The aim of the upcoming TimeWave festival is to reverse the blueprint for international events. By using digital technology, new work by remote artists can be livestreamed into a central location. While London-based and Internet audiences can travel around the world and never leave their seats, international artists can collaborate across borders and yet work in their distinctive locales. It's a step towards a carbon-neutral future.

By partnering with Needtheater, the festival enables American actors on the West Coast to participate in the festival without disrupting their TV and movie schedules.

Founded in 2006, Needtheater is a Los Angeles-based company dedicated to producing socially relevant and viscerally entertaining theater for a progressive audience. Past productions include 2008ʼs award-winning Fatboy and 2009's Mercury Fur, Philip Ridley's controversial and critically-praised depiction of a post-apocalyptic London which Variety called “unforgettable” and “masterfully orchestrated,” as well as work from writers like Lucy Thurber, Dan Dietz, and Naomi Wallace. Needtheater is also committed to introducing new work and new voices to the theatrical community. 2010 saw the company's world premiere production of Michael John Garces' spy thriller The Web as well as The First Lady, a world premiere opera about the life of Eleanor Roosevelt co-produced by UCLA. In 2011, Needtheater premiered the grad-night epic Guided Consideration of a Lamentable Deed by Frank Basloe as well as G.O.Ne, an adaptation of a short story by the iconic writer David Foster Wallace.

Looking forward, Needtheater has focused its attentions on helping to bring our art form into the 21st century through the use of technology and through an awareness and a renewed emphasis on that which makes theater a unique, narrative experience: its liveness.

Last year's production of Stephen Belberʼs Tape featured site-specific, highly interactive staging in which only ten audience members move with the actors in a real, East L.A. motel room as they play out the drama, an experience which the L.A. Times called, “a dirty little adventure.” L.A. Weekly has called Needtheater, “players on the fringe making the future,” and it is a designation and a responsibility that the company continues to embrace and hopes to live up to going forward.

Dylan Southard is the co-Artistic Director of Needtheater, where he served as dramaturg for productions of Fatboy, Mercury Fur, Scarcity, and The Web, the producer of tempOdyssey and G.O.Ne, and the director of Guided Consideration of a Lamentable Deed. Dylan is also the resident dramaturg for The Robey Theatre Company where he has overseen the Advanced Playwright's Lab for the past six years.

Dylan has worked in dramaturgical capacities for The Center Theatre Group, The Geffen Playhouse, The Theatre @ Boston Court, Centerstage Baltimore, Native Voices at the Autry, the Lower Depth Theatre Ensemble, LoNyLa, and The Network of Ensemble Theaters. Dylan regularly writes about theater for the websites LA Bitter Lemons and HowlRound. He is a graduate of Wesleyan University.

For more information, please visit the TimeWave website!

 

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