WHAT Lab

Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater’s WHAT Lab is a play development program for new works for the American theater. We provide a series of group residencies for visiting playwrights, actors and directors, each tailored to best fit the needs of individual projects. A limited number of Labs are offered each year between November and April.

A Talk Back with the cast and writer after a reading of Jim Gabriel’s What Love Is

The hallmark of the Lab is creative flexibility. Artists work intensively for several days on a single project — a new play, performance piece, film script, etc. Scripts can arrive at any stage of development. We provide the expertise of WHAT’s artistic and technical staff, rehearsal space, and the use of the Julie Harris Stage for readings. Residency activities include table readings, scene work in the rehearsal hall and on stage, multiple script revisions, feedback and one-on-one consultations with WHAT’s resident Dramaturg and the Artistic Director. WHAT actors, directors and other personnel are available on an as-needed basis for projects. WHAT, considered the premiere performing arts facility on Cape Cod, includes the 200+ seat Julie Harris Stage, ample backstage and technical facilities, a rehearsal hall, and the WHAT for Kids Tent.

Participants will stay at WHAT’s comfortable, contemporary actor’s house. Each residency (generally 2 – 7 days) may end with a reading or performance open to the public, followed by a moderated talk-back session. Residencies also include opportunity for artistic rejuvenation and retreat in the surrounding Cape Cod National Seashore, within walking distance of both the theater and artist housing. Post-Lab, playwrights will have the option of bringing revised work back for a private one-on-one between themselves and WHAT’s Dramaturg. Project Director Dan Lombardo has been WHAT’s Dramaturg/Literary Manager and a director since 2005.

Project Vetting
Artists with projects would be asked to submit in writing to the Lab Director and/or the Artistic Director.

• Script or synopsis
• List of participants and bios
• List of needs including desired rehearsal schedule, days in residence
• Private/public outcome:
  • Public reading?
  • Reading for invited audience?
  • No public reading?

Stipends

WHAT offers small stipends and travel assistance.

WHAT Lab Advisors

WHAT Lab Advisors review scripts, help us shape and evaluate projects, and recommend projects from their particular areas of expertise. We sought advisors with considerable experience in new play development, who could help us reach out to different audiences, and stretch us artistically as a theater.

• Melody Brooks, Founder and Artistic Director, New Perspectives Theatre Company
• Jeremy B. Cohen, Producing Artistic Director, The Playwrights’ Center, Minneapolis
• Mark Linn-Baker, actor; Co-Founder and Producing Director, New York Stage and Film Company
• Ilan Stavans, author, lexicographer, playwright, cultural commentator, and translator, Lewis-Sebring Professor in Latin American and Latino Culture
• Maria Striar, Clubbed Thumb Theater Company
• Paula Vogel, playwright; Eugene O'Neill Chair, Playwriting, Yale School of Drama

Past Seasons

The first year of WHAT Lab in 2009-2010 included Obie-winner Kyle Jarrow, playwright and actress Brenda Withers, film maker Jim Gabriel, playwright Isaac Rathbone, playwright and actor Robert Kropf and best-selling author and screenwriter Robert Sabbag.

The second season of the WHAT Lab was comprised of:

• Nine residencies
• Eight theater scripts and one screenplay
• Two one-man shows, based on historical characters (Capt. Ferguson; Zeta)
• One play that went on to premier in New York at 59E59 (Capt. Ferguson)
• One play that was chosen for full production in the WHAT 2011 season (The Ding Dongs)
• Twenty-one actors, playwrights, and directors were housed during the Lab season

---

WHAT Lab 2011-2012 Schedule

TC Squared Theatre Company – New Works Written and Performed by Boston Arts Academy Alumni
Nov. 19 – 20, 2011
Public Reading: Sunday, Nov. 20, 7:00 pm, The Julie Harris Stage

Lab Workshop: Saturday, Nov. 19; Sunday, Nov. 20

"Our mission will encourage and produce staged readings of new works by Boston Arts Academy alumni who are now writing and acting in the professional theatre. Our role is to mentor young artists to reach diverse audiences through socially relevant theatre, which challenges opinions and pushes artistic boundaries to produce transformative theatre."

