EFTA01116453.pdf

Founded in 1979 by Jeffrey Horowitz, the mission of Theatre for a New Audience is to develop and vitalize the performance and study of Shakespeare and classic drama. Values and Strategies: We are guided in our work by five core values: a reverence for language, a spirit of adventure, a commitment to diversity, a dedication to learning, and a spirit of service. These values inform what we do with artists, how we interact with audiences, and how we manage our organization. History: Now in its 33s year, the Theatre has produced over 60 master works of theatre, including 30 of Shakespeare's plays alongside other classic works and distinguished contemporary plays, including Edward Bond's Chair, W.S. Gilbert's Engaged, Howard Brenton's Sore Throats, and Adrienne Kennedy's Ohio State Murders, which was named one of the ten best productions of 2007 by The New York Times. The Theatre's productions consistently have earned prestigious nominations and awards, including the Drama Desk, OBIE, Drama League, Outer Critics Circle, Lucille Lortel and Tony. Theatre for a New Audience is dedicated to the language and ideas of writers—to a dialogue between Shakespeare and a provocative range of classical and contemporary playwrights. The Theatre has attracted some of the world's most talented and sought-after artists, including directors Sir Peter Hall, Doug Hughes (Tony Award, Doubt), Bartlett Sher (Tony Award, South Pacific), Julie Taymor (Tony Award, The Lion King), Darko Tresnjak (former Artistic Director, The Old Globe, San Diego), Kate Whoriskey (Artistic Director, Intiman Theatre); Robert Woodruff (former Artistic Director, American Repertory Theatre) and Evan Yionoulis; as well as distinguished actors, such as F. Murray Abraham, Kathleen Chalfant (Wit), Stephen Spinella (Angels in America), and Mark Rylance (Tony Award, Boeing—Boeing, Jerusalem). At the same time, the Theatre has provided important developmental opportunities for some of today's most promising artists. The Theatre also has developed strong partnerships with outstanding presenters and regional theatres in the US and abroad, extending the reach of its work as well as its resources. The Theatre has toured its productions to La Jolla Playhouse and to Intiman Theatre in Seattle, and in January 2006, debuted in Italy when it toured to Naples with its production of Eduardo De Filippo's Souls of Naples (Questi Fantasmil). It has mounted co-productions with New York Theatre Workshop, American Repertory Theatre, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Houston's Alley Theatre, and Shakespeare's Globe in London. In November 2001, Theatre for a New Audience became the first American theatre company invited to perform Shakespeare at the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) in Stratford-upon-Avon with Cymbeline, directed by Bartlett Sher. The Theatre returned to the RSC in March 2007 with The Merchant of Venice, directed by Darko Tresnjak and starring Academy Award-winner F. Murray Abraham. Our first national tour, the production toured to Boston, Chicago, and Los Angeles in Spring 2011. In addition, Theatre for a New Audience sustains the largest program in New York City's Public Schools for introducing Shakespeare. The Theatre provides teachers with professional development, places artists in-residence in the classroom and brings students to matinee performances of the same award-winning productions seen by the Theatre's adult audiences. More than 2,000 students take part each year and roughly 123,000 have been served since the program began in 1984. Additional artistic programming includes TFANA Talks, a distinctive post- performance discussion series for general audiences. The Theatre also offers a wide range of ticket prices to minimize economic barriers for all its audiences. These endeavors are grounded in a firm belief that the language and scope of classic drama belong to everyone. Theatre for a New Audience is also at a turning point in its history: in 2011 it broke ground on its first home after 33 years of itinerancy, a 299-seat theatre in the Downtown Brooklyn Cultural District. Of the 3-Phase Capital Campaign goal of $68.5 Million, the Theatre has raised $52.8 million—and is on track to provide New York and the region with a state of the art theatre dedicated to Shakespeare. EFTA01116453 DOWNTOWN DOWNTOWN BROOKLYN BROOKLYN PARTNERSHIP CULTURAL DISTRICT a FORT GREENE PARK Brooklyn Hospital Fort Greene Greenmarket KALB AVE 0 • To Manhattan/ MetroTech The Strand Theater BRIG Ansi menu House Ur banGlass DAM st —I 0 0 00 IC.'Xi' 04, Harvey WI -n rrt 1 1111 -0 1 00 St Foil! Condo r SI Arts ID 5wf TOne, >C. 0 73 m . - e" I -t ift —4 0 _ 29 Flatbushil North Tower 1 army .....61ncome Hear, , 0. 