Black Box Theater — the Last Bastion of Creativity?
A bold statement perhaps but if you’re familiar with this kind of theater then you know the statement is marginally true.
A bold statement perhaps but if you’re familiar with this kind of theater then you know the statement is marginally true.
The last play I wrote, The Salt Pit, was produced in 2018. It was an extended one-act play about rendition and “enhanced interrogation.”
Prior to that, I had a number of plays produced in various venues around New York City. These plays were produced by small theater groups in small, sometimes cramped, spaces known as Black Box Theaters.
It differs from Off-Broadway or even Off-Off Broadway simply by the size of the theaters which can range from 50 — +/- 150 seats.
It’s a vibrant community of writers, directors and actors that you’ll find in most major cities. Some folks refer to Black Box Theater as “experimental” theater.
I’m not one of those.
Yes, some of it can be experimental. You will encounter plays about two fishes pondering their existence in front of a fishing hook — those kinds of aquatic Waiting for Godot plays exist.
The types of plays produced are many — comedy, drama, musical, monologues, and yes, experimental. The only real common elements are that the plays can range in length (10–60+ minutes) and that they take place in very small theaters with the walls painted black (ergo Black Box Theater).
My experience was such that Black Box Theater was traditional storytelling. Well, that’s what I wrote about that got produced. I’ve written stranger things, but those I usually keep to myself unless they are exceptional…and they have not been.
That said, there are many advantages to Black Box Theater but the biggest one is that it provides a tremendous amount of creative freedom for everyone — performers, writers, directors and the audience. Because the stage is so sparse, it requires active engagement.
For all involved, Black Box Theater requires the actors and audience to see that which cannot be seen.
Because of that, Black Box Theater, for me, takes on an almost literary quality. On the one hand it requires the writer to really emphasize words and actions. In theater, especially Black Box, you can’t necessarily rely on the “show don’t tell” element. But not in some high-brow wordy kind of way.
For the actors, it means much of the same…I think. I can’t really speak to that too much. As a writer, I didn’t meddle with their process. However, I can say that I’ve only been disappointed once in any performance of my work.
For the audience, that literary element is most prevalent. Two people can see the same play but visualize two different environments from the limited stage setting. The same way two people can read the same book and have two different visuals.
Broadway is what it is now.
The Disney-fication of the area has meant that risk taking on the “Great White Way” is at a minimum, if it exists at all. So, unless you’re well-known or have a white-hot original play, moving your writing through the ranks of the theater world is challenging, if not impossible.
Your local theater will usually produce more well-known plays because, let’s face it, no one goes to the theater anymore. In order to get “cheeks in the seats” they’ve got to know what they’re going to.
But it doesn’t mean that good work isn’t out there. Theater still remains a writers medium and that’s what makes it so exciting. Nowhere is that seen more than in Black Box Theater.
Podcasting has allowed for a marginal increase in this kind of theater, but it still remains on the fringes.
ANYWAY, stumbling around the internets this morning I found some old plays from a stalled project a few years back. One is a recorded version of a play of mine, Results and the two others were recorded live.
Results (9:46)
by Keith R. Higgons
Starring — Arthur Aulisi, Claire Lebowitz & Josh Marcantel
Music by Lee Brooks
Engineered and Mixed by Chris Gilroy
Tables Turning (4:46)
by Keith R. Higgons
Starring — Bradley Wells
Recorded live at The Producers Club in NYC
Breaking Up (10:45)
by E.M. Burkhard
Starring — Andrew Blair & Brittany Parker
Recorded live at The Producers Club in NY.