Fifty emerging directors explore political theater through readings and discussions.

This year's Lab was more concentrated and less production-oriented than previous Labs. Approximately 50 directors participated, a small enough group to allow people to get to know each other and scrupulously study an array of plays. The Lab was interested in creating an atmosphere that would engender meaningful discussions. There is a danger in theater to not understand what great writers like Aristophanes and Brecht were trying to do, so we slowed down and we looked at fewer plays with fewer people. All of this year's applicants proposed "political" plays they wanted to explore. We selected 15 projects and then our company of actors read one play each morning to the directors. Each afternoon the Lab directors assembled, occasionally with a guest speaker, to discuss the work they had heard read in the morning.

The range of plays was vast, encompassing works from Aristotle to Shakespeare to new plays written within the past few years. Consequently, as the Lab progressed the plays' diverse topics and themes began to resonate off of each other. Adding another dimension, some ensemble members remained with the directors each day to take part in the discussions and provide actors' points of view.

The directors also engaged in symposia with a variety of prominent theater artists to explore the political theater. This list includes Liev Schreiber and Mark Wing-Davey (discussing the politics of Shakespeare's HENRY V), William Ivey Long (participating in a discussion of the work of writer Paul Green), cartoonist-playwright Jules Feiffer (whose new play A BAD FRIEND opens at Lincoln Center Theater on June 9), and discussions on a variety of political topics ranging from The Living Newspaper to Huey Newton.