited to their specific skills/talents/desires including leading workshops, dramaturgy, coaching, choreography, supporting other projects onstage, in the design process or outside eye-ing.

FESTIVAL TIMELINE

Feb: 25:     Kickoff at Juxtaposition Arts

March 3-13: Idea-thon Workshops/Proposal Development

a series of workshops designed to generate creative ideas for projects.

March 15:     Project Submission Deadline

March 15-27: Project Development/Selection

Project Dvlp here could mean working with submitting artists to clarify ideas, or putting collaborative teams together, finding the right supporting artist – etc.

March 25:                         Projects Announced

March 26- April 1st: Workshops round two

Designed to further develop scripts and projects, may involve some prelim casting

April 2nd:                         Auditions/casting

April 3–May 10:                         Rehearsals

May 11-May 15:             One weekends of performances. Each play will have at least 4 showings

10 X 10 Fest Core Artists:

Aaron Kupcho

Adam Western returns to the Twin Cities (after a brief run in LA) where he was previously seen at the Guthrie Theatre, Brave New Workshop, Fringe Festival and the 2010 fest. Film and TV have always been apart of the journey, but Live Theatre is where his heart and the challenge lay. He is pleased once again to be apart of this year’s festival and dedicates his performance to the memory of his father.

Anton Jones is a 2 time many voices resident, co-founding member of the Unit Collective and holds his MFA from the U of Iowa Playwright’s Workshop. He has collaborated as a Playwright, Director, Educator, Composer, and Sound Designer with Pillsbury House Theatre, The Guthrie, Children’s Theatre Company, Pangea World Theatre, The Illusion Theatre, Climb, La Mama Experimental (NYC). Currently he is an Artist in Residence at Pillsbury House Theatre.

Ellen Marie Hinchcliffe is a poet, performer, videomaker and loving Auntie. Her recent performance work includes Death’s Daughter- a love letter, a prayer for Mama that premiered at Pangea World Theater in November 2011. She is currently working on Thought Woman a documentary about the Native American writer Paula Gunn Allen.

Gabrielle Civil is a black woman poet, conceptual and performance artist originally from Detroit, MI. She has premiered over twenty original performance works nationally (Minneapolis, Chicago, NYC) and internationally (Mexico, The Gambia, Puerto Rico) over the last ten years. The aim of all her work is to open up space.

George McConnell is a practitioner/scholar. He is working on his PhD in Theatre Historiography at the University of Minnesota and he makes theatre and performance in the Twin Cities (often with Samantha Johns). He is excited to be participating in the Bedlam 10 Fest for the fourth year in a row. He does not like talk backs.

Harry Waters, Jr. created the role of Belize in the world premiere production of Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes in 1991. He is most famous for his portrayal of Marvin Berry in Back to the Future (1985) which earned him a Gold record for his rendition of “Earth Angel.” Currently in the Twin Cities, he has appeared on stages as diverse as The Guthrie, Penumbra Theater Company, Mixed Blood, Ten Thousand Things Theater and Pangea World Theatre. He has worked as the Facilitator for the Many Voices Roundtable at The Playwrights’ Center where he has inspired the careers of numerous emerging writers of color. He is currently a professor in the Theatre and Dance Department at Macalester College.

Jessica Huang is a card-carrying member of BadAsses of America, and when she’s not busy with them, she also enjoys playwriting. Since graduating from Mizzou two years ago, she has taken the Twin Cities by storm: she is a co-founder of the Unit Collective, and her pieces have been produced at KCACTF, University of Missouri, Red Eye Theater, PWC (Madness), 2g’s Free Range Festival, and CVFT. A huge fan of Bedlam Theatre, she is excited to be a part of this year’s 10×10 Fest, and gives a shout out to her “boo,” Rachel Austin.

Jon Cole

Kelley Meister is a founding member of the radical multi-gendered, sex-positive, queer-positive, feminist political performance troupe BenchPress Burlesque and the experimental multimedia performance trio Wreck Family Productions in addition to having a solo interdisciplinary art practice that fuses sculpture, printmaking, and drawing with time-based media, such as video, sound-manipulation, and performative experience. Kelley completed an MFA in visual studies in 2008 and was a Naked Stages resident artist at the Pillsbury House Theatre from 2009 to 2010.

