Category — From Page to Stage

How “The Navigator” got nurtured into success

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Welcome to the first installment of From Page to Stage, a column that explores how new plays make it to their first productions.

If a new play is going to thrive, then it needs to be nurtured from its initial draft through its first production. Playwrights need resources every step of the way to know if their script is actually working in real time with real actors and designers, but often, financial realities mean that support can be very difficult to get.

The WorkShop Theater, however, is part of a forward-looking subculture of New York City companies that offers a complete array of programs to follow a play from baby steps to graduation. Their current show, The Navigator, is what Artistic Director Scott Sickles describes as “an ideal illustration of that process.”

Eddie Antar’s play, an 80-minute surreal car ride with a man and his frighteningly knowledgeable GPS system, had a three-week run last year as part of WorkShop’s Play-in-Progress (PIP) program. With a mere $300 budget, it was nonetheless nominated for eight New York Innovative Theatre Awards and won two, for director Leslie Kincaid Burby and lighting designer Duane Pagano. Now, Burby is reprising her work with a (slightly) larger budget at WorkShop’s 60-seat mainstage theatre in midtown.

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