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Davis 000 Atlantic Terminal ntic Center Arts Building Bang on a Can Mance of 00 BOMB Magazine Resident Theaters/NY Cool Culture South Wont Space Brooklyn Coativo Cutlet Dance High School Tr±dtte of the Arts (Wit fronklon Furnace Residential - Existing or Under Development Museum of Contemr...ary, Atman Cidtifliori Streetscape Improvements New York WntersCualit vn • Sites in Development !.:•,n,,o> USA 510 yCury • Planned Development Sites • Renovation Projects Atlantic Yards Existing Art/Cultural Residential Towers Institutions/Retail/Commercial Park/Gardens EFTA01116454  IL uuI ••• EFTA01116455  EFTA01116456 Notes from Underground MAC: U ETH li intiiIls EFTA01116457  The Samuel H. Scripps Mainstage Inspired by the Cottesloe Theatre of London's Royal National Theatre, the design for our 299-seat Mainstage combines an Elizabethan courtyard with contemporary flexibility. It will be a playground for the imagination. EFTA01116458  Theatre for a New Audience Campaign Progress & Gift Opportunities 3-Phase Capital Campaign Goal: $68.5M SIOM Financial Stablization SIM Artistic Growth Fund $3M Building and Endowment $62.5M Marketing and Programming Launch $2M Raised to date: $52.8M Number of Gifts Needed 55N1 54M* $4Ni $3.5N1 52.7M $2.5M $2.25M $.2N1 $750K 27 at 9 at Sal 1 at Oat 1 at I at I at 1 at I it $100,000 5250.000 5500.000 5750.000 SI M S2M 52.5M 53.5M S5N1 Gift Size Just as we are building from the ground up, we need gifts from the ground up. We need more than • • $1 million in gifts at $50,000 and under, from hundreds of donors. 400 have made gifts already! HAVE NEED •$500,000 of our funds raised is a National Endowment for the Humanities Challenge Grant. To meet the 3:1 Challenge, we have raised $872,000 and must raise the remaining 5628,000 in matching funds over the next two years. EFTA01116459  Shakespeare Works in Brooklyn: The Campaign for a Permanent Home in the BAM Cultural District Naming Opportunities The Building $10,000,000 Named Funds Mainstage — Named $ 5,000,000 Theatrical Lighting Fund $ 250,000 Theatrical Sound Fund $ 250,000 Lobby Spaces Free Student Family Tickets for 10 Years $ 2,000,000 Main Lobby, Ground Floor- Named $ 1,000,000 New Deal Ticket Fund — Age 30 and Under $ 3,000,000 Lobby Staircase — Reserved $ 500,000 Orchestra Level Lobby $ 500,000 Giving Plaques Gallery Level Lobby — Reserved $ 250,000 The Groundbreakers $ 25,000+ Box Office $ 250,000 Main Donor Wall $ 50,000+ Lobby Cafe $ 300,000 Green Leaders — List in Formation $ 100,000+ Elevator Bank - Named $ 100,000 Book Kiosk $ 100,000 Endowment Named Funds Artistic Venture Fund $ 3,000,000 Mainstage Seating Areas • Fund for Classic Drama $ 1,500,000 Orchestra level Seating $ 1,000,000 • Fund for Contemporary Drama $ 1,500,000 First Gallery - Named $ 500,000 Education Fund $ 2,000,000 Second Gallery $ 250,000 Humanities Fund $ 2,000,000 Building Maintenance Fund $ 2,000,000 Other Spaces Named Lecture Series $ 500,000 50-Seat Studio Space - Named $ 2,500,000 Named Visiting Artist $ 500,000 Green Room $ 500,000 Named Director $ 500,000 Principal Dressing Rooms (2) $ 250,000 Named Resident Artist $ 500,000 Chorus Dressing Rooms (2) $ 250,000 Stage Door - Named $ 100,000 Production Underwriting Catwalk $ 100,000 Julie Taymor Inaugural Production $ 1,000,000 Wardrobe Room $ 100,000 Administrative Offices $3,500,000 Artistic Director's Office $ 250,000 EFTA01116460 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. August 6, 2012 A New Theater Is Much Ado About Something in Brooklyn By JENNIFER MALONEY The new theater going up in downtown Brooklyn is still just a shell of steel beams and concrete, but already Dorothy Ryan can point out where fairies will fly, armies will march in and gravediggers will hand up skulls. The Theatre for a New Audience, one of New York's premier Shakespeare troupes, has never had a permanent home. On Monday, it will celebrate a topping out ceremony, commemorating the placement