Every year, The Civilians selects a group of theatermakers to meet throughout the season and develop original pieces of theater. They investigate the topic they’ve chosen through creative processes from interviews and community engagement to other experimental methods of inquiry. This season is the 10th anniversary of The Civilians fostering growth, community, and collaboration in the R&D program. This year’s group is led by R&D Program Director Ilana Becker.

She shared her thoughts on R&D, explaining that “R&D Group is full of hyphenate creators who stretch theatremaking forms to meet their investigations. As you might imagine of a group who center the How and the Why in their work, they’re a compassionate and cohort-minded bunch who show up for each other during and after their residencies. Their projects are both personal and inherently outward-focused. I feel fortunate to have spent several years with this program and its alumni, who continue to inspire me to ask and consider and create better.” In celebration of the past 10 years, we look to some of its members past and present to share their work and their memories of R&D.

THE ARTISTS

Darrel Alejandro Holnes

About the artist… 2019-2020 R&D Group Member, Afrikan •isch

R&D and beyond… “My project is BLACK FEMINIST VIDEO GAME and was produced by The Civilians this spring.”

Eleanor Burgess

About the artist… 2017-2018 R&D Group Member, Wife of a Salesman

R&D and beyond… “I’m grateful for all I learned with The Civilians, and hope you all are coping during a very hard year! I actually ended up receiving a rewrite commission for the play from Writers Theatre and Milwaukee Rep, and am developing the play with them with an eye towards a possible future production. I’ve been doing many research-heavy and interview-heavy projects, including a play about Jesus that involved gathering interfaith groups for bible study and conversation, which provided the initial and thematic fuel for the play.”

Kathleen Capdesuñer

About the artist… 2019-2020 R&D Group Member, Director

R&D and beyond… “I am currently in residence at Faultline Theatre to begin developing a new play with an investigative process. The project is inspired by confidential first-hand interviews of unpaid interns and bureaucrats at an intergovernmental organization, and investigates legislation-making, idealism and corruption within such institutions. Following the structure of the myth of Iphigenia, the play examines modern sacrifice and how it intertwines with immigration, bureaucracy, and moral responsibility.”

EllaRose Chary

About the artist… 2011-2012 Literary Associate, 2012-2015 R&D Coordinator, 2015-2016 R&D Group Member, Power State

R&D and beyond… “The R&D Group at The Civilians was my creative home for a large chunk of the beginning of my career, first attending as Literary Associate, then being the coordinator and helping build the program, and then eventually being a member of the group developing my own project and LET ME ASCERTAIN YOU Cabaret. The thing I will always value most from that time is the community of artists I met and worked with, folks ranging in artistic practice from visual art and film to traditional playwriting to composing and interactive world building and game theory. What was always special (to me) about the R&D Group was that there weren’t parameters on the kinds of artists or where folks were in their careers, there weren’t restrictions on form, the space was designed to encourage cross-pollination – always driven by the undergirding principle: what is the investigative question driving each project?”

Melissa Crespo

About the artist… 2013-2014 R&D Group Member, Director

R&D and beyond… “I am thrilled to report that the play I was working on in the R&D group has come a long way. I teamed up with brilliant playwright Sarah Saltwick and our partnership resulted in a full length play titled EGRESS. We received a workshop production at Cleveland Playhouse in 2019, and was awarded the Roe Green Award for Outstanding Achievement in Playwriting. We were then supposed to have a world premiere production at Amphibian Stage in May 2020, but it has been postponed due to COVID-19. 

Interestingly, a few projects I’ve done during the pandemic have involved the investigative process. One of them was a virtual presentation that I directed of INTO THE BEAUTIFUL NORTH, by Luis Alberto Urrea and adapted by Karen Zacarías with the talented undergrads at the University of Texas in El Paso. Since the play was adapted from a book and the month-long programming was in conjunction with the NEA, I used interviews to create material in conversation with the play. It was really fun and we were all proud of the end product.

I have had the privilege of serving as Editor for 3Views on Theater during the pandemic. 3Views is an online, artist driven publication conceived by The Lillys dedicated to highlighting productions affected by covid-19, reflections of the moment and urgent initiatives. It’s been a healing endeavor that I am very proud of. I’m also grateful to already have a few virtual directing gigs on my calendar in 2021 despite the pandemic. Any opportunity to create and connect with my community is a gift, but I am counting down the days–however many there might be–when we can be together again.”

