OutOftheBlackBox Theatre Company (O2B2)
O2B2 has been dedicated to "Theatre About Theatre" since our founding in 2004. Our first production, Robert Brustein's updated treatment of Luigi Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author (2005) was undertaken in cooperation with the Greenbelt Arts Center, a Black Box space located in the lower level of the Greenbelt Co-op building. Eventually, we hope to have a home of our own but for now we're finding space where we can.
How do I get involved?
We're always recruiting members to join our company! If you're interested in becoming a member of O2B2, whether or not you want to work on our productions, please consider filling out our membership form (90k pdf) and mailing it back to us with your check! Members may vote at our Annual Meeting, serve on our Board, and find a rewarding space in a new company with a focus on theatre about theatre.
How do I find out more?
If you have an interest, an itch, or just a concept in need of airing, contact us. Whether you want to exercise your artistic muscles, or just want to kick back and see interesting material performed in public, we're the theatre company for you!
Feel free to offer your acting, directorial, technical, or administrative support as well. We'll try VERY HARD not to turn you away! (It's a timing thing, really. Without a home of our own, we're limited by the number of productions we can do each year, but we're really trying to fix that issue!)
While we're at it, we also welcome offers of financial backing and donations. (Well, who wouldn't, really?)
In January, 2008, OutOftheBlackBox Theatre Company, Inc. was recognized as a 501(c)(3) Educational Non-Profit Theatre Company. We would love it if you were to consider us as worthy of a future donation or grant to help support our cause.
How do you operate?
O2B2's main goal is to help promote good acting and good theatre in general, and to help our participants avoid the boxes we sometimes find in working for the 'pros'. We want our people to play.
Our By-laws (19k pdf) are available online. Our production manual will be online soon. Whether you're interested in working on a production, serving on committees or becoming a Board member, you should consider joining us. Membership is open to everyone and is required for individuals who participate in our productions. Board nominations open in May each year.
Who are you?
Betsy Marks Delaney, Artistic Director
Betsy is actively involved in the production of O2B2's events, serving as director, scenic & lighting designer, house manager, box office manager, producer, or wherever her services are needed. She directed O2B2's first two productions, Six Characters in Search of an Author, and A Company of Wayward Saints. She will be designing the set for Catch-22, in June, 2009 and is directing The Devil's Christmas Carol for the Capital Fringe Festival, July 9-26, 2009.
As scenic designer, she has worked on numerous productions, most recently Tantallon Community Players' production of To Kill a Mockingbird and the Rude Mechanicals' 2005 production of Shakespeare's A Comedy of Errors.
In the past, Betsy has worked for Washington Revels as Community Initiative Director, at Arena Stage, the now-defunct Harlequin Dinner Theatre and with community theatre companies both in Maryland and Rochester, NY. Betsy's non-theatrical experience runs the gamut from administrative assistant for a major auditing and accounting firm to owner of a web site design firm. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Technical Theatre, with an emphasis on Scenic Design from the State University of New York, College at New Paltz.
O2B2's 2009-2010 Board of Directors (July 1-June 30):
Bill Jones, President
Greg Mangiapane, Vice President
Betsy Marks Delaney, Treasurer
Penny Martin
Melissa Robinson
Why OutOftheBlackBox?
O2B2 is all about experimentation. Most of the pieces we produce are best suited to the intimacy, flexibility and freedom associated with a Black Box environment.
There's a special kind of energy generated by Black Box performances. Done right, we can move our audiences from observation to participation in the action onstage.
One day, we may mount productions in a main stage space. For now, we're sharpening our company's focus and doing some good work. When we can move to the larger spaces, we'll still be OutOftheBlackBox!
What is a Black Box Theatre, anyway?
TheFreeDictionary.com defines a Black Box space as follows:
The black box theatre is a relatively recent innovation, consisting of a simple, somewhat unadorned performance space, usually a large square room with black walls and a flat floor. Such spaces are easily built and maintained, and are usually home to plays or other performances with very basic technical arrangements-- limited sets, simple lighting effects, and an intimate focus on the story, writing, and performances rather than technical elements. The seating is typically loose chairs on platforms, which can be easily moved or removed to allow the entire space to be adapted to the artistic elements of a production. Common floorplans include thrust, modified thrust, and arena.
The black box theatre is especially favored by colleges and other theatre training programs because the space is versatile and easy to change. Many theatre training programs will have both a large proscenium theatre, as well as a black box theatre. Not only does this allow for two productions to be mounted simultaneously, but they can also have a large extravagant production in the mainstage while having a small experimental show in the black box.
Most older black boxes were built more like television studios, with a low pipe grid overhead. Newer black boxes typically feature catwalks or tension grids. The latter providing the flexibility of the pipe grid with the accessibility of a catwalk.
Black box theatres became popular and wide spread particularly in the 1960s and 1970s, during which low cost experimental theatre was being actively practiced as never before. Since almost any warehouse or open space in any building can be transformed into a black box, the appeal for nonprofit and low income artists is high. The black box is also considered by many to be a place where more "pure" theatre can be explored, with the most human and least technical elements being in focus.
(The original Definition of a Black Box Theatre)