2015-257-E Arts - Deep Dish Theater Company Arts Grant

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DocuSign Envelope ID: F859AB28-066D-45E9-BB24-D873BDC015A0 APPLICATION NARRATIVE Organizational Profile The Deep Dish Theater Company is a Chapel Hill arts organization committed to the presentation of compelling,provocative,human-centered dramatic work in an intimate setting. It develops that work through the collaboration of its artists, striving always to create productions which cannot be contained within a single imagination. It celebrates the communal nature of creating and experiencing a theatrical work, and is determined to include and reach out to the surrounding community in all its diversity. Our organization is founded on the conviction that the theater can be a vital and important part of the life of a community. Over the fifteen years we have been producing in Chapel Hill's University Mall,we have developed long-term relationships with our audience, artists, community organizations like the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Chamber of Commerce and the Chapel Hill Library,mall management and our merchant neighbors. Our performance space seats 71 people,making for an intimate relationship between performers and audience. We have found that relationship to be one of the most striking elements of our productions. Audience members frequently comment on how engaged they are by our productions,reminding us that there is magic in that audience-performer relationship, and it is that magic that we work to leverage with our productions, looking to create work that will live on in the collective conscious of our patrons. In our fourteen seasons,we have amassed a vigorous and diverse body of work. Classic work(The Misanthrope, Othello, She Stoops to Conquer, The Liar)has shared our stage with acclaimed contemporary work(Lobby Hero, Body Awareness, Superior Donuts, Next to Normal, Good People, A Kid Like Jake); issue-oriented plays (The Exonerated, Cat's-Paw, Glengarry Glen Ross, After the Revolution)with sparkling comedies (Polish Joke, An Ideal Husband); modern masterworks (Hedda Gabler, Summer and Smoke, Radio Golf, Journey's End)with North Carolina and World premieres (Permanent Collection, The Gratitude of Wasps, Mi Vida Loca, A Queer Kiss, The Landing, Native); and plays from around the globe(A Lesson from Aloes, Nathan the Wise, The Cripple of Inishmaan, Life is a Dream). With every production,we host discussions on issues raised by the play, on the technical production challenges the play presents, and on a book which is related thematically to the play. We have also been able to host writer/performers like Barbara Bates Smith and Mike Wiley, Audiences Served Our audience comes to our theater from across the Triangle—Orange,Wake,Durham and Chatham counties—with the majority of our patrons residing in Chapel Hill and Carrboro. Many of our most loyal patrons live in retirement communities in the area, and their regular attendance and willingness to explore new material with us has provided us with a dependable and enthusiastic base of support.