Olive Kitteridge one of 2010's Ten Best!

Word for Word's production of Olive Kitteridge made the San Francisco Chronicle's Top Ten Best of Bay Area Theater in 2010 list! You can read the article HERE. Congratulations to the Olive team on producing an amazing piece of theater!

Z Space Gallery Welcomes Carol Aust

Just in time for the Z Space Holiday Gala, artist Carol Aust will be showing work in the Z Space Gallery.

Come celebrate with us on the 16th of December, and check out work from this Bay Area artist.

Z Space Welcomes Work by Ann Belden and Rodney Ewing

In conjunction with the December 3rd and 4th performances by Liss Fain Dance, visual artists Ann Belden and Rodney Ewing will be showing work in the gallery.

Check out all of their work this weekend at Z Space.

125 Artists!!

Dance For Another Day has arrived in the space today to rehearse for an awesome show this weekend to benefit Lupus research. Check out 125 artists performing on stage - one night only this Saturday!!

Don't miss this weekend!

Check it out - Burning Libraries got a great review in the SF Chron - Click HERE

Burning Libraries begins previews tonight!

ALICE is putting the final touches on Burning Libraries: Stories from the New Ellis Island and will begin performing in front of audiences tonight! Check out some of what the press has been saying:

SF Chronicle

SF Examiner

SFArts Monthly

Bay Guardian

SF Weekly

Voting at Z Space

Z Space is pleased to serve as a polling location today.
If you live in the precinct, come vote!

SFArts Monthly Covers Burning Libraries

This month's edition of San Francisco Arts Monthly has a great piece about ALICE's Burning Libraries: Stories from the New Ellis Island, performing here at Z Space November 4-14. Read the piece on their website (titled "Jewels from the Mouths of Babes," located in the left sidebar) and be sure to buy your tickets today.

From the Archives: KQED profiles Mark Jackson

Mark Jackson, a familiar face here at Z Space and director of the upcoming The Companion Piece, was featured on KTVU's Spark in 2007. Watch the segment and read more about Jackson and his work at KQED's website. Be sure to check out The Companion Piece's campaign on Kickstarter to view another video featuring Mark Jackson and to support his work!

Z Space Holiday Party

Tickets to the December 16th Z Space Holiday Party are now on sale!

With live music from the Marcus Shelby Trio, a performance by Word for Word, and a sneak peak at The Companion Piece, the evening is sure to be a blast.

We hope to see you there!

The Z Space Gallery

Z Space said "goodbye" today to the artwork of Melissa Hutton, a Bay Area artist whose mixed media work we've had the pleasure of showing these past two months.

Opening the 9th of December, next up in the Z Space Gallery is sculpture by Oliver DiCicco. Check out a video of his kinetic sculpture "Sirens."

Companion Piece Wrap-Up

Well, I didn't quite get around to blogging every day and all I can say, dear readers, is that I got fully absorbed in what was one of the coolest (if not THE coolest) workshops I've ever gotten to assist on.

Why cool was it, you ask? Well, let me share with you The 3 Coolest Things About the Companion Piece Workshop.

1) Not Having a Script: How do you rehearse a play without having a script? Well, there's more than one way to skin a cat (or workshop a play, as the case may be.)

What I learned is that often, a particular idea will dictate for itself the way it needs to be explored. For example, we found answers to how to use a particular set piece by simply playing with it and figuring out all of the possibilities off what it could do. Questions about character choices were brainstormed at a table, amid a smattering of YouTube videos that represented possible character essences. Answers to questions about structure and how to link themes together came from making detailed lists on brown butcher paper. These lists were arranged and rearranged until the structure became clear. One of the most beautiful moments that was found was a "Ladder Ballet," a pas de deux between two large, metal ladders. How do you choreograph giant ladders? Examine choreography with two actors doing it, then work with tiny paper models of the ladders! How to create a realistic fight scene? Improvise it!

If the kernel of the artistic idea is strong enough (and Companion Piece has a strong core indeed) and the theatre-makers are really listening, then the piece itself seems to tell you how to work on it. In a "traditional" process, the script can often become a crutch and questions send you further into the text to find answers. But in a devising process, it is the people in the room, the rehearsal space, and the world itself that contains the potential answers so it makes you engage and connect in a completely different way.

