What is Stolen Chair's PlayGround?

PlayGround is a Community Supported Theatre or (CST), an innovative new way of connecting theatremakers and theatergoers adapted from Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), where members literally give seed money to a farm in exchange for a season's worth of harvested produce. In Stolen Chair's PlayGround, members invest "seed" money in our theatrical process and reap their share of a season's worth of creative "harvests," in the form of monthly member meet-ups which present works-in-progress and thematically linked cultural and education events. Our CST concept has been profiled in American Theatre magazine, the Chronicle of Philanthrophy, and the Center for Sustainable Practices in the Arts (CSPA) Quarterly, and the pilot season was the focus of the documentary and the book We Are No Longer Strangers.

Cut Paste Corset Perfect and the PlayGround Experience

Our PlayGround members will join the company in the world of Stolen Chair's 14th original work, Cut Paste Corset Perfect, a new collective creation freely inspired by the Victorian art of photocollage exhibited at the Met’s recent "Playing with Pictures." In this curious art form, Victorian women took small photos (cartes de visite) of family members, friends, and other intimates, cutting and pasting them into literally fantastical settings where scale and societal rules are equally defied. In these sometime whimsical, sometimes nightmarish Lewis Caroll-esque collages, Victorian women played in an imaginative (and subversive!) space free from the corsetted confines of their everyday lives. As the Internet, sampling, and mashup culture have blurred the boundaries between what is "original" and what is "derivative," Cut Paste Corset Perfect seems a particularly relevant exploration for this cultural moment.

PlayGround members will get exclusive access to the project’s development, from its first creative retreat to its world premiere, as well as a slew of curated events to bring us all deeper into the play’s themes. Events may include:

  • Work-in-progess: Open rehearsals, staged readings, rehearsal excerpts, and more.
  • Guest speakers: A private audience with some of the art world’s hottest scholars and the collage world’s most exciting artists.
  • Cut Paste lab: Make your own old-school photocollages and share them online
  • Movie night: Sample Victorian period pieces and cinematic collage experiments.
  • Victorian Valentine’s Party: Grab your waistcoat and corset and make love like it’s 1865.

PlayGround members will also have private access to a media portal offering exclusive photos, rehearsal footage, and notes from the creative team. Whenever Stolen Chair takes a “field trip” to a thematically related play or cultural event in the city, you’ll be invited to join us for the urban adventuring, drinks, and discussion. When the work has its world premiere in June, 2011, PlayGround members will receive VIP admission to the play and the special post-show panel.

All CST events (besides field trips) will be free for members with wine and gourmet (themed!) snacks provided by Stolen Chair.

If any of your questions are not answered by the links above, please contact us at PlayGround@stolenchair.org

Events Dates

November 21, 2010
December 12, 2010
January 9, 2011
February 12, 2011
March 6, 2011
April 10, 2011
May 15, 2011
June 2011
plus Field Trip dates TBD

Stolen Chair's CST is made possible by The Field's Economic Revitalization for Performing Artists (ERPA) program, supported by the Rockefeller Foundation's 2008 New York City Cultural Innovation Fund. Community Supported Theatre is a trademark of the Stolen Chair Theatre Company, Inc.