Dipika Guha, Playwright – The Rules
Jesse Jou, Director
Dec. 6 – 11, 2011
Lab Public Reading: Sunday, Dec. 11, 7:00 pm, The Julie Harris Stage

Both Dipika Guha and director Jesse Jou are affiliated with Yale School of Drama and are part of WHAT's Next Generation: A Mentoring Program. Dipika’s The Betrothed was produced at our Harbor Stage in 2011. At Yale, Jou was the recipient of the Edgar and Louise Cullman Scholarship. He served as Artistic Director of the 2010 season of the Yale Summer Cabaret and as the Staff Repertory Director for the 2010-2011 tour of the Acting Company.

The Play: Ana, Mehr and Julia are childhood friends, their friendship held fast by their observance of several unspoken rules. That is, until a brooding stranger with a mysterious resemblance to Colin Firth and a strange addiction problem comes to town. THE RULES is a romantic comedy turned revenge tragedy.

The Untitled Blood Play – by Members of the Debate Society
Feb. 14 – 21, 2012
Lab Public Reading: Sunday, Feb. 21, 7:00 pm, The Julie Harris Stage

“The Debate Society is a collaboration between Hannah Bos, Paul Thureen (Actor/Playwrights) and Oliver Butler (Director/Developer)- and we spend between 1-2 years developing the play in ensemble rehearsals and writing retreats. The retreats that occur later in our play-making process often include actors and designers to help us build the world of the play along with the script.

We recently did the Clubbed Thumb/Playwrights Horizons SuperLab for our new play The Untitled Blood Play (working title). Since this play is headed for production in the fall of 2012, it seems like the right piece for a development period with you.”

"Soon, the story spread... Whispers in the basement bars of the homes around the neighborhood. Rumors served at the soda shop. Kids, terrified, telling trembling tales in tents in the backyard... He’s out there."

Nathan Leigh – Sealand: A new musical
by the composer of the The Consequences
(a musical developed at WHAT Lab, 2009)
March 2012

Nathan Leigh has been the resident sound designer/composer at WHAT for many years. His and Kyle Jarrow’s The Consequences went on to full production in Dayton OH as part of Encore Theatre Company's 2011 Festival of New Musicals, August 4 - 6, 2011.

Meryl Cohen – The Final Say
April 2012

Cohn’s plays often blend feelings from opposite ends of the emotional spectrum. Her 2006 play “Naked with Fruit” followed four women confronted simultaneously with loss and love, while her 2005 play “And Sophie Comes Too” explored the liberating experience of becoming who you are against the backdrop of loved one’s constraining wishes. She splits her time between Provincetown and Northampton, MA.

The Final Say,synopsis:
"Betsy Gold might finally get her play about her grandmother’s heroic actions during WWII produced-- if only "Holocaust Superhero: The Musical" weren't just about to open. When Betsy learns that the upcoming musical has a similar story line, and was written by her former playwriting professor, she is forced to decide how far to go to protect her play and her beloved grandmother’s story. It's a serious play in some ways-- but there's also a fair amount of comedy and a wry perspective on the theatre world."

---

WHAT Mission Statement:

The Mission of Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater is to present professional quality theater to its audiences; to provide an alternative theater experience not found elsewhere in the region; to advance and preserve the art of the theater for the education and appreciation of the public. WHAT seeks to be a good neighbor, to be of benefit to the economy of Wellfleet, its restaurants, galleries and shops, its working people and its retirees, its residents, non-resident homeowners and its visitors. WHAT seeks to be an active and contributing part of the entire Cape Cod Community. To accomplish its mission, WHAT endeavors to find interesting and provocative works of high quality and to recruit artists with the skill, imagination, and vision to realize those works in production.

Key Personnel

Dan Lombardo has been the Dramaturg and Literary Manager at WHAT since 2005. He has also led the WHAT Lab since its creation in 2009. Recently, he directed Blithe Spirit and Michael Harrington's Opus at American Stage Theatre in Tampa Florida. Dan began working in theater at the age of 13 as the percussionist/composer for The Open Stage Company in Hartford, and continued with companies like the Eighth Avenue Review. His work as a dramaturg/research consultant in television and film includes The Irish (a PBS series), The Belle of Amherst (with Claire Bloom for ITV, England), Malice (with Alec Baldwin and Nicole Kidman), Voices and Visions (a 13;part PBS series), The Afterglow (with Burgess Meredith), and several Florentine Films documentaries. Lombardo has appeared in films on PBS and on BBC TV, including Loaded Gun ( with Julie Harris), and a BBC film about literary forgery. Dan is the author of ten books, including the new Cape Cod National Seashore: The First 50 Years. Dan and his wife, Karen Banta, split their time between Western Massachusetts and Cape Cod.