2) Having an Incredible Team of People: We had a scenic/costume designer who could mock up a magic trick on the fly, a sound designer who could mix a dreamscape simultaneously creepy and poetic, a lighting designer who illuminated both the stage and the storyline, a props master who searched the city for the plunger that made the most comical sound effect, a stage manger who brought cupcakes and effortlessly kept order, actors as intellectually agile as they are physically brave, a director who is both an auteur and a democrat, production assistants that documented and will archive 70+ hours of rehearsal footage, a production manager who gleefully experimented with the funniest way to chuck a rubber chicken across the stage, and a producer with an incredible respect for artists (and who is also an artist herself.) What a great and wonderful gift it was to be with such skilled, motivated, and friendly creators.

3) Having the Time & Space for a Workshop: In one of the many ways that the economy has affected the theatre world, rehearsal processes are often truncated. In these shorter rehearsal periods, it seems that ideas never die of natural causes; they are prematurely killed off by time constraints! Thus, safe and small choices are made because there is not the time to flesh out the risky, bold, imaginative choice. The time and space to explore and experiment is crucial and it gave us all a very strong start on Companion Piece.

You'll get to hear more about Companion Piece from the actual rehearsal process, beginning in December. Until then, thank you curious theatre-goers and practitioners for following us down this fantastic workshop trail! See you soon!

Companion Piece Workshop - Day 3

Ladies and gentleman, boys and girls, children of all ages! Step up, step up! Come one, come all! Sit back with a chilled glass of sarsaparilla and some Cracker Jacks and enjoy reading about Workshop Day 3 in the Companion Piece Blog Series!

[Hi guys. Shelley here. Did you like my introduction? I decided to go for some circus flair to introduce this rehearsal since we worked with a trapeze swing! I thought you'd like it.]

Wednesday was a short rehearsal that was primarily about playing with some really raw, rad technical elements. Whereas the rehearsal before it had been about discovering what was in the space, this rehearsal was about learning how to use what we'd found.

When I walked into the space, it felt completely transformed, but I couldn't figure out why. Finally, it dawned on me that it was the lighting! Whereas in the previous rehearsals, the space had been lit by natural sunlight streaming through the large, old windows on the side of a building, we were now using stage lighting for the first time! Lighting designer Gabe Maxson is working with a footlight effect to mimic the lighting used in vaudeville shows. It's a very cool effect, the way such lighting plays on the faces of the actors and the shadows that it creates. It was thrilling to get a glimpse at what the overall look of the show might be and a reminder of how rare and wonderful it is to have designers at such an early phase in putting together a show.

We're considering using projections in the show and we discovered that almost anything could be a surface on which to project a video image — a white door, an evening dress, the inside of an oversized umbrella — there were endless possibilities. The video footage we're using consists of clips from vintage vaudeville shows from the turn of the century. We played with how the actors interacted with the moving pictures in their space and discovered some hilarious juxtapositions between the real actors and the video actors that you'll have to see to believe!

We also did some circus-esque experiments by rigging a trapeze swing onto a giant metal beam that hinges out from the side of the stage space. Mark and Beth were the first brave souls to test it out! I considered posting pictures for you blog readers, but decided that such a gorgeous image will be best-saved for the show itself. Dangerous displays of awesomeness! Unrivaled, unbridled imaginations! Towering talent, mysterious magic! Go ahead and mark your calendars, folks. You're not gonna wanna miss this one.

COMPANION PIECE WORKSHOP - DAY 1 & 2

Hey there, folks! Shelley Carter here, workshop assistant for Companion Piece, an exciting new devised piece of theatre from creative masterminds Mark Jackson, Beth Wilmurt, Jake Rodriguez, and Chris Kuckenbaker. This is the first of a series of daily blogs to take you through the journey of our rehearsal process.

