Campo Santo

San Francisco based Performance Collective Founded in 1996, in residence at Intersection since 1997, Campo Santo is an award-winning multi-cultural ensemble committed to developing and premiering new Performance and Theatre and to nurturing diverse new audiences for the performing arts. We cultivate playwrights, fiction writers and poets to work in an intimate, interactive community based setting to create new theatrical experiences that reflect and reinvent our society. Campo Santo is Spanish for sacred ground. Like the roots of our name, we are taking the sacred form of storytelling and using it as a tool to bond community through socially relevant plays. We want to show the audience the world we live in and see in the audience the world we come from. We have nurtured more than 50 World Premieres with a wide range of writers including Junot Diaz, Philip Kan Gotanda, Jessica Hagedorn, Naomi Iizuka, Denis Johnson, and Octavio Solis, to name a few, and nurturing the first works of writers Sharif Abu-Hamdeh, Chinaka Hodge, and Dennis Kim. Most recently we have focused on expanding our definition of what performances and performance spaces can be with the creation of new theatre, music and dance pieces in our year long de Young Museum Artist Residency, for the Trolley Dances and a Mobile Bus Street Art Performance Tour. We have explored this further with great writers as in recently “The River” a new piece with RIchard Montoya that pushed Campo Santo’s trajectory of new works that will include new plays by Luis Alfaro, Chinaka Hodge as well as a series of mobile performances with Denis Johnson and others in non traditional venues. CAMPO SANTO Founders: MARGO HALL, LUÍS SAGUAR, SEAN SAN JOSÉ, MICHAEL TORRES IN MEMORY OF LUIS FRANCISCO SAGUAR POR VIDA ARTISTIC ADVISORY BOARD PHILIP KAN GOTANDA, JESSICA HAGEDORN, NAOMI IIZUKA, GREG SARRIS, OCTAVIO SOLIS, ERIN WILSON, Playwright in residence DENIS JOHNSON Campo Santo Leadership Alejandro Acosta, Juan Amador, Star Finch, Tanya Orellana, Joan Osato, Sean San Jose COMPAÑEROS FAMILIA SHARIF ABU-HAMDEH, ALEJANDRO ACOSTA, JUAN AMADOR, NANCY BENJAMIN, MICHAEL CANO, VICTOR CARTAGENA, CATHERINE CASTELLANOS, SUZANNE CASTILLO, JIM CAVE, MICHAEL CHENG, NORA EL SAMAHY, JAMES FAERRON, STAR FINCH, BEN FISHER, BRITNEY FRAZIER, FLORENTINO GONZALES, DAN HAMAGUCHI, ROBERT HAMPTON, PAK HAN, MELYSSA JO KELLY, DONALD LACY, ALEXIS LEZIN, ANNA MARIA LUERA, DELIA MACDOUGALL, OMAR METWALLY, STEVE MITCHELL, TANYA ORELLANA, JOAN OSATO, MARC DAVID PINATE, KEITH PINTO, BRIAN RIVERA, RICKY SAENZ, MARCUS SHELBY, TOMMY SHEPHERD, SCHEHERAZADE STONE, DAN WOLF, DANNY WOLOHAN, DREW YERYS Campo Santo Logo by: Victor Cartagena Former Executive Director (1997-2013): DEBORAH CULLINAN Artistic Statement Founded in 1996, Campo Santo is an award-winning multi-cultural ensemble committed to developing and premiering new American Theatre and to nurturing diverse new audiences for the performing arts. We cultivate playwrights, fiction writers and poets to work in an intimate, interactive community based setting to create new theatrical experiences that reflect and reinvent our society. Campo Santo is Spanish for sacred ground. Like the roots of our name, we are taking the sacred form of storytelling and using it as a tool to bond community through socially relevant plays. We want to show the audience the world we live in and see in the audience the world we come from. We have nurtured more than 50 World Premieres and multiple labs and development processes, including our “Open Process” method of creating a play while simultaneously “opening up the process” to engage in the questions, themes and ideas of the play with the actual communities the issues affect and are relevant to. This process creates and open and informed way of engaging and creating for us, allowing us to develop high quality works and develop highly valued relationships and collaborations. Campo Santo programs fill to capacity and our critically acclaimed World Premiere plays attract standing room only crowds. At Campo Santo’s core, is a New Play Development Program that cultivates playwrights, poets and fiction writers of exceptional vision to develop new plays with our company of artists and our community from conception through to World Premiere. We are widely regarded for our participatory