David Dabbon

About the artist… 2016-2017 R&D Group Member, The Gun Show

R&D and beyond… “Our show OUR NEW TOWN has been chosen for three productions since our time with the R&D group, including at Northwestern University and Muhlenberg. It’s been very exciting seeing the importance of this piece for the students a part of it. We were asked by NYTB to share more info about the show on January 6th as part of the online season. The cast from Wagner College last year put together some music videos which is very exciting to have and see. I have been working on another piece that started with interviews of teens around the country a couple of years ago. We are rewriting. In addition, we just made a demo of it last fall with some of the people who were part of one of the labs.”

Kate Douglas

About the artist… 2019-2020 R&D Group Member, Against Women & Music!

R&D and beyond… “We had a development week at Rhinebeck Writers Retreat last summer and worked with The Civilians this spring on a concert presentation of the show. I am currently developing a play called THE APIARY – set inside a synthetic apiary, an all-white room inside of MIT where seasonal honeybees live year-round in perpetual spring. Bees have an endless supply of sugar water and fake pollen. Everything is under control.

THE APIARY is an imagined story inside this real-world setting. The play follows the arrival of a new research assistant, Zora, to the synthetic apiary, and mirrors her deteriorating health with the health of the bee colony. In this synthetic world, THE APIARY asks: what does it mean to be human (or bee) in a world designed for survival? I am at the beginning phases of development with this work, which involves a lot of research on honeybees and biodesign. 

I am also currently developing several audio promenade pieces that involve research in the fields of biodiversity, climate change, decomposition/decay and our urban canopy. One is DANDELION STORY, an immersive audio experience for families that features “undesirable” plants as protagonists. It playfully explores the history of weeds as they intersect with human beings literally and imaginatively through text and soundscape. When did weeds become weeds (“plants in the wrong place”)? What do we have to learn from these “inconvenient” plants who persist despite our attempts to eradicate or tame them? Dandelion Story invites the possibility that these plants may be our teachers in adaptation, microevolution and resilience. Another is MAYBE DEAD IS JUST A WORD PEOPLE SAY WHEN THEY’RE SCARED is an audio promenade piece that centers decomposition/regeneration in plant communities. This site-specific work is experienced in transition spaces such as cemeteries and looks to weeds and fungi as teachers in transformation and resilience, giving way to broader conversations around death and regeneration in human ecosystems as well (physically, emotionally, socially). For instance: what does it mean to compost your grief or despair?”

Estefanía Fadul

About the artist… 2017-2018 R&D Group Member, Wife of a Salesman

R&D and beyond… “I developed an immersive piece this year CARLA’S QUINCE to mobilize the Latinx vote that involved an investigative process at the top (interviews with Latinx voters, research, etc.) It is my hope to continue developing it into a long-term tool to engage with Latinx voters in future elections.”

Annah Feinberg

About the artist… 2010-2011 Literary Associate, 2010-2012 R&D Group Coordinator

R&D and beyond… “The community of artists that have passed through the R&D Group possess a true curiosity about the world that transcends navel-gazing bullshit. Ten years later, I still feel honored to have shared brain waves with them.”

Jessica Huang

About the artist… 2018-2019 R&D Group Member, Kim Loo Sisters Musical

R&D and beyond… “The Kim Loo Sisters Musical was a part of Berkeley Rep’s Ground Floor in 2019, and I continue to develop it! I’ve been adapting The Birth of the Pill, a book by Jon Eig about the invention of the birth control pill, into a play – a process which has also involved a lot of my own research, specifically into the letters and papers belonging to Katharine McCormick, Gregory Pincus, John Rock and Margaret Sanger.”

Megan McClain

About the artist… 2015-2020 R&D Program Director

R&D and beyond… “What makes The Civilians R&D Group special has always been the wildly talented and deeply curious artists who drive its creativity from year to year. The R&D Group welcomes directors, writers, composers, devisers, musicians, and all sorts of multidisciplinary generative artists, including those who might not feel as though they would fit in more traditional writers groups. Though R&D members might come from varied disciplines, they all bring inquisitive minds, generous collaborative spirits, and a fearlessness to experiment to the table.

