Boise Contemporary Theater

Last updated
Boise Contemporary Theater
AbbreviationBCT
Formation1997
Type Theatre company
PurposeContemporary theatrical productions
Location
Producing Artistic Director
Benjamin Burdick
Managing Director
Emily Mahon
Main organ
Board of Trustees
Award(s)
  • Mayor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts 2013
  • Governor’s Award in the Arts in 2016
  • two-time recipient National Theater Company Award from the American Theater Wing
  • 2022–23 City of Boise Cultural Ambassador
  • National Endowment for the Arts Grant Recipient 2024
Website Boise Contemporary Theater

Boise Contemporary Theater (BCT) is a professional theater company located in Boise, Idaho. [1] Since 1997, BCT has been the only professional theater company in southeastern Idaho committed to performing a complete season of contemporary work.

Contents

Each year, BCT conducts five mainstage productions during an October-to-April season, their acclaimed 5x5 reading series featuring staged readings of plays in development, a children's reading series featuring contemporary children’s theater in a creative environment, a summer reading series including readings at local Bogus Basin mountain, and the annual BIPOC Playwright's Festival in August.

The theater's success has been credited to the diversity of productions, award winning set design, and talented actors hired from around the country. “We conduct auditions in New York and Los Angeles and also rely heavily on local talent,” noted Adam Park, previous interim managing director at BCT. “We tailor our actor selections to each production and always have phenomenal stars for every performance. [2] ” Boise Contemporary Theater frequently showcases world premieres of contemporary theater on its mainstage.

Mission

Boise Contemporary Theater "inspires our community to examine our perspectives and better understand ourselves, each other, and the world around us by creating thought-provoking stories of the human experience. [3] "

Venue

BCT is located in the heart of BODO District of downtown Boise at 854 Fulton Street.

Formerly a seedhouse built in 1935, BCT's Main Stage is a cozy black box theater with 231 seats in nine rows. The seats in the theater were donated by The Egyptian Theatre after previous renovation. The chandeliers in the main hall are on permanent loan from the Idaho State Historical Society. They were previously housed at now closed Pinney Theater, an ornate theater and cinema formerly located at 809 W. Jefferson Street in downtown Boise.

As of 2024, BCT has launched their "Setting the Stage" capital campaign to renovate the historic theater and add an onsite pub for patrons.

History

BCT Founder and Artistic Director Matthew Cameron Clark began producing theater in Boise, Idaho in 1996. In November of that year, along with actors he had met the previous summer working for the Idaho Shakespeare Festival, he co-produced and performed in Lone Star by James McLure in the basement of The Mode Building in Downtown Boise. When Clark saw that there was an audience for professional contemporary theater in his home town, Boise Contemporary Theater was born and four more plays in four different venues were produced: Danny and the Deep Blue Sea by John Patrick Shanley (Neurolux and The Flying M Coffeehouse), All in the Timing by David Ives (Esther Simplot Performing Arts Academy), the World Premiere of Drive Me by Maria Dahvana Headley (Baccus Cabaret) and Lonely Planet by Steven Dietz (Stage II of The Morrison Center). Lonely Planet, in the spring of 1999, marked the first production for BCT as a Non-Profit Organization.

Boise Contemporary Theater began a capital campaign in 1999 to renovate a permanent home. Formally a seedhouse built in 1935, by October 2000, the Fulton street location was transformed into a theater facility with a main-stage, classrooms, rehearsal loft and office space. The initial capital campaign ultimately raised $2.6 million.

On October 12, 2000, BCT premiered its first production in a newly renovated theater on Fulton street in the heart of Boise's Cultural District: Steve Martin's Picasso At The Lapin Agile , directed by Artistic Director and Founder Matthew Cameron Clark. The season would go on to include True West by Sam Shepard and The Cripple of Inishman by Martin McDonagh. [1]

BCT has had two productions directed by filmmaker Michael Hoffman: The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekhov [4] and Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett (co-directed with Matthew Cameron Clark).

Since its formation in 1997, BCT has been recognized with local and national awards. BCT has been twice awarded National Theatre Company Grants from the American Theatre Wing. [5] The theater was the recipient of the 2013 Mayor's Award for Excellence in Art, a 2016 Governor's Award in the Arts, and was selected to be a Boise city 2022-2023 Cultural Ambassador.

