BY Lucia Mauro
At a recent ceremony in Washington, D.C., Naked Eye Theatre Company members and Chicago playwright Jamie Pachino accepted the Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays award from Edward Albee. Artistic director Jeremy B. Cohen recalls how Albee, in his keynote speech, encouraged theatre artists to continue writing and producing new plays for the future; and that, despite dwindling audiences and lack of money, it was their mission to continue to do this.
Albee also echoed and reinforced Naked Eye’s mission of producing original work.
The group even has its own New Plays Lab based at the Chicago Cultural Center. It’s divided into two parts: "Naked Readings" (readings of new plays before an audience) and "Naked in the Shop" (a more extensive workshop program that encourages local writers who haven’t had an opportunity to be produced to hone their work). The latter component does not guarantee that Naked Eye will produce their work but, as Cohen says, "a lot of new plays festivals get very 'shoppy.’ We let artists be artists. We’re interested in how the work is taking shape and how an audience is responding to it."
Ann Noble Massey was the first Chicago playwright who workshopped her play, Ariadne’s Thread, at the theatre’s lab. Pachino (author of Aurora’s Motive, produced by Teatro Vista) began developing her latest family-themed drama, Waving Goodbye, at Naked Eye, who will present the world premiere this fall at Steppenwolf Studio. It is this play for which Pachino and Naked Eye were awarded the Kennedy Center producing grant–$10,000 goes to the playwright; $20,000 goes toward production costs.
Earlier this year, the company presented the world premiere of Timothy Mason’s Cannibals, inspired by the disappearance of Michael Rockefeller in the jungles of New Guinea. The New York playwright flew in to oversee the production and revise his three-part work that addressed the notion of self-purpose and leaving a legacy. Naked Eye plans to workshop several plays throughout the spring and summer; the company is also involved with Gallery 37’s theatre programs.
Considering all these accomplishments, it’s mind boggling to realize that Naked Eye was launched in the fall of 1998. Its superb inaugural production, Naomi Wallace’s One Flea Spare at the old Goodman Studio Theatre, opened in July 1999. Its next show, the Chicago premiere of Diana Son’s Stop Kiss (directed by Jenny Bacon), was mounted in January 2000 at The Theatre Building. Then Cohen directed the New York premiere of Radha Bharadwaj’s Closet Land, a co-production between Naked Eye and The Casbah Project at New York Performance Works last spring. Cohen convinced Gloria Steinham to host a post-show discussion.
So although Naked Eye may not have produced a ton of shows, it has managed to be involved in high-profile projects while creating an active environment for new-play development.
"We wanted to ensure that, for any production project we mounted," says Cohen, "we were 100 percent capable of doing it professionally. I think more than anything, we’re a writer’s company."
The troupe does not underestimate the power of networking and asking more experienced artists for advice. The core members of Naked Eye have been or are affiliated with established theatres. For example, Cohen interned at Goodman and has directed for Bailiwick, Rivendell, Roadworks and, most recently, Mom’s the Word at the Royal George. He served as the assistant to the director of the National Theatre Institute at the O’Neill Theatre Center in Connecticut and frequently travels to the East Coast. He directed the world premiere of Naomi Wallace’s The Retreating World at the McCarter Theatre.
Naked Eye’s producing director Geoffrey Barr, who is Chicago Shakespeare Theatre’s business manager, honed his business skills during a three-year-stint in the Goodman’s administrative office. In the early 1990s, he helped found ED, an improv theatre collective; and has independent producing experience. Sarah Gubbins, dramaturg-literary manager, works at Next Theatre and has served as dramaturg for productions at Steppenwolf, Roadworks and Northlight. Both are Northwestern University graduates.
"We had access to people who had done this before," explains Barr, "and we wanted to learn from them. We knew people who started companies, and we actively solicited their advice.
"We’ve also been learning as we go along. We go to shows and look at the program to find out which corporations and foundations helped fund the production. All of us have taken turns writing grants."
Cohen and Barr also point out that, when they presented Wallace’s One Flea Spare, the playwright (a Genius Grant recipient) sent a colleague to see the production and was pleased with the results. Wallace is now on Naked Eye’s advisory board.
"I call people every day and write pitch letters," says Cohen. "I spent the day on the phone with [playwright] Adam Rapp. I love working with writers. I also try to spend time in New York. It just becomes part of your daily routine. You set aside time to contact key people in the industry."
But the Naked Eye artists admit they still face challenges, including the uncertainty attached to debuting an unproven work versus the familiarity audiences may have with an established play. Barr adds, "It would be nice to have a stronger financial base. We’re still in the process of developing our audiences. We’d like to get to three shows a year and, within four years, do a subscription series."
Right now, the company is sticking to its original mission of pursuing new theatre projects that engage an audience in a distinctly theatrical experience:
"We choose work that speaks to the poetry of theatre," says Cohen. "Our society is about Internet chat rooms, cell phones and Palm Pilots–everything that takes us away from human connection. That’s why it’s so important to present live stories about human struggle and human connection."
It seems accurate, therefore, to call Naked Eye a gateway to the soul.