By: Craig Peterson, Director, Live Arts Brewery and Philly Fringe Festival

The Live Arts Brewery program is rounding the halfway mark of its third year and we show no signs of slowing down.  When Live Arts began the LAB program in 2009 we had no idea how many lessons were in store for us.  In general, artists have guided the way and the building blocks of our programming were constructed in response to the needs revealed along the journey.

A few weeks ago the LAB had the first Scratch Night with artists Lee Ann Etzold, Jeffrey Stanley and 2012 Fellow, Justin Jain.  Scratch Night is an evolution of our programmatic thinking about engaging audiences in the creative processes of artists.  Work-in-progress showings are common.  It’s a term we often hear and its one that, quite frankly, often induces yawning.  What IS work-in-progress?  The idea of Scratch Night celebrates the notion that artists and audiences need each other in ways that go beyond the obvious.

Part of my job as LAB Director is to mess with artists and their processes, to challenge their notions about the way they engage with making their work.  I do this in a variety of ways but central to almost all of it is utilizing the outside eye.  I firmly believe that artists must open up their creative process in an effort to view their work-making from new and varied perspectives.  It is quite easy for artists get lost in the studio bubble.  They build ideas, and build upon those ideas and, to them; it is all coming together and making perfect sense.  But then their show opens and suddenly, all those ideas that they thought would work perfectly just don’t seem to register in the intended ways.  Those funny jokes?  Not so funny.  The provocative content?  Meh.  By getting live performance in front of an audience at an earlier stage, artists have the opportunity to see what’s working and what’s not.  Just being in the room with an audience changes the tenor of the work and it allows artists to feel the work in ways that can’t happen in the solitary confines of the studio setting.

For audiences, Scratch Night is an opportunity to experience art in a raw but vital state and audiences have the opportunity to learn more about the artistic process.  However, we turn the Q and A on its head and instead of audiences asking artists questions, I ask the artists to interrogate their viewers.  I first ask artists to seriously consider why they want to show their work at this particular stage in its development and then, together, we formulate some specific questions that they hope to reveal or understand by using the many sets of fresh eyes on the work.  This way, audiences become a part of the making process instead of being passive viewers.

At the last Scratch Night Lee Ann Etzold got the audience out of their seats to help her enact a stage fight and asked them to film her with cell phones so she could develop a stunt reel for a character she is developing.  In addition to experimenting with audience participation, she wanted to know if the audience ever felt like they were, at any point, in real danger.  Jeffrey Stanley is currently reworking a piece that was originally performed in a small space to see if it can translate to a more typical proscenium stage.  During his piece he wandered out into the audience in an effort to create intimacy despite the formal theatrical setting.  Did the audience feel the connection as he intended?  Justin Jain showed a series of scenes about growing up gay.  He wanted to find ways to make viewers uncomfortable and feel challenged by the subject matter but he wasn’t sure how until he could test an audience’s reaction.

These are just a few ways that we are trying to challenge artists to make their best work and to inspire audiences to get involved in the actual creative process.  Of course, it’s very important to mindful of the risks involved.  It takes great courage for an artist to willingly burst their own bubble when work is in such an evolutionary state.  And audiences need to understand that not all experiments yield success.  But there is no better way to try out an idea than to step out of our comfort zones and begin asking questions, to burst one’s own bubble.  At Scratch Night we ask everyone to be a bit more daring and a lot more involved.

Next up for Scratch Night on February 9: Visiting artists Luciana Achugar, Jesse Zaritt vs. Jumatatu Poe, Devynn Emory, and current LAB Fellow, Brian Osborne.  To learn more visit the Live Arts website.

And remember, we always serve free beer and snacks!  All we ask for in return is YOUR opinion.