WHAT IS THE DARK ROOM?

Our Mission: 

To foster the creation and development of new, innovative theatre works by providing an artist-centric framework for a community of playwrights and performers to refine new scripts.

 

Iowa City is perfectly positioned to sustain a community of theatre artists focused on taking risks and pushing boundaries to generate new, never-before-seen works of theatre and performance art.  The Dark Room is exclusively focused on the reading and production of work that is incomplete or has otherwise never been produced, allowing for collaboration and development involving writers, performers, and technical professionals.  The Dark Room’s primary focus is on the forward movement of theatre art and the support of the artists who create it.

How it Works

The Dark Room exists as a framework and an incubator - a program that produces readings on-demand as submissions are received. A playwright submits their script, and The Dark Room goes to work. Pulling from a deep bench of performers and venues, a reading is cast, scheduled, and executed according to the writer's preferences. That's it! No more awkwardly asking friends to read in the living room or casting way off-type just to hear the work out loud.

 

As the program grows and submissions increase, readings will be spaced out to a once-a-month basis, with a single full production each year, selected from the previous year’s readings.