The R&D Group asks artists to design their own methods of investigation which allows for creative freedom as well as an exciting sharing of artistic practices within the group. Each R&D project typically begins with a question and a deep yearning to know more about a community, an event, or an idea. Projects are often ambitious in their scope. They might look outward, asking important questions about the larger forces, narratives, and inequities that shape our society, as well as inward, as they navigate the complex terrain of the human heart. Past members have drawn upon interviews, extensive research, as well as explorations into personal and public histories or current social events. R&D Group members then take the findings of their investigative field work, interpret them through their own unique creative processes, discuss their discoveries with fellow members, and share the results with audiences during the FINDINGS Series. These presentations might fit a more traditional play reading model or they might incorporate a wide range of creative modes of expression including music, verbatim text, movement, poetry, and community engagement.

The R&D Group provides a space to experiment, ask questions, make discoveries, take risks, hit dead ends, follow artistic impulses, and share methodologies. It takes great courage and openness to engage in this kind of work. It takes a willingness to set aside preconceived assumptions, ask complicated questions, and listen deeply. R&D Group members are fueled by an insatiable curiosity as they pursue deeper, more nuanced understandings of what their chosen topics reveal about the world around us. 

I am profoundly grateful to the gifted R&D artists I’ve had the honor to work with during my time as The Civilians R&D Program Director. They moved me with music, introduced me to unforgettable (real and fictional) characters, revealed a multiplicity of perspectives, challenged my assumptions, and blew me away with their intelligence, innovation, and heart. I can’t wait to see what they and future R&D cohorts do next!”

Grace McLean

About the artist… 2019-2020 R&D Group Member, Against Women & Music!

R&D and beyond… “Kate and I have been hard at work dismantling and reassembling our project, and are very excited about the direction she’s heading. We have been talking with Theater Latte Da about further supporting our development, and are excited about The Civilians sponsored cabaret performance of the new work earlier this month! I’ve started working with Adam Chanler-Berat on a piece loosely inspired by Tchaikovsky’s life and music, and we’ve been doing a lot of research around that.”

Julia Meinwald

About the artist… 2015-2016 R&D Group Member, REB + VODKA + ME

R&D and beyond… “REB+VODKA+ME received the 2020 Thom Thomas Award from the Dramatist Guild Foundation! We used the award money to make three music videos for moments from the show. The show also won the 2019 Discovery Grant from Opera America, which is what we used to produce our 2019 reading in collaboration with The Civilians! We also used that grant to record new demos. The show received a workshop performance with NYU’s New Studio on Broadway in 2017 and a remote workshop with the undergrads at Penn State in the fall of 2020. Two of our “early stages” shows have a research bent. THESE FAMILIAR SPIRITS looks at the Salem Witch Trials, imagining a reunion of the girls who made the accusations twenty years after the fact, at one girl’s funeral. CHOREOMANIA looks at the Dancing Plague of 1518, one of the first historically documented instances of mass psychogenic illness, or mass hysteria.”

Winter Miller

About the artist… 2014-2015 R&D Group Member, Writer

R&D and beyond… “R&D was a really great experience for me, I’m so grateful for it, and will always look for the right opportunity to collaborate with The Civilians in any way. I developed the first draft of my play SPARE RIB with the R&D Group and it was immensely helpful in encouraging me to take big risks and keep going, by having the monthly sessions and feeling accountable and supportable to the group.

The project has been a finalist and semi-finalist for prestigious awards. It has gone from three and a half hours at the first Civilians R&D reading all the way down to a taut 90 minutes, with many public readings used as fundraisers. I have spent many, many weeks on this play, and by hook or by crook, it will make it to the public in production. The play readings have raised about $40,000 in donations, raffles and ticket sales for the public readings and has been introduced by feminist icons such as Gloria Steinem, Samantha Bee. It has been developed and supported by The Lark, The Civilians R&D, Blue Mountain Center, New George’s Audrey Residency and Piece by Piece Productions. 

My play NO ONE IS FORGOTTEN is about two women locked in a cell somewhere in the world; they are a journalist and an aid worker and I’m developing it into a radio opera.”