The first day of the process on Monday was spent doing "table work," which is a chance for the director, performers and workshop participants to sit around a table swapping research and ideas. To familiarize the group with vaudeville, director Mark Jackson had everyone gather onstage to watch a collection of DVDs of vaudeville performances and the work of other interesting theatre ensembles. While we were doing this, we were also being videotaped for documentation purposes! This means that eventually, there will be a DVD that you can watch on your television of people on stage watching television of people onstage. Why do we do this, you ask?!

I suppose that in such an ephemeral art form, the ability to connect with our predecessors and to draw inspiration from the work that's been captured is incredibly valuable. Watching these videos gives everyone participating in Companion Piece a collection of references points to draw on in rehearsals, a context for the kind of work we're doing, and a common language with our theatrical ancestors and with each other. Though this piece been worked on for several years, for many of the participants (including myself) Monday was our first day. Taking the time to explore the research together ensured that everyone was embarking on this journey together.

Day 2 was about exploring the seemingly "empty" space of Theatre Artaud. I say "empty" because what initially seemed like an empty space, upon further investigation, became a veritable playground of opportunities. Instead of immediately bending the space to suit our needs, we tried to read what the space and the raw materials had to tell us. It felt a little like taking an eye exam, you know, "What do you see? How about now? A or B? And now?" Our conversations went something like this:

"Ladders parallel or straight on? Now spin the ladders? How about now? Now, turn in a circle while he's spinning you on the ladder. OK, now? Spin the umbrella? Now upstage? Now through the door? And put on the sparkly tights. With the white dress? With the striped dress? How about now? And add a hat on a stick? What do you see now?"

And not unlike an eye exam, there are moments, glimpses, of absolute clarity, where the fuzzy image suddenly clicks into focus. Everyone participating in the collective eye exam agrees that they've just seen a piece of the play dart out of the forest of the imagination and run across the stage. "Did you just see that?" It's an exciting moment because it's a shared moment. It's a shared moment of creation, which, it seems, is one of the very ideas that this particular play is all about.

If Merle Haggard and Keith Richards had a tranny lovechild

This week's guest blogger is Sean Dorsey, Artistic Director of the Fresh Meat Festival. What's the Fresh Meat festival, you ask? Dorsey explains:

There are a million demands on our time during Pride Month, so I will cut to the chase here: if you haven’t yet experienced the Fresh Meat Festival – you MUST check it out this year (but get your tickets in advance if you can, because these shows sell out in a hot tranny minute!).

The Fresh Meat Festival is an annual festival of transgender and queer performance. Fresh Meat attracts enormous, sold-out crowds and national attention for good reason: it features stellar talent and is the only event of its kind in North America. And this year, the outrageously popular festival is bursting at the seams with world premieres.

The 2010 Festival boasts Fresh Meat’s biggest lineup ever. From modern dance to hip hop, freestyle to folk, ceremonial music to roots rock, this year’s festival offers a top-notch roster of transgender and queer trailblazers. Sri Lankan, Middle Eastern, Appalachian and Mexican-American voices come together in the acclaimed Festival that is still the only event of its kind in the nation.

Some of the world premieres this year include:

- Anthony Robbins, move over! Always-outrageous performance maverick Annie Danger dons a headset and becomes the ultimate life coach. PowerPoint will never be the same again. (world premiere)

- The Barbary Coast Cloggers (the world’s only all-gay Appalachian clogging troupe) dance the story of Jeanne Bonnet, who lived as a man and rescued women from Barbary Coast brothels in the 1800s. (world premiere)

- Sean Dorsey Dance mines Craigslist ‘Missed Connections’ personal ads for a dance theater exposé on queer and tranny online love. (world premiere)

- SoliRose calls on ancestors from Lebanon, Turkey and West Africa to create a gorgeous mix of storytelling, live oud (Middle-Eastern lute) and song. (world premiere)
- The GAPA Men’s Chorus (Gay Asian Pacific Alliance) woos us with odes to queer love – including Vietnamese folk songs, Tagalog pop hits and doo-wop with a twist.
- After bringing down the house last year, hip hop champs Allan Frias Productions (of So You Think You Can Dance fame) returns and fuses their signature juicy hip hop with old-school vogue performance. (world premiere)
- If Merle Haggard and Keith Richards had a tranny lovechild, it would be sultry rocker Shawna Virago, whose new songs explore the adolescent roots we would all rather forget. (world premiere)

Fresh Meat Productions is the nation’s only arts organization with year-round transgender arts programs, which include the Fresh Meat Festival, Artistic Director Sean Dorsey’s award-winning dance company (Sean Dorsey Dance) and film and video events. Fresh Meat Productions was founded in 2002 to foster the artistic development of transgender artists, build community and audiences for transgender and queer artistic expression, and to promote dialogue and understanding through the arts.

