Becoming Unknown

Unknown Theater is the result of years of careful planning and limitless creative dreaming, a major grassroots fundraising campaign and a collective leap of faith.

Determined to avoid the common mistakes of so many new theater companies, the founding members of Unknown Theater committed to taking the time to lay a solid administrative groundwork that would provide a lasting launching pad for their unabashedly idealistic and ambitious dreams.

2001: Finding Each Other
The seeds of Unknown Theater were sown when artistic director Chris Covics directed two acclaimed productions in 2001 using many of the same actors and designers. The first production, Tom Stoppard’s delightfully absurd pair of one acts, Dogg’s Hamlet/Cahoot’s Macbeth, was named Play of the Year by the Pasadena Weekly. With the second production, Covics scored an unlikely box office hit with Murder in the Cathedral, T.S. Eliot’s dense and demanding verse drama about the assassination and martyrdom of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, in 1170. Both productions experimented with the idea of audience inclusion, enveloping the audience in the action and implicating them in plays’ events.

Unknown Theater was a co-producer of Covics’ next endeavor, a 2002 production of Hello and Goodbye, Athol Fugard’s concentrated, claustrophobic drama about long estranged siblings confronting their demons, desires and unfulfilled dreams following their father’s death. An unusual seating arrangement invited the audience to relate to the painful isolation felt by the play’s two characters: Upon arriving, audience members were separated from their companions, seated across from each other in two sections. They spent the rest of the evening sitting next to strangers and watching their friends watch the play from across the stage. After the show, audience members experienced a reunion of sorts that mirrored that of the play’s characters.

2002: A Vision for Something Different
In the summer of 2002 Chris Covics recruited the first board of directors for Unknown Theater, gathering a group who shared his vision for a theater company that would be organizationally sound in order to be artistically fearless. Too many theater companies fall victim to the “burnout of the few” syndrome. Unknown Theater would be different. Before a single line was spoken on any stage, Covics was determined that Unknown Theater would be a fully-operational 501(c)3 charitable organization with a five-year budget, timeline, donor list, and management structure that could sustain the loss of almost any single individual. The founding directors dreamt of a company that would include more than 50 artists divided into departments for outreach, marketing, development, operations and technical needs.

Unknown Theater would also have a team of people dedicated to organizing the Fifth Wall, a post-show celebration of music, theater, comedy and dance that would encourage audience members to stay after the play and enjoy a series of short performance pieces while socializing and re-examining the play together.

Each company member would have a specific job to perform and, together, the big wheel would take audiences into the Unknown.

2003: The Creation Campaign and the Company
In February 2003 the IRS declared Unknown Theater a 501(c)3 tax-exempt organization, eligible to solicit and collect tax-deductible contributions. It was time to see if the world was ready to support the vision of Unknown Theater.

In the spring of 2003 the founding board of directors launched the first phase of Unknown Theater’s Creation Campaign, an unorthodox and ambitious effort to raise $100,000 to open a theater before the company had performed a single show. The board was given a detailed guide to soliciting contributions from friends, family members, coworkers and colleagues. Prospective donors received a packet containing a full-color brochure outlining levels and benefits of giving in categories ranging from $50-$10,000, as well as an eight-page booklet that answered the questions, “What Is Unknown?”

In the summer of 2003 Chris Covics recruited the initial company, with almost 50 actors, directors, designers, dancers and educators gathering for the first company meeting in August 2003. These artists were also divided into departments, with each member having a carefully outlined job with specific responsibilities. Regular team meetings were held to imagine the ways in which these groups would operate once the company secured a space.

Artistically, the company began its tradition of Saturday morning “Ensemblages” in September 2003. These four-hour sessions would include play readings and discussions in a search for the company’s first season of plays, as well as workshops in movement, yoga, stage combat, mask work and theater history. Administratively, the entire company was engaged in the Creation Campaign by the fall of 2003, raising more than $30,000 by the end of the year.