Paula Vogel is the Eugene O'Neill Professor (adjunct) of Playwriting and Chair of the Playwriting Department at the Yale School of Drama. Her play, How I Learned to Drive, received the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the Lortel Prize, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle and New York Drama Critics Awards for Best Play, as well as winning her second OBIE. It has been produced all over the world. Other plays includeThe Long Christmas Ride Home, The Mineola Twins, The Baltimore Waltz, Hot'N'Throbbing, Desdemona, And Baby Makes Seven, and The Oldest Profession. In 2004-5 she was the playwright in residence at The Signature Theatre in New York which produced three of her works. Her new play A Civil War Christmas was produced at The Long Wharf Theatre in November 2008, directed by Tina Landau. This past season it was produced at Theatre Works in Palo Alto, CA and by the Huntington Theatre in Boston. She is currently playwright in residence at the Yale Repertory Theatre, as well as an artistic associate at Long Wharf Theatre. Work in progress includes a commission for Yale Repertory (based on The God of Vengeance), a work in collaboration with director Rebecca Taichman, and a new play, Jitterbugging and the War Effort. Theatre Communications Group has published three books of her work, The Mammary Plays, The Baltimore Waltz and Other Plays and The Long Christmas Ride Home. A Civil War Christmas will be published in Fall 2011. Most recent awards include the 2010 William Inge Festival Distinguished Achievement in the American Theatre Award (past recipients include Arthur Miller, Horton Foote, Edward Albee, and August Wilson). She was inducted into the College of Fellows of the American Theatre at the Kennedy Center in April. Last year, she was awarded the Stephen and Christine Schwarzman Legacy Award for Excellence in Theatre for lifetime achievement and excellence in teaching. She is most honored to have two awards to emerging playwrights named after her: the Paula Vogel Award, created by the American College Theatre Festival in 2003, and the Paula Vogel Award in Playwriting is given annually by the Vineyard Theatre, since 2007: its first recipient was Yale School of Drama alum Terrell McCraney. Ms. Vogel won the 2004 Award for Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the OBIE for Best Play in 1992, the Rhode Island Pell Award in the Arts, the Hull-Warriner Award, The Laura Pels Award, the Pew Charitable Trust Senior Award, a Guggenheim, an AT&T New Plays Award, the Fund for New American Plays, the Rockefeller Foundation's Bellagio Center Fellowship, several National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, the McKnight Fellowship, the Bunting Fellowship, and the Governor's Award for the Arts. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She was recently awarded a Thirtini, a most coveted award, from 13P in New York. She has been a fellow at the MacDowell Colony, as well as Yaddo.

Mark Hough (WHAT Executive Director) Mark Hough has been working in the theater for over thirty years as an actor, director and producing executive. Mark is also an acclaimed writer of literary fiction. Mark has read his work to SRO audiences at the Boot in Norfolk, VA. Mark is a member of the Muse and studies with Tim Farrington. Mark Hough is President of Hough and Associates (www.markhough.org), a full range management, programming, Board development and fund raising consulting business serving not-for-profit organizations and philanthropic foundations. Mark has over 20 years of experience in not-for-profit management and fund development.

Ted Vitale (WHAT Producer) Before joining WHAT, Ted was Production Stage Manager for D. Benjamen Brown Productions at the Tropicana Casino in Atlantic City, NJ and Production Manager of the Sid Caesar Theater in Huntington, NY, where he worked with Rene Taylor, Joe Bolongna, Frank Gorshin, Lee Meriweather and Gabe Kaplan among others. He has production managed and or company managed many national tours including Raisin with Peabo Bryson and Jeffrey Osborne and The 20th Anniversary tour of Hair among many others. He is the former General Manager of the Provincetown Repertory Theater where he created a playwrights forum on the future of American Theater with August Wilson, Lanford Wilson, Paula Vogel, Terrence McNally, Wendy Kesselman, A.R. Gurney, John Guare, Christopher Durang And Jon Robin Baitz. He is the former Artistic Director of The Academy of Performing Arts in Orleans, MA. He is also the former instructor of Stagecraft at Cape Cod Community College. As a set designer he has designed shows in Las Vegas, Atlantic City, Off Broadway and Broadway where he designed for Michael Moriarty's one man show A Special Providence.