The Fresh Meat Festival runs June 17 through June 20 at Z Space. Buy tickets now!

Summer of '99

Hello there Z Space Blog Readers!

Peter Nachtrieb here.

Do you remember what you were doing the summer of 1999? It was a time of optimism and innocence, of dot com dreams and when Florida was just a place to vacation as opposed to an electoral disaster. It was also the summer that my brother George and I embarked on the insane task of shooting the feature length wacky film, Welcome Space Brothers, written and directed by George, shot in West Marin and San Francisco and featuring a stellar cast and crew of Bay Area talent (well they were all living here at the time). After an eleven year journey of filming, editing, finding a composer, running out of money, dealing with other life issues, moving, and assembling the final crucial elements and contributors, we are thrilled to be sharing the COMPLETED film in its World Premiere Screening at Z Space on June 12 at 8PM. And you should totally come.

So, yeah yeah, it took a while and it's pretty wild to consider how much the world has changed politically, technologically and personally. A couple different presidents, some horrendous events and wars and crashes and popping bubbles. Yet, despite the gap between its writing, filming and it's screening, the movie still feels relevant to our modern state of affairs. We have a deputy/nurse totally preoccupied with the spread of disease (you know, like swine flu). We have a rancher couple suspicious of aliens talking to their cow (you know, like Arizona). We have a cult eagerly waiting for the arrival of their Messiah (you know, like the Tea Party). And I won't even get started on the Tobacco researchers. It's interesting to see a particular type of American-ness reflected in the movie that feels timeless. And it's still funny (especially if you like your comedy a little weird).

On the technology side, we shot the movie on one of the first 3 chip (old school) digital video camera. We edited on the first (and many subsequent) version of Final Cut Pro (which is actually now providing a challenge with our weird animation sequences. Damn you, fonts!). The acceptance of video in the movie world has radically spread since we shot. Not to mention the entire universe of film distribution has changed. The indie film world of the 90's has essentially disappeared, but filmmakers can now share their work directly through the Internet. (And that's something we're planning to do as well. )

On the personal side, it's bizarre to think how much has changed in our own lives over a decade, as well as in the lives of those who worked on the film. George was living in LA at the time we shot. Since then, he's moved to SF, worked at a startup, and is now working as a freelance video producer and internet community manager. I was mostly an actor and sketch comedian, and since then I have become a full time playwright (Now working on my 6th and 7th full length plays). Actors and crew have moved, or moved and returned, married, had babies, or have continuously toured the nation performing in a solo show as a nun (that's you Kim Richards!) A number of long lasting, deep friendships grew from that summer in 1999.

Needless to say, it's about time we got this thing out there. We are so happy and thrilled to be at this moment. And we couldn't be happier to do it at Z Space and hopefully raise a little money for them in the process. This is the beginning of our sharing of the film and we hope we can give audiences as much a taste of the fun we had making it. So, yeah, you should totally come.

Join us on June 12 for Welcome Space Brothers! Click here for tickets.

Click here to purchase tickets!

Devised Companions

Mark Jackson here, still feeling fresh from a weekend workshop with the folks from Creative Capital, hosted by Z Space. Twenty-four Bay Area artists from a variety of disciplines participated in an informative, inspiring, at times eye-opening series of lectures and discussions geared toward making better, more efficient, more effective business people of us all. As individual artists we are indeed our own business, and yet the chaos natural to making art often tangles up our ability to devise the best business practices for ourselves. The Creative Capital team came with loads of experience and ideas for articulating intentions, organizing time, making efficient and effective financial decisions, and staying true to ones art in the process.

