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Curt Dempster founded the Ensemble Studio Theater in an abandoned city warehouse in 1972 for the purpose of providing theater people, "an endangered species," with an artistic environment free of market pressures. Six floors house a "rabbit warren" of theater spaces, where several hundred plays, musicals, and dramatic readings are produced. 90% of its work is closed to the public, consisting of experimental projects and training sessions, but they still manage to provide a full slate of shows for the public, enough to satisfy the most ardent theatergoer. Its most famous programs are the One-Act Marathon in May, and the 70+ shows of Octoberfest, when the level of activity, on stage and in the hallways, resembles a theatrical version of a crowded film festival. The EST is described by its founder as developmental theater, sort of an "artistic gymnasium," and its 400+ members as a "fierce tribe." Expenses are kept low to focus less on production value and more on the performance. Any one of its members can sponsor a play: they provide the idea, and the cast. The theater provides the space and the rehearsal time. There is no money spent on costumes or sets at the initial stage. The actors are not paid, and admission is free (though reservations are required). In later stages, as a production is developed, so is its budget (and box office). One of Noelle's first plays "To Gillian on her 37th Birthday" began in the One-Act Marathon, to eventually become a full-length production, and, finally, a feature film. So who are these members? Actors, writers, directors, and stage technicians. Anyone is eligible to apply, as long as they meet the standards of the governing board. Membership is for life, and they are given free run of the theater once they are in, so the selection process is careful, as described by Dempster: "We have a very, very rigid set of criteria that eliminates most people. They have to have a high degree of expertise or talent. They have to be interested in a real artistic collective; some people can't subordinate their own egos in the process of doing theater. They have to be willing to share in the operation apart from their own artistic interests, and they should have a body of work we get to know in some way. We also take in a few people who are very young and already gifted who need to be developed and sometimes even trained." |
