Archives du Théâtre 140

MABOU MINES

463 West Street

New York, New York 10014

(212) 989-4953

This is a brief description of the history, work and goals of Mabou Mines.

Mabou Mines is a collaborative cooperative theater founded in 1970 by 3 performers, a director and a musician. Although its official formation was in 1970, it was actually the result of years of friendship and shared work, some of us going back to 1961 in San Francisco at the Actor's Workshop and the San Francisco Mime Troupe. The core membership has remained the same throughout the years with several additions. We are at present 8 members. Although roles or jobs have shifted - technicians have become performers and actors directors — the basic commitment to the collaborative process remains. There is no artistic director, and all decisions about repertory, touring, teaching and budgeting are made democratically.

The artistic thrust of Mabou Mines has been primarily the development of new work or the use of existing texts staged from our point of view. While the director of a theater piece or play is responsible for its concept and basic structure, it still reflects the concerns of all the group and everyone feeds into its attitude and structure.

Mabou Mines

We feel that our work is unique in that it is the only theater by an enduring group whose focus remains on the performer. Through the years we have developed a formal yet accessible and personal acting style which reflects through all the pieces and has become a communicable technique which we have taught in various workshops and universities.

We have continually sought collaboration with artists from other disciplines, feeling that their contributions freshens and sophisticates our theatre pieces. Our collaborations with painters and sculptors have effected a unique form of theater design. Among musicians, we have had over the years a very rich relationship with the composer, Philip Glass.

Our concerns with acting style and space have not obliterated a basic commitment to language as the essential ingredient of theater. The language of the pieces varies from the American colloquialism of Lee Breuer's Animations to the arch and romantic style of Colette to the terse prose of Samuel Beckett. Our Beckett productions have been called the most important of the decade.

Throughout the years our work has been recognized critically here and in Europe, and by the receipt of various awards, including Obies for Off-Broadway achievement, along with grants to individual members in the group.

Because the composition of the group is so stable, it enables us to keep pieces in the repertory for a number of years. As examples, The Lost Ones by Samuel Beckett was most recently performed at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles, and in the 5-year period since its opening at Theatre for a New City in N.Y. in 1974, The Lost Ones was performed 385 times on tour in the U.S. and Europe and here in New York at the Public Theater. The B. Beaver Animation by Lee Breuer opened at the Whitney Museum in 1975 and has been performed over 200 times at various theaters, in N.Y. and toured the U.S. and Europe. Dressed Like An Egg from the writings of Colette, after two New York runs, U.S. tours and a European tour, has been dormant for a year, but it has been invited in March 1980 by the Australian government to perform in the Adelaide Festival.

The complex nature of our work requires intense and long rehearsal periods which in turn calls for a serious commitment of time and energy. Working at outside jobs disrupts the continuity of the company's work. We all basically have tied our artistic identities and careers to Mabou Mines. Our practical financial goal, besides productions, has been to support the company members, most of whom have families. There are 10 children amongst us.

For the past 5 years we have performed at the Public Theatre with the generous support, both emotional and financial, of Joseph Papp. Because of his expanding production schedule, we must wait for space there.

We are now part of an artist's cooperative that has leased a $l-a-year building, P.S. 122 on Ninth Street and First Avenue from the city. Our hope is to not only rehearse there, but also to do workshop performances.

A difficulty remains with rehearsing two plays, plus radio, film, video projects, plus building props and sets and preparing for touring—all in one space.

At the present time we find that we simply are not adequately funded for the development of our expanding program. For the past six years we have gone into debt to maintain our productions. This year, we find that a significant portion of our income must be used to pay back our debt of $30,000, a situation which drastically jeopardizes the two new productions which are now in rehearsal as well as our ability to meet payroll commitments.

Our proposal to your organisation is to help us to cover this deficit and to aid us in engaging a person to serve as our director of development. Our total management and administration for the past seven years has been handled by Performing Artservices, Inc., a non-profit cluster management organization presently providing these services to 17 performing arts groups. During this period, the costs of our administration have been very low (averaging 4.1% of our expenses) because we have been subsidized by Artservices. Unfortunately, they do not have sufficient resources or staff to handle our burgeoning needs and we concur with their recommendation that we hire a Director of Development who can assist us in broadening our base of support.

We readily acknowledge that we have not adequately tapped grant possibilities, but it is nearly impossible for company members to develop theater pieces, perform and tour, raise families and at the same time research and compose grant proposals. In fact, the time I have spent composing this proposal has been time taken away from working on my new piece. We project that this new staff member could generate his or her own salary within three years.

We are not a youthful group; we feel we have proven ourselves by a body of recognized and enduring work, and we are seeking the means to continue this work.

JoAnne Akalaitis, Company Member

MABOU MINES DEVELOPMENT FOUNDATION, INC.