In 2021, the Idaho Women’s Charitable Foundation (IWCF) awarded BCT $30,000 to establish the First Annual BCT BIPOC Playwrights Festival. This was followed by $25,000 Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to support the 4th Annual BIPOC Playwrights Festival in 2024

Organization

Boise Contemporary Theater is governed by a ten member Board of Trustees and managed by five permanent staff members led by Producing Artistic Director Benjamin Burdick and Managing Director Emily Mahon.

Productions

Mainstage Productions

The 2022-2023 Season included four plays: the world premiere of Middle of the World, by Juan José Alfonso (Previous BIPOC Festival reading), The Thanksgiving Play by Larissa FastHorse, Clyde’s by Lynn Nottage, and Silent Sky by Lauren Gunderson.

A list of the previous mainstage productions and reading series, from 2023 to 1997 can be found on the BCT website's Production History.

Annual BIPOC Playwrights Festival

Started in 2021 with a founding grant from the Idaho Women's Charitable Foundation, BCT's BIPOC Playwrights Festival invites playwrights, directors, and actors to workshop and ultimately perform staged readings of brand new plays. New and mid-career playwrights of color are paired with professional actors, directors, and technicians. The playwrights workshop their script during the week with a director and full cast. In the final days of the festival, live audiences are invited to attend staged readings followed by Q&A sessions. Plays from the BIPOC festival have gone on to premiere as full productions in New York, Los Angeles, and at the BCT Mainstage. New in 2024, the Young Playwrights Initiative ensures one unproduced work by a writer between 18 and 25 years old in the lineup. [6]

BCT was award a $25,000 Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to support the 4th Annual BIPOC Playwrights Festival in 2024. This also marked the first year the BIPOC Festival staged readings were performed at the BCT Mainstage.

5x5 Reading Series

In addition to its mainstage productions, Boise Contemporary Theater hosts five play readings per season known as the 5x5 Reading Series. Often a mix of brand new or in-development plays and award-winning contemporary plays, notable premiere readings include plays by Maria Dahvana Headley (Author of The Year of Yes), Don DeLillo (Novelist/Playwright, Winner of The National Book Award), and Dano Madden, winner of the 2007 Kennedy Center National Student Playwriting Award. [7]

Education

BCT provides professional theater training to youth programs and schools throughout the Treasure Valley. Programs are taught both at BCT and at local schools and venues. The Academy for Contemporary Theater is BCT’s newest offering. Year round classes for adults are available, taught by professional actors. Theater Lab, a program focused on youth ages 12-18, guides participants through creating, writing, designing, producing, and ultimately performing a play. [8] The theater also provides community outreach at local elementary, middle and high schools.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Playwrights Horizons</span> Off-Broadway theater in Manhattan, New York

Playwrights Horizons is a not-for-profit American Off-Broadway theater located in New York City dedicated to the support and development of contemporary American playwrights, composers, and lyricists, and to the production of their new work.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Great Lakes Theater</span> Theater company in Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.

Great Lakes Theater, originally known as the Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival, is a professional classic theater company in Cleveland, Ohio, United States. Founded in 1962, Great Lakes specializes in large-cast classic plays, often performing the works of Shakespeare. The company performs its main stage productions in rotating repertory at the Hanna Theatre in Playhouse Square, which reopened in 2008. The organization shares a resident company of artists with the Idaho Shakespeare Festival. On its main stage and through its education programs, GLT reaches approximately 85,000 adults and students each season.

Cleveland Play House (CPH) is a professional regional theater company located in Cleveland, Ohio. It was founded in 1915 and built its own noted theater complex in 1927. Currently the company performs at the Allen Theatre in Playhouse Square where it has been based since 2011.

Eric Coble is an American playwright and screenwriter. He is a member of the Playwrights' Unit of the Cleveland Play House.

Intiman Theatre is a resident theater company in Seattle, Washington, founded in 1972 by Margaret "Megs" Booker, who named it after Strindberg's Intimate Theater in Stockholm. Through its history, the professional theatre company has been based at various venues in Seattle; since 2021, it has been located as theatre-in-residence at Seattle Central College, performing in two venues on that campus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Perseverance Theatre</span>

Perseverance Theatre is a professional theater company located on Douglas Island in Juneau, Alaska. It is Alaska's only professional theater and is particularly dedicated to developing and working with Alaskan artists and to producing plays celebrating Alaskan culture, history, and themes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Prairie Theatre Exchange</span> Theatre venue in Winnipeg, Canada

Prairie Theatre Exchange (PTE) is a professional theatre in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. It is located on the third floor of Portage Place mall in downtown Winnipeg. By the end of the 2016–17 season, PTE had presented 340 plays on its thrust stage over its 44-year history, 149 of which were world premieres, to an annual average attendance of 35,000 people.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">South Coast Repertory</span>

South Coast Repertory (SCR) is a professional theatre company located in Costa Mesa, California.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">San Diego Repertory Theatre</span>

The San Diego Repertory Theatre was a performing arts company in San Diego, California.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maria Dahvana Headley</span> American author

Maria Dahvana Headley is an American novelist, memoirist, editor, translator, poet, and playwright. She is a New York Times-bestselling author as well as editor.

