The Independent Productions Initiative is an innovative way to support an often overlooked and underfunded aspect of theater in Chicago--- the many independent workshops, readings and full productions that contribute to the vitality of Chicago’s cultural landscape. The Initiative will offer a resource for independent productions to turn to for a little advice and funding, while also benefiting the theater landscape overall. Having such a resource would also enable new efforts by artists with less access to dollars and “social capital.”

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Independent productions offer unexpected work by ambitious and wildly varying teams, often in places that are also surprising, from factories to stores to parking garages. Independent productions also offer immediacy, the ability to mount a show relatively quickly, without the constraints that can be in place for an established theater, where obligations and necessary internal procedures may leave a two- or three-year ramp or more before an idea can come to fruition.

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Goals of the IPI

• This Initiative will enable 15-20 independent producers to make work that enriches what Chicago theater has to offer artists and audiences.
• As a relatively modest but important pilot, goals include to learn what self-producing artists need and how support of their work contributes to the development of organized theaters and Chicago’s cultural landscape overall.
• Gain experience that will help determine what next steps might be for establishing an ongoing entity supporting self-produced or independent productions.