2004: First Performances and the Search for a Home
In March 2004 Unknown Theater test-drove the idea of combining music, poetry, comedy and theater in a single kaleidoscopic evening with an event at a Santa Monica nightclub. The centerpiece of the evening was a montage of moments from plays being considered for the company’s first season. This 15-minute presentation came in the midst of a schedule that included acoustic music, performance poetry, standup comedy and performances by some of LA’s hottest rock bands. The event and its accompanying fundraising efforts – including silent auctions and raffles – were a resounding success, with almost 300 people packing the club and taking a peek into the Unknown.

In May 2004 the company presented Within the Unknown, a daylong event at the Stella Adler Theatre in Hollywood featuring new works developed by company members. The Unknown Play Project is dedicated to nurturing new plays and presenting them at various stages of development. Within the Unknown included a staged reading of a new play, a minimally staged off-book presentation of a second play, and a full production of a finished piece, all created by members of the company.

In the summer of 2004 Unknown Theater was selected by lottery to present a staged reading of Hamlet in the MET Theatre’s annual marathon, round-the-clock presentation of all of Shakespeare’s plays. A cast of 12 actors worked for six weeks preparing for the event and presented a highly polished reading of Hamlet that led the event’s organizers to ask the company to be involved in the future planning for the marathon.

2004 also saw the beginning of Unknown Theater’s ambitious outreach programs, with the development of a theater arts program at My Friend’s Place, a Los Angeles agency that provides a range of services to homeless youth. With weekly workshops, scene classes and theater games, Unknown Theater professionals began providing My Friend’s Place’s clients with an invaluable experience of collaboration and expression while laying the groundwork for a junior company of trained young people.

Throughout all this activity, Artistic Director Chris Covics and Associate Technical Director Aaron Gaffey were scouring a seven-square-mile area in Hollywood for a permanent home for Unknown Theater. With dozens of site visits and several close calls, the company was moving closer to finding a suitable space to realize its vision for a new kind of theater.

Fundraising activities continued throughout 2004, with two mammoth yard sales netting almost $3,000 and an e-Bay auction of two donated tickets to Hugh Jackman’s final Broadway performance in The Boy From Oz adding $1,500 to the ledger. By year end the Creation Campaign had grossed more than $70,000.

2005: Coming Home
Throughout the early months of 2005 the company continued its Saturday morning Ensemblages, with the Sugar Shack, an artists’ collective, providing free space. In the spring Chris Covics and Literary Manager Arthur Horowitz chose J.B. Priestley’s 1939 drama Johnson Over Jordan to be Unknown Theater’s inaugural production. As the search for a permanent space continued, Covics and 17 actors from the company spent six weeks workshopping the play, a highly theatrical examination of an ordinary man’s journey into the afterlife. Once again Unknown Theater enjoyed free rehearsal space, this time through the hospitality of the Mark Taper Forum.

The early months of 2005 also saw the inaugural production in Unknown Theater’s theater in the schools program, dedicated to introducing live theater to kids from kindergarten through high school. Unknown Theater was commissioned by Vine Street Elementary School to create an original work for young people. The resulting 30-minute play, “Cock-a-Doodle-Don’t,” deals with embracing the qualities that make each of us unique, accepting other people’s differences, and creating a community within which to find your purpose in life – all important aspects of the company’s mission. The first performances were so well received that the play was invited back in May 2005, an auspicious beginning for the ambitious outreach program.

In the late spring a potential space had been found and the board of directors held an emergency meeting to approve a lease proposal. By late June 2005 it was clear that Unknown Theater had found a home. The long wait was well worth it when the company was able to take possession of a 4,000-square-foot space with bow-brace ceilings more than 20 feet high, right in the heart of Hollywood’s nightlife at 1110 N. Seward Street. With all hands on deck, company members completed the necessary demolition work in two days. The space was painted black and set up for a Lease Signing Party within a week. With company members working seven days a week in four-hour shifts, the following two weeks saw a 2,000-square-foot stage constructed, seating platforms built, an office and lighting booth constructed, and a lot of dreams realized.