community-based development process and for the unique success we have had nurturing a very loyal, young and diverse constituency. We focus on fostering long-term relationships with writers that emphasize the collaborative creative process and that aim to tell the stories of immigrant and marginalized communities and infuse the tradition of theatre with vital new life. One of our greatest successes has been our ability to create long term relationships with internationally known writers who are leaders in developing work that is broadening and diversifying the American voice - including Jimmy Santiago Baca, Philip Kan Gotanda, Jessica Hagedorn, Naomi Iizuka, Denis Johnson, and Octavio Solis, to name a few. Over the years we have developed an organic process for creating new plays that has allowed us to build a very diverse constituency made up of committed collaborators and loyal audience members. This process simultaneously balances and integrates the particular needs of the artistic collaborators with an institutional commitment to reach and involve new people in the projects as they are coming alive, to build community partnerships, and to create programs and activities that allow people to contribute and respond creatively to the issues, stories, and themes we are grappling with. Our achievements have reached well beyond the specific premiere productions. History Founded in 1996 by Margo Hall, Luis Saguar, Sean San Jose, and Michael Torres, the company now consists of more than 30 artistic collaborators and has been in residence at Intersection for the Arts since 1997. Since our founding, we have built a widely respected collaborative structure, premiered more than 40 new plays to sold-out audiences and broad critical acclaim, and created a highly regarded model for community-based new play development. Over the years we have developed an organic process for creating new plays that has allowed us to build a very diverse constituency made up of committed collaborators and loyal audience members. This process simultaneously balances and integrates the particular needs of the artistic collaborators with an institutional commitment to reach and involve new people in the projects as they are coming alive, to build community partnerships, and to create programs and activities that allow people to contribute and respond creatively to the issues, stories, and themes we are grappling with. Our achievements have reached well beyond the specific premiere productions. Many of our plays have garnered awards and rave reviews, and gone on to productions in other parts of the country including Erin Cressida Wilson’s Trail of Her Inner Thigh (1999 Glickman Award for Best New Play in the Bay Area) and Denis Johnson’s Soul of a Whore (2002 Glickman Award). Many of our World Premiere scripts have appeared in anthologies and publications by major publishers including Harper Collins, McSweeneys, Theatre Communications Group, Dramatist Play Service, and Broadway Play Publishing. One of our successes has been our ability to create long term relationships with internationally known writers and some of the Bay Area’s best theatre artists, including Naomi Iizuka, Octavio Solis, Jessica Hagedorn, Denis Johnson, Erin Cressida Wilson, and Philip Kan Gotanda. As mentioned above, we have also cultivated a collaborative relationship with the collective members of Felonious and have created several new works together (including the critically acclaimed Stateless and the 2009 blockbuster hit Angry Black White Boy). Working with Intersection, we have been able to create a widely regarded model for sharing the process of creating theatre with broad communities, while also enabling ongoing professional opportunities for artists to be involved in projects from conception to fruition. This emphasis on process has been pivotal to our ability to develop a sustainable model for making theatre in the Bay Area that allows us to make the best work possible while nurturing new audiences. In a world focused on product, it is a constant challenge to find support to sustain a structure that emphasizes process. Yet, it is essential to our ability not only to create the most thorough, honest, and powerful work but also to build community investment by sharing the journey of a new play - a new artistic collaboration.