User:SpeakEasyEvan/sandbox

SpeakEasy Stage Company is an award-winning not-for profit theatre company in residence at the Stanford Calderwood Pavilion at the Boston Center for the Arts in Boston, Massachusetts. The company was founded in 1992 by Producing Artistic Director Paul Daigneault, and produces five or more contemporary plays and musicals each season in its home in the 209-seat Roberts Studio Theater inside the Calderwood. SpeakEasy has been named the Best of Boston® multiple times by Boston Magazine, most recently in 2018.

Mission
From SpeakEasy's website: "SpeakEasy produces intimate, entertaining plays and musicals that are new to Boston and compel thoughtful conversation. We champion new talent and future arts leaders, alongside a diverse community of experienced local theatre professionals who share our devotion to excellence. We treat our artists, audiences and supporters as collaborators, working with us to make Boston a city that is sustainable for artists."

History
SpeakEasy Stage Company was founded in 1992 by Paul Daigneault. Frustrated by the lack of opportunities for young directors in New York City, Daigneault had recently returned to Boston to launch a theatre company with some of his fellow alumni from Boston College.

For the next few years, SpeakEasy struggled to find a foothold, and their productions would often play to mostly empty houses. But in 1995, SpeakEasy had its first major hit production, Paul Rudnick’s Jeffrey. When the show opened, the company had “less than $10 in the bank,” not even enough to buy paint for the floor of the theatre. Jeffrey would go on to win the 1996 Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding Production by a Local Fringe Company, and would be the first of many eight wins in that category for SpeakEasy.

In 1997, SpeakEasy Stage Company was named one of the first four resident theatre companies at the Boston Center for the Arts, alongside The Theater Offensive, Pilgrim Theatre Research and Performance Collaborative, and Súgán Theatre Company. Of these four, only The Theater Offensive and SpeakEasy still operate out of the Boston Center for the Arts.

Within its first decade, SpeakEasy established its artistic voice with a string of critically-acclaimed contemporary gay plays, starting with Jeffrey and including Lips Together, Teeth Apart; Love! Valour! Compassion!; and The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told. Though SpeakEasy’s body of work expands beyond the queer canon, LGBTQ+ voices remain an important throughline in many of SpeakEasy’s recents productions, including Fun Home, Significant Other, BootyCandy, Choir Boy, and The Inheritance. In 2002, SpeakEasy produced Bat Boy: The Musical, starring Miguel Cervantes as Bat Boy and featuring Kerry A. Dowling, Michael Mendiola, and Sarah Chase. Bat Boy ran for over 100 performances and to this day is one of the biggest financial successes in SpeakEasy’s history. Cervantes would go on to play the titular role in the Chicago and Broadway productions of Hamilton. In 2004, the Huntington Theatre Company and the Boston Center for the Arts completed the Stanford Calderwood Pavilion, located at 527 Tremont St. in Boston. SpeakEasy was the first theatre company to perform in the Calderwood’s Nancy & Ed Roberts Studio Theatre, a production of Stephen Sondheim’s Company. SpeakEasy was later named the Stanford Calderwood Pavilion Resident Theatre Company at the Boston Center for the Arts. In recent years, SpeakEasy’s commitment to Boston premieres and contemporary musicals has made it a marquee local theatre company in Boston’s theatre company. In 2014, Paul Daigneault was honored with the Elliot Norton Prize for Sustained Excellence. SpeakEasy was named to The Improper Bostonian’s Boston’s Best in 2014 and 2018, as well as Best Theatre Company, Small by Boston Magazine in 2018.

The Boston Project
The Boston Project is SpeakEasy’s new play development program, which "supports the creation and development of new plays set in Boston, which explore what it means to live in this city at this moment and tap into the full breadth of experiences and identities that make up life in the Hub." Producing Artistic Director Paul Daigneault first developed The Boston Project after noticing that there was a disproportionate number of plays that take place in, or employ plots that revolve around life in, New York City.

Each spring, SpeakEasy releases a call for proposals, asking Boston- and New England-based playwrights to submit their ideas for a currently unwritten play that explores stories that take place in and around Boston. SpeakEasy then selects two playwrights to begin developing their play with the company. Boston Project playwright have included Nina Louise Morrison, Bill Doncaster, Obehi Janice, Rick Park, Phaedra Michelle Scott, Ethan Warren, MJ Halberstadt, Laura Neill, John J. King, and J. Sebastián Alberdi.

Each playwright is paired with a professional dramaturg and director to work with for the full season (September-June), and spends a season developing their piece. The months of development and private readings prepare the playwright for a two-week long workshop with professional actors in late spring, which culminates in a final staged reading that is free and open to the public.

The Boston Project is funded, in part, by the Harold & Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust.

In 2020, SpeakEasy developed The Boston Project Podcast. They launched their inaugural audio play, a recorded, episodic version of MJ Halberstadt’s The Usual Unusual on August 14, 2020.

Partnership with Boston Conservatory at Berklee
In 2020, SpeakEasy Stage entered an official partnership with the Boston Conservatory at Berklee College of Music.

The partnership aims to expand both organizations’ reach into the community, allowing for shared resources and increased artistic and administrative opportunities for students. Elements of the partnership include (but are not limited to) audition experience for students, internship and fellowship offerings, cross-promotional marketing work, collaboration on masterclasses and program creation, and continued championing of emerging talent. {{cite web |title=Boston Conservatory at Berklee and SpeakEasy Stage Company Announce Partnership