Somehow this experience fits neatly into what has become a kind of theme in my career lately: devising.

This term, “devising,” is the trendy label for something that’s quite ancient, really. With regard to theater it means, in the most basic sense, not starting with a script. Generally speaking, with a “devised” piece a group will get in a room for a period of time and improvise in a variety of ways around a given theme, subject, or other source material. Eventually they’ll have made a show.

Summed up that way, it sounds easy. It’s actually the most physically, emotionally and intellectually demanding way to go about making theater that I am aware of. With no script laid out in advance to provide a basic map that everyone can point to in order to identify points A to Z, the collaborators have to draw this map on their feet, together. How exactly this is done can take many, many forms. For myself, the Viewpoints and Composition work as taught by SITI Company is a major tool. I also look to the examples of Théâtre du Soleil, Robert Lepage

and Forced Entertainment. Sometimes methods present themselves spontaneously, arising out of the needs of the moment. But whatever the formal approach, the key ingredients for success are openness, honesty, trust, daring, will, patience and compassion. One must cast aside pride

and ego at the threshold and leap into the dark hand-in-hand with everyone else.

Over this 2009/10 season I’ve been involved in three devised projects. The only one that Bay Area audiences might have seen would be JULIET, a piece I directed at San Francisco State University. JULIET used the second of the two title characters of Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet as its starting point. From there the designers, cast and I started to make stuff up and eventually we had our show. It went off very well and even nabbed a mention in the New York Times.

This summer I’ll disappear into the creative cavern of Theater Artaud for two weeks with Beth Wilmurt, Jud Williford and Jakes Rodriguez in order to start working on The Companion Piece, a devised work commissioned by Z Space that is slated to open in late January, 2011.

Our starting points are American Vaudeville and the question as to what extent ones individual survival and identity depend on other people.

We workshopped The Companion Piece with students of the American Conservatory Theater MFA Program back in January 2009, and this helped give shape to the basic questions and structure of the piece. Lisa Steindler attended the final showing of that leg of the work and

decided to take it on at Z Space. So, this summer we’ll begin the sweaty process of filling out those basics we found in the previous workshop. And eventually we’ll have a show.

Again, sounds easy. But it’s always a scary moment, standing at the front edge of a process like this. So many questions hover and loom. So many possibilities dangle in the air. It feels like crisp cold wind in bright, hot sunlight. Such a contradiction gets the blood pumping, to

say the least. But it’s good to feel alive!

Wish us luck!

On and up.

Mark J

'tii next year, Tour de France!

Word for Word Artistic Director Sue Harloe writes to us from overseas, where the acclaimed Tour de France tour of "Two On A Party" has just wrapped.

We saw the trees in the Luxembourg Gardens turn from skeletally brown to lacy green to a verdant canopy during Word for Word's latest Tour de France. Tennessee Williams is all the rage here this Spring (I've seen 4 productions, each a different play, two in French and two in English--ranging from Isabelle Huppert in a tour de force of a deconstructed "Tramway" to a fantastic production of "Spring Storm" Group's), so we were, in essence, part of a European Williams festival. Our "Two on A Party" was tremendously received; people loved the story, the actors, the staging, the set. Full houses everywere. All the elements combined to make a terrific evening of theater.

Our venues were wildly disparate--from a tiny postage stamp of a stage, to a large auditorium with a painting of Pope John Paul II overlooking our valiant company, to Paris' Salle Adyar (housed in the 1912 theater building shared by the Theosophist Society)--and each provided a home, a stage for our actors to bring "Two On A Party" once again to life. The post-show question and answer sessions were intelligent and mostly thoughtful--people wanted to know about Theater Rhino (and Rhino's Artistic Director, John Fisher, was able to join us onstage for these talks in Paris), always about Word for Word and how we select our stories, who makes up the company, etc. etc. Our wonderful technician in Paris, Lillia, pointed out how unusual it is for audiences in France to have such intimate contact with the actors. This contact creates a further bond and expression of our mission: French-American amity. (This is also the mission of the Florence Gould Foundation, which provides our funding and without whom we could never make this tour). We performed for everyone: anglophones, francophones, and a suprising number of high school students (some entirely French speaking) who had studied the story and were completely enthralled by the production. (I did give brief vocabulary lessons to some of our hosts regarding Williams' more colloquial terms, like queen, fairy, lush, old bag, and the inimitable "glory hole".)