Kamala Sankaram

About the artist… 2014-2015 R&D Group Member, Writer, 2019-2020 R&D Group Member, Candidate X

R&D and beyond… “Since our time in the R&D Group, THE PRIVACY SHOW (now titled LOOKING AT YOU) received additional support from Opera America, BRICLab, Penguin, and HERE Arts Center. We gained collaborators from Carnegie Mellon University and Bandcamp.com who built the data-mining and tablet servers for the show. LOOKING AT YOU premiered at HERE in September 2019 and ran for three weeks to sold out houses. We were also featured in the Observer and on BBC3. I received a subsequent grant from NYFA to record the cast album, which is coming out this summer on the label Bright Shiny Things. We are now in talks for the piece to tour to San Diego Opera in May of 2022. I am currently working on a new piece titled JOAN OF THE CITY, a site-specific multi-media opera that will use augmented reality/mixed reality to tell the story of a modern-day Joan of Arc. This Joan is a young woman who has ended up on the street due to her all-consuming visions. Now, the spirits of the city call out to her to save it from the occupying forces of greed and gentrification. The audience becomes part of Joan’s army and joins her on her quest. I am collaborating with director Kristin Marting to create the piece. Kristin and I began by reading several published narratives from formerly homeless women to create the initial outline of the piece. However, we felt that to best serve the communities portrayed in the show, we should let the women tell their own stories. We are currently partnering with Mary’s Place, a Seattle-based service organization for homeless women, to create the text for the libretto.”

Dina Vovsi

About the artist… 2018-2019 R&D Group Member, Director

R&D and beyond… “Deborah and I joined forces again this past summer when DRIVE won the awesome Neukom Award and had a month-long virtual residency with Dartmouth’s VoxFest. We’ve continued to work with composer Hannah Fairchild, who Jacob in our R&D Group so graciously connected us with. And Deborah has had several other readings of the play!

I’m still developing a play about the political clashes within the Russian and Pakistani immigrant communities in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn with collaborator Liba Vaynberg and support from Working Theater’s 5 Boroughs 1 City Initiative. The piece, then titled THE ONLY ONES, had a public reading with Working Theater in 2019 in partnership with the Brooklyn Public Library’s Brighton Beach branch, and several roundtable readings. I recently directed a piece for Notch Theater Company’s Voices from a Pandemic Story Bank, which just went live on their website yesterday – it’s a transcribed interview, and the actor, Ash Hicks, was also the interviewer. In September 2019, I created a 20-minute piece in a Brooklyn community garden as a lead artist for Communal Spaces, inspired by an interview with a person in the community.

The awesome Sarah Gancher brought me on to do a little research for RUSSIAN TROLL FARM! After seeing this play grow during PlayTime at New Dramatists, I was so thrilled that The Civilians were part of the producing team for the virtual production and was honored to be a tiny part of it.”

Deborah Yarchun

About the artist… 2018-2019 R&D Group Member, Drive

R&D and beyond… “DRIVE was virtually read at Northern Stage’s New Works Now Festival this past January and directed by Michael Legg (Artistic Director of Montana Repertory Theatre) with a cast that includes Johanna Day, Nehassaiu deGannes, Allison Jean White, Larry Bull, CJ Wilson, and Jayla McDonald. Following the FINDINGS Series, DRIVE was read in July 2019 at Martha’s Vineyard Playhouse. The play was a finalist for Seven Devil’s 2020 Playwrights Conference. DRIVE won Dartmouth’s 2020 Neukom Literary Arts Award for Playwriting and was workshopped through Dartmouth’s VoxFest directed by Dina Vovsi, who I worked with through The Civilians’ R&D Group, with a cast featuring Andrea Syglowski, Abigail Gampel (who were both part of the R&D FINDINGS series reading), J. Stephen Brantley, Nidra Sous La Terre, Lee Sellars, and Carene Rose Mekertichyan. DRIVE was also read in November 2020 at Centenary Stage Company’s Women Playwrights Series. 

My newest play ATLAS, THE LONELY GIBBON was read virtually through Clamour Theatre Company’s Clay & Water Retreat in February. I was also in residence in April through Marble House Project in Vermont.”

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