Support our end of year campaign to raise $45,000 by June 30th.
Read the Brian Rogers edition of our fundraising appeal here.
Read the Regine Pieters edition of our fundraising appeal here.
Please support our end of year campaign to raise $45,000 by December 31st.
Having witnessed firsthand The Chocolate Factory Theater’s many ups and downs for nearly twenty five years, I can say with confidence that the only constant in this work – of supporting the experimental performance community with commissions, residencies, premieres, and so much more – is the utter lack of constancy.
This is hardly a complaint; it’s how things ought to be.
Lofty though it may sound, I believe in risk – as an artistic pursuit and a way of life and an organizational structure and, dare I say, a political stance – and at The Chocolate Factory Theater, we devote our full mental, emotional and physical muscle to this end.
Risk is our business, and our mission statement. Not in the abstract, but in the messiest, most visceral terms. And the essence of risk is not knowing. We invite artists to make new work, and we hand them the keys, and we say to them, in essence: “this place is yours now, please don’t burn it down”. The hope, if not the expectation, is that these searching, questioning, risk-taking artists will – with our support – poke and prod at the edges of their own artistic practices and, if we’re lucky, the limits of their chosen art forms. Yes, it can feel like pushing a misshapen rock up an impossible hill; but the results, sometimes, are astonishing. And slowly, crawlingly, the world changes for the better.
The pleasures and perils of this business are the same: whether we succeed or fail, it’s a kind of terrifying twist in the wind, because it’s impossible to know what will happen until it happens – which, in my view, is a testament to the importance of this work; and is why I continue to devote my life to its (often quixotic) pursuit.
We stand among a small handful of institutions doing this work in a meaningful way. I wish there were more of us. The resources of time, space, and money that we offer to artists, week after week, without knowing what will emerge at the other end of the tunnel, are vanishingly rare.
Our twenty second (!) season is drawing to a close. An incredible cohort of artists and organizations – Martita Abril, Crackhead Barney, Astoria Food Pantry, AUNTS, Jesse Bonnell, Kim Brandt, Wally Cardona, CATCH, Ruth Childs, Julia Crowley, Wes Day, Drag Artists for Expression NY, Ayano Elson, Moriah Evans, lily gold, Meg Harper, Jasmine Hearn, Amanda Horowitz, Alex Jovanovich, Kashia Kancey, Yuki Kawahisa, Karinne Keithley Syers, Autumn Knight, Joanna Kotze, Alla Kovgan, Jennifer Krasinski, L’Alliance New York, Andrew Lampert Maya Lee-Parritz, LIC Salsa School, Little Chef Little Cafe, Erica Mancini, Paula Matthusen, Neal Medlyn, Movement Research, New York Live Arts, Amy O’Neill, Lauren O’Neill-Butler, Andrew Ondrejcak, Katherine Profeta, Queens Collaborative, Sukhdev Sandhu, Kimiko Tanabe, ZerinaTye, Mieke Ulfig, Under The Radar, Mariana Valencia, La Banda Xavy Vázquez, Walker Art Center, Steven Wendt, Kristin Worrall, Tuçe Yasak, Netta Yerushalmy, and Lu Yim – passed through our doors as a commissioned artist, early stage creative residency recipient, salon dinner or block party participant, guest curator or partner organization. None of this would have been possible without your support.
These artists have shown me two things: that courage, curiosity, and commitment are still alive and well; and that The Chocolate Factory Theater remains more important and more necessary than ever.
Please support The Chocolate Factory Theater with a gift of any size that feels meaningful to you.
Love,
Brian Rogers
Co-Founder / Artistic Executive Director
The Chocolate Factory Theater