We were well cared for in every city we visited (Angers, Nantes, Nancy, Paris), with great city tours, long meals, wonderful wine, and endlessly thoughtful, gracious, and fascinated hosts. We are so lucky to be able to share this experience with them: really, it is our hosts and our loyal audiences who make the tour shine as it does.

Then came the Ash Cloud! The night of our final performance in Paris, April 15, was the night of the Eyjafjallajokull eruption. Suddenly Europe is in a panic, planes can't get in or out, the words "ash cloud" are everywhere. Fortunately, the Icelandic gods were smiling on us, because our company members had each made plans to leave several days after the show, and so had booked later flights, all of which left more or less as scheduled. And so we had a place to stay (the lovely large apartment that we rent each on rue de Vaugirard), food, water, wine, and some of the most gorgeous weather Paris has had. We did experience long and arduous lines at the airport, and Jeri Lynn's flight even took off, flew, turned around, and came back to Paris. But all arrived home, safe and sound, and we are all very grateful for that.

Boundless thanks to all who make this tour possible, both here and abroad. It brings so much to so many people.

dance, poetry, and our fragile planet

Today’s post comes to us from Jayne Wenger, co-director/dramaturg for Deborah Slater’s production of Men Think They Are Better Than Grass, and last seen at Z Space directing Anne Galjour’s You Can’t Get There From Here. We’re glad to have her back!

First day In the theater! After years of planning and thinking (and dreaming) this is exhilarating.

Really.

We have a crack design and technical team when we walked into the theater it was already amazing! Mikiko's set is starting to emerge and fill the huge space that is Theater Artaud. I love working here, this space is venerable and the vibe is great. Welcoming and professional, and fun too. I wonder who won that ping pong game that was happening in the lobby?

The space itself can feel so vast and empty, but suddenly, as we are doing a work through with all of the elements, music, environmental sound, video and most importantly, the dancers - the space is filled with their movement and it is no longer empty feeling. It is warm, and rocking and alive. Our 'script' - consisting of 17 poems written by deep ecologist W.S. Merwin is filling the space with words, and Mattias Bossi and Carla Khilsted's musical compositions are beautiful and evocative. For Deborah and myself - it is the culmination of a long journey.

This week is National Dance Week, so we had company in the theater on our first rehearsal! I grumbled a little (yep, just a little) when I realized that we would have guests, but - It turned out to be great to have on-lookers and when Deborah and I took a break and did a brief Q and A with them, it was rewarding to hear their sincere response to the work. They seemed to get what we were up to, and it was clear that they really enjoyed being with us in the very early stages of tech rehearsal.

We heard from several people that they loved the movement and choreography and that they were moved by the poetry. That was heartening for us, and i'm glad that they came and shared those hours with us. Their presence was a bonus!

After more than two years of working with ideas, it is rewarding to get some feedback - and not from friends! One man told me that he was deeply moved during several of the poems. That is what we are striving for, to make our audience feel deeply, think deeply about our fragile planet.

We have the benefit of brilliant poetry read by some of the Bay Area's finest talent. Each week in rehearsal I've had a different favorite poem! Brenda Wong Aoki's reading of "Calling To A Distant Animal" moves me every time I hear it.

Technically, things are in better shape than we might have expected for a show with so many elements. Thanks in large part to Joanne Bender, the production and company manager and her knack for getting people in the right place at the right time. We had the expected glitches with equipment along the way, a video snafu here and there, but nothing that Elaine Buckholtz can't handle!

I'm looking forward to the continuation of Tech Week, it really beats the hell out of American Idol. Extreme Talent, Focus and Imagination! More to come!

-Jayne Wenger

Men Think They Are Better Than Grass runs now through May 9. Click here for tickets.

Artists Take Business Crash Course At Z Space

This blog post is provided by Cristóbal McKinney, Z Space's Administrative Director.