Lelis Brito is a performer, teacher, director, writer, and advocate of the moving arts. As director for the Center for Moving Cultures as well as her work in fitness programs, public schools, and the stage, her work centers on on embodied knowledge and all it’s repercussions. With over 70 original performance works to credit, in the past three years she has co-directed the Barebones Halloween show, taught developmental movement to preschoolers, taught comparative movement studies to high schoolers, taught social dance, Ballet, and compositional improvisation, as well as created 3 new pieces and coached the movement aspects of pieces at both Bedlam and HOBT.

Lisa Brimmer writes poetry and as a 2010 Many Voices Fellow at the Playwrights’ Center has begun writing for theater. She lives in Minneapolis and likes it a lot.

Molly Van Avery is a writer, director, and theater maker. Her work is primarily focused around queer identity and ecological issues and has been shown at venues throughout the Twin Cities including the Bedlam. In addition to her creative work, she directs the Naked Stages Program with Laurie Carlos, is enrolled in Hamline’s MFA program in Creative Writing, and teaches with HECUA’s college programs focused on art and social change.

Nicole M. Smith is an artist, educator, community activist, youth advocate…..a native of Saint Paul, Nicole attributes her love of all things creative (theatre, writing, spoken word – etc) to her experience at Central High School. Nicole went on to study theatre at the University of Minnesota; in addition to working at Pillsbury House, she also serves on various Youth Serving and Arts Based Advisory Boards, and teaches theatre arts, creative writing/poetry and arts literacy at Elementary, Middle and Senior level schools throughout the Metro Area. She has recently completed Intermedia Arts’ Creative Community Leadership Institute, where participants are mentored as to how to best move toward the work of arts based community organizing.

Paige Collette is a writer, performer, and renegade burlesque star. Original shows include Brenda McIntire, CEO (which she performed at last year’s 10Fest) and Buttercream & Scotch (with Tatiana Pavela) at People’s Center this July. Paige is a graduate of NYU’s Experimental Theater Wing. She moved to Minneapolis last spring, and she loves the creativity of the Twin Cities.

Rebecca Nicholson

Rhiana Yazzie is a two-time Playwrights’ Center Jerome Fellow (2006/7 and 2010/11) and is the creator of New Native Theatre, a Native American theatre company here in the Twin Cities that will be celebrating its second anniversary in October 2011. NNT’s acting ensemble is a new group brought together to stage plays from an authentic Native American perspective with hopes of changing the Cities’ theatre landscape. New Native Theatre’s website is www.newnativetheatre.org.

SuperGroup is Sam Johnson, Jeffrey Wells and Erin Search-Wells, a performing ensemble creating art ranging from site-specific structured improvisations to short films to full length music/dance/theater works. SuperGroup is deeply invested in collaborative processes of performance creation and is continually engaged by the relationship between how we make and what we make.

Samantha Johns

Tom Lloyd is an actor, dancer, performer, director, and theatre maker born and raised in Minneapolis. He has a BA in Theatre Arts from the U of M where he ran into Bedlam and has since been involved in many of its productions as well as various others around town. This will be Tom’s 5th 10-Minute Play Festival and he’s super excited about it!

THE UNIT COLLECTIVE is made up of a diverse and FIERCE group of writers, artists, directors, activists, poets, Pulitzer Prize nominees, and performers of color. Founded in 2009, the Unit claims Indira Addington, Joe Luis Cedillo, Kristoffer Diaz, Reggie Edmund, Jessica Huang, Anton Jones, Eric ‘Pogi’ Sumangil, and Saymoukda ‘Mooks’ Duangphouxay Vongsay among its ranks. The Unit is known for its monthly MPLS MADNESS readings, where 10-minute pieces come to life in 30 minutes! They participated in the Minnesota Fringe Festival in 2010 with their 9-piece EWOC’s Do It in 10 Minutes or Less. To find out more about the Unit Collective, “like” us on Facebook.

Bedlam Theatre is a fiscal year 2011 recipient of an Arts Access grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board. This activity is funded, in part, by the Minnesota arts and cultural heritage fund as appropriated by the Minnesota State Legislature with money from the Legacy Amendment vote of the people of Minnesota on November 4, 2008.

Bedlam Theatre is a participant in the New Generations Program, funded by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation /The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and administered by Theatre Communications Group, the national organization for American theatre.  Bedlam Theatre receives general operating support from the McKnight Foundation, a Minnesota-based family foundation that seeks to improve the quality of life for present and future generations. Funds for 10×10 Fest are provided by the COMPAS Community Art Program through a grant from the McKnight Foundation.

TEN X TEN FEST