Two years into his tenure as artistic director of LCT3鈥擫incoln Center Theater鈥檚 program for producing new works鈥�Evan Cabnet says that, in some ways, his process isn鈥檛 all that different from his earlier days as a freelance director.
鈥淭he impulse is identical,鈥� says Cabnet of reading a script and knowing that it just had to be done. The difference is that now Cabnet, a long-time champion of new works, can make that happen. Calling a playwright and delivering the news that LCT3 will produce their play鈥攐ften their first professional production鈥攊s the most thrilling part of his job.
But with only three slots to fill a year, a lot factors into the curation of each season. 鈥淚 think a lot about context,鈥� explains Cabnet. 鈥淲hat does it mean to be making new work at LCT, which is a place that honors tradition and history鈥� I think about the kinds of storytellers鈥攁nd how theatre as a form鈥攃an contribute to the conversations that are happening on the Lincoln Center campus.鈥� For Cabnet, a play like Antoinette Nwandu鈥檚 Pass Over, which LCT3 produced over the summer, is the perfect example of this collision between the contemporary and the classic. A play that felt immediate, and yet was also borrowing from scripture and Beckett.
Cabnet saw Pass Over during its world-premiere run in Chicago, a trip he makes often and just one of the ways that he and associate director Natasha Sinha stay abreast of new writers around the country. 鈥淲e really try to cast an incredibly wide net in terms of the artists we鈥檙e pay-ing attention to and the ways in which we find them,鈥� he says. Cabnet became familiar with playwright Miranda Rose Hall, whose play Plot Points in Our Sexual Development LCT3 is presenting this October, after missing her show at Yale鈥檚 annual Carlotta Festival. He encouraged her to send him work and the two have been in dialogue since.
Cabnet is not just an advocate for emerging playwrights, but for young directors and designers as well. Knowing firsthand how difficult it is to forge a career as a freelancer in New York, it鈥檚 the part of his job he finds the most satisfying鈥攏ot just by inviting them to be a part of a production, but in the 鈥渕illion different ways鈥� in which artists can support one another. 鈥淚鈥檓 here because many people made gestures on my behalf,鈥� he says. 鈥淭o be able to wear a new hat and be an advocate is something that I think about a lot and take very seriously.鈥�
And to do that work now, in a period that Cabnet describes as a historically 鈥渇ertile moment鈥� in American theatre鈥攊s the best part of all.