If you ever get a chance to join a Creative Capital Workshop, do everything you can to take it. This last weekend, Z Space hosted the latest Creative Capital Workshop in the bay area, offering 24 artists (including Deborah Slater, who’s dance group will perform at Z Space this weekend - Click Here For More Info), several observers, and a team of Creative Capital leaders a space where they can come together and develop the business and organizational skills that will springboard the rest of their careers. I was one such lucky artist who participated, and the event has changed my life.

As an artist, I have never been taught practical skill sets for managing the development and distribution of my own art. Creative Capital changed that. Even for artists who rebel at the idea of embracing commercial models, the workshop offered invaluable skill development in universally applicable areas such as contract negotiation, how to turn rejections of one’s work into opportunities, and an overview of popular marketing models.

And beyond the skill sets developed at the workshop, there was the amazing opportunity to spend a weekend with 24 artists doing exciting, interesting work. Just talking to other artists in the morning inspired me and energized me.

Most people may not think about what happens behind the Z Space doors when a show isn’t performing. What happens here, whether it’s advertised or not, is the development of art. I’m proud to work at a space that helps provide a home where art and artists can grow.

Working On The (repurposed) Factory Floor

Vote for Z Space to win new furnishings for our home at Theater Artaud! Click here to cast your vote.

Z Space is a bustling arts center, hosting thousands of audience members and dozens of arts companies every year. We produce and develop new plays of our own, and we tour shows on other continents. We provide a unique, historic, and highly desired arts venue known for the high quality and affordability of its performances. Schools all around the Bay Area are enriched by our Youth Arts program, and we partner with community organizations to give high school students summer jobs. Despite all of this, however, we cannot afford to heat our office.

As simple a thing as heating is beyond our reach because of our unique workspace. Our workspace is an old factory floor, vast and beautiful, but extremely challenging for administrative work. We recently took over the lease on Theatre Artaud, and we’ve vowed to improve its facilities and continue its great history. For the last few years, the space was deteriorating, but after only six months here, Z Space has managed to rebuild the stage, improve the lighting and sound systems, and book dozens of theater companies for high quality programming. Z Space has revitalized this historic venue and brought new audiences through its doors.

Despite these great strides, we must face the cold days without space heaters because we cannot afford them. We must work in an office space that has the same oil-stained, smelly flooring that was present eighty years ago when the building was first erected. Our audiences must tread a thirty year old soft panel wood lobby floor that chips and wears with every performance, and they have to sit on folding chairs if the theater isn’t yet open. Guests to our offices must sit in thread-bare conference room chairs that sometimes have protruding nails or missing wheels. Our staff must yank open and slam closed old filing cabinets that look like they’ve been through a washing machine. Our box office personnel must be careful with their backs because their chairs don’t reach the counter. In addition, due to a scarcity of desk space, some of our staff have to coordinate in sharing desks and computers. The staff members who do have desks have no wall space near their desks to post important items, and no dividers that cut down noise and allow for private phone conversations or concentration on tasks.

The irony is that we have a tremendous amount of space, but it’s all vertical; most of the building’s floor space is taken up by the theatre and lobby. We believe this to be the primary asset for our work area, and if GoodDeeds were to help our company, we would first ask for new office furniture that created shelving, cabinets, and storage space above our desks. This would allow us to put in more desks so our company could spend less time juggling desks and computers and more time providing for our community. We would also request several space heaters that could keep us warm so that our spirits and our health were up to the daunting task of making art with little funding. So that our audience could sit in comfortable chairs while waiting for a performance, we would request a lobby makeover, fully equipped with a floor that didn’t need to be re-sanded and or repainted every two months. So that we could have phone conversations in private and so that we could concentrate, we would ask for wall dividers between the desks.

The Z Space does many things, but it uses the vast majority of its funds to put on award winning performances, to provide an invaluable arts venue to our country, and to go into classrooms and provide arts education to students who might never otherwise receive it. Because we love what we do, the concerns of our office space always comes second place in the budget, but this choice has its price. We spend more time than we should looking through awkward storage, we waste time negotiating between ourselves for desk access, we get sick from sitting in the cold all day. In essence, we waste time because our facilities are not up to par.