of the final beam on the first major venue for classical plays built in New York since the Vivian Beaumont Theater opened at Lincoln Center in 1965. The new theater is scheduled to open in the fall of 2013. Kevin Hagen for The Wail Preto .1,no nal Theatrefor a New Audience's building is set "It's incredibly intimate," said Ms. Ryan, the theater's managing to open in the fall of2011 director, walking through the construction site. "The idea is an actor will whisper and you will hear every word." The 299-seat theater will be similar in size to the Brooklyn Academy of Music's new BAM Richard B. Fisher Building, a 250-seat space opening nearby next month. Both are part of the city's Downtown Brooklyn Cultural District, a development plan for arts facilities, public space and retail space to which the city has committed $100 million in capital finding. It was previously known as the BAM Cultural District. As part of the initiative, the city will build an 8,000-square-foot public plaza on Ashland Place in front of the Theatre for a New Audience building. The Shakespeare company, which mounts between three and five plays each season, was founded 33 years ago and has bounced around off-Broadway theaters in Manhattan and occasionally in Brooklyn. Its most frequent venue has been the Duke on 42nd Street, a 200-seat theater, but sometimes it has performed in three different spaces in the same season, Ms. Ryan said. Its $56.5 million building has been a decade in the making, and was planned for two other nearby sites before a site was finalized on Ashland Place near Fulton Street. The city contributed $34.4 million to the project. The theater was designed for Shakespeare. On a recent morning as masons grouted cinder-block walls and elevator workers installed a hydraulic piston, Ms. Ryan stood at the back of the theater, looking across a floor that will allow the stage and seating to be configured in different ways. Most likely, it will often be configured as a thrust, extending forward into the audience like the original Globe Theatre in London, where many of the bard's plays were first performed. Under one section of the floor, a pit will accommodate stage traps, such as the one called for in Hamlet's graveyard scene, where a gravedigger hands the skull of King Hamlet's jester to the murderous prince. A set of double doors at the back of the theater open onto a backstage area and rehearsal space, allowing the armies of King Lear and Henry V to march in from afar. And a pair of doors suspended in the back wall of the theater will serve as balconies for Juliet to call down to Romeo. - - EFTA01116461 The space is 35 feet high, much higher than the average off-Broadway theater, allowing fairies and witches and scenery to fly in from above. Two balconies for seating wrap around the theater on three sides. Because the Theatre for a New Audience puts on modern staging of classical works, "they were looking for a high-tech workshop," said Geoffrey Lynch, project manager for H3 Hardy Collaboration Architecture. "Beautiful and wonderful but not too fancy, not too perfect. Kind of like a laboratory, where they can experiment." The front of the building will have a glass wall so that passersby can see audience members standing in the multitiered lobby, and vice versa. At ground level, the glass will have no mullionsthe panels instead joined by siliconeso that at night the plaza will appear to continue directly into the lobby. The project is a big leap for an organization with a $3.7 million annual budget, 1,500 subscribers and an audience of roughly 40,000 people a year. It will have to hire ushers, stagehands and box-office staff. And its annual budget is expected to jump to just over $5 million. The company has some $14 million left to raise in a capital campaign that includes a $10 million endowment, Ms. Ryan said. The first production in the new space will be directed by Tony Award winner Julie Taymor, who directed her first Shakespeare play, "The Tempest," for the Theatre for a New Audience in 1986. "My instinct is to try for something joyous," she said, adding that it will likely be a Shakespeare work. Speaking of the company's founder, Jeffrey Horowitz, she said, "He's realistic, yet he's got dreams. A not-for- profit theater doing classics in Brooklyn raising how many millions? That's just astounding." -2- EFTA01116462