James Valcq is an American musical theatre composer, lyricist, and librettist, as well as an actor and arts administrator. He contributed to various theatrical works.

Portland Stage Company is a professional LORT theater company in the state of Maine. Founded as the Profile Theatre in 1974 as a touring theater company, the company made Portland its permanent location in 1976. In 1982, it moved to its current home of 25A Forest Avenue in Portland, Maine. Anita Stewart has served as the Artistic Director since 1996, and in 2006 was made Executive Director.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Young Playwrights' Theater</span>

Young Playwrights' Theater (YPT) is a not-for-profit theater arts-based education organization in Northwest Washington, D.C. It provides interactive in-school and after-school programs presenting and discussing student-written work to promote community dialogue and respect for young artists.

The Idaho Shakespeare Festival is a regional repertory theatre located in Boise, Idaho, United States. Its performances are presented in the summer months, June to September. It has an arrangement to share its repertory cast with the Great Lakes Theater Festival in Cleveland, Ohio, as well as the Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ensemble Studio Theatre</span>

The Ensemble Studio Theatre (EST) is a non-profit membership-based developmental theatre located in Hell's Kitchen, New York City. It has a dual mission of nurturing individual theatre artists and developing new American plays.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Barrington Stage Company</span> Non-profit theatre company in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, U.S.

Barrington Stage Company (BSC) is a regional theatre company in the Berkshires of Western Massachusetts. It was co-founded in 1995 by Artistic Director Julianne Boyd, and former Managing Director Susan Sperber in Sheffield, Massachusetts. In 2004, BSC developed, workshopped, and premiered the hit musical The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. Following the successful Broadway run, which nabbed two Tony Awards for Best Book and Best Featured Actor, BSC made the move to a more permanent home in Pittsfield, Massachusetts.

The Hangar Theatre is a non-profit, regional theatre located at 801 Taughannock Boulevard in Ithaca, NY. Its mainstage season and children's shows occur during the summer, but the Hangar, and other organizations, utilize the space year-round for special events. The tenets of the Hangar's mission statement are to enrich, enlighten, educate and entertain.

Village Theatre is a major regional theatre located in the Seattle metropolitan area. It is a member of Theatre Puget Sound and the National Alliance for Musical Theatre. The theatre was founded in Issaquah, Washington, in 1979 and built a second location in Issaquah in 1994. Village Theatre was contracted by the City of Everett, Washington, in 1998 to be the resident performing and management company of the Everett Performing Arts Center.

Hansol Jung is a South Korean translator and playwright. Jung is a recipient the Whiting Award in drama and three of her plays were listed on the 2015 Kilroys' List. Jung is a member of the Ma-Yi Theater Writers' Lab and was a Hodder Fellow at Princeton University. In addition to writing several plays, Jung has also written for the television series Tales Of the City.

David Darlow is an American actor and stage director.

References

  1. 1 2 Coble, Eric. "A Theater Company in Boise, Idaho". Boise Contemporary Theater. Retrieved 2012-08-02.
  2. ↑ "Boise Contemporary Theater – Boise Contemporary Theater" . Retrieved 2024-08-25.
  3. ↑ "What We're About – Boise Contemporary Theater" . Retrieved 2024-08-25.
  4. ↑ The Cherry Orchard arbiteronline.com [ permanent dead link ]
  5. ↑ BWW News Desk. "American Theatre Wing Announces 2010 National Theatre Company Grants". BroadwayWorld.com. Retrieved 2017-12-01.
  6. ↑ "BIPOC – Boise Contemporary Theater" . Retrieved 2024-08-25.
  7. ↑ http://samuelfrenchoobfest.blogspot.com/2009/06/day-27-dano-madden.html . Retrieved August 7, 2009.{{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)[ dead link ]
  8. ↑ "Youth Classes – Boise Contemporary Theater" . Retrieved 2024-08-25.

43°36′44″N116°12′28″W / 43.61222°N 116.20778°W / 43.61222; -116.20778

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.