Thank you for considering Z Space and for this opportunity to present our case. We hope that you can help us continue our mission. We feel honored to be considered among the many worthy community organizations that have submitted.

Z Space: a place for art... and ping pong

Today I decided to give thanks for Lisa Steindler, who personally takes it upon herself to bring in flowers for the office and lobby of our space. She’s the Executive Artistic Director, and she finds time to pay attention to the little things.

As I thought about it, I realized that I had never before played Ping Pong with my boss until I came to Z Space. One morning, shortly after arriving at the office, Lisa, myself, James Faerron, and Mark Jackson, grabbed some paddles and played an uproarious game of ‘extreme’ Ping Pong – essentially the same rules as regular Ping Pong except we enthusiastically used more surfaces than just the Pong table, i.e. the walls. I think it was the best time I’ve had participating in anything that’s considered an Olympic sport.

Yes, Z Space has a Ping Pong table. Jealous? Don’t be! Come play with us! But watch out for Jack Morse, our Patron Services Manager, he’s the office shark when it comes to Ping Pong. He’s awfully friendly, but can hit a Ping Pong like nobody’s business.

Well, it’s back to work now. I was just sitting here, lost in thoughts about projected costs, software upgrades, patron development, etc.. when I noticed the roses sitting on the table by the front door, and I thought it would be a good time to stop and smell them, as it were. - Cris McKinney, Administrative Coordinator

And the rush continues..

Wow, it's been awhile over here at the Z Space blog. The year got off to a fast-paced start for us with the World Premiere of A Round-Heeled Woman. It was an incredible ride for us all, and we hope you were able to join us.

But we are, as always, looking forward to the future. Next up at Z Space, we're proud to host three amazing companies in our new home at Theater Artaud, not the mention the return of a favorite:

February 24-27: Kronos Quartet presents Kronos: Music from 4 Fences

On February 24-27, Kronos performs 4 programs in 4 nights at Z Space @ Artaud, featuring the West Coast premiere of Jon Rose's Music From 4 Fences. Premiered at the Sydney Opera House, the work features Kronos performing on four specially-built fences to create an eclectic aural environment, accompanied by a visual design by Willie Williams.

Each concert also features a work by one of the four young composers commissioned by Kronos' Under 30 Project, along with works by Terry Riley, Damon Albarn (Feb 24), John Zorn (Feb 25), Clint Mansell (Feb 26), and Bryce Dessner (Feb 27).

March 4-6: Hope Mohr Dance presents it's Third Home Season

Hope Mohr Dance presents works by three generations of female dance makers—Hope Mohr, Molissa Fenley and Yvonne Rainer. The evening features the premiere of Far from Perfect by Mohr, a new solo entitled Mass Balance created and performed by Fenley, and the legendary Yvonne Rainer’s pioneering work Trio A. Inspired by the work of painter Agnes Martin, Far from Perfect explores forgiveness and the creative process as two journeys that can illuminate each other. Mohr’s collaborators include poet Brenda Hillman and designer David Szlasa, whose visual environment combines projections of Hillman’s text, re-creations of Martin’s grid paintings, and home video footage.

March 24-28: The first annual KUNST-STOFF Arts Gala

Two exhilarating programs, featuring works by: Sara Shelton Mann, Yannis Adoniou's KUNST-STOFF, La ALTERNATIVA, and "Project 4x4" directed and performed by Annie Rosenthal Parr, Kathleen Hermasdorf, Yannis Adoniou, Andrew Wards; and Yannis Adoniou's KUNST-STOFF dance company revisits two critically acclaimed works, Un-state and Raqs al Moza with guest artists Dohee Lee, Jethro DeHart and David Petrelli

Last, and certainly not least, on March 20-21, Z Space is proud to present the Bon Voyage Benefit performance of Tennessee William's Two On A Party! Don't miss a chance to see Word For Word work their magic on a hidden gem written by one of the great American playwrights. Two performances only, before the cast and crew pack up and head out to tour the show throughout France!

For more information on upcoming events at Z Space, visit out Events page. For more information on Two On A Party, click here.