SPACE OPERA - premiering 2025
Space Opera is a sci-fi/fantasy game engine for building empowered community, premiering in 2025. Participants gather over several days to collectively tell the story of how the societies they create survive, navigate, and dream amongst the stars. It brings participants together with a team of game masters and performer/facilitators in a unique combination of gameplay and theatricality.
Team:
Lead Artist: Daniel Park
Direction: Cat Ramirez
Performance/Facilitation: Joseph Ahmed, Sulu LeoNimm, KC Legacion, Sam Rise
Game Design: Ari Gass, Dain Saint, Daniel Park, John Bezark
Production Design: Harbour Edney, Evelyn Langley, Dain Saint
Hospitality And Care Coordinators: Karen Orrick, Izzy Sazak
Community Partnerships Manager: Marisol Rosa-Shapiro
Stage Manager: Nic Labadie-Bartz
Circles Administrator (2022-3): Dominique Pearson
Production Manager (2023) Rachael Rhoades
Community Partnerships Manager (2023): Rachel O'Hanlon Rodriguez
Space Opera is an experiment in democratic production management. In our “Circles Model”, artistic and producorial staff work with each other in a non-hierarchical system inspired by “holacracy,” a decentralized organizational structure that gives everyone involved in the production, including performers, a direct say in the high-level decisions of the piece, all the way up to budget allocation and hiring decisions.
A Uniquely Democratic Process
Here's what our staff think about the Circles Production Model...
"Our experiments in democracy feel really special to me in an arts space even when they're foggy and new to navigate inside of."
"Working with Obvious Agency is categorically different from working with other workplaces in this sector because they structurally empower you as a co-creator and a collaborator. While many other groups employ top-down decision making practices that leaves designers feeling only responsible for narrow corners of the artistic process, Obvious Agency's bottom up circles model empowers all members of the creative team to articulate broad and bold visions about the entire scope of the project while also respecting individual team members skills and expertise. The result is a project grand in scope with a full team of creators who are all deeply invested in the artistic outcome."
Get Involved!
Unlike a piece of theater that might undergo workshops or previews, Space Opera is an interactive game that requires frequent playtesting. Playtesters are a vital part of our process: playtesters get early access to our game and their feedback helps us create a better, more accessible game. Future playtests will be happening throughout 2024 and early 2025 - subscribe to our mailing list to learn more!
Past Workshops
September 25, 2022
Asian Arts Initiative
October 29th, 2022
University of Pennsylvania
December 15th-19th, 2022
Asian Arts Initiative
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February 19th - 26th, 2023
Asian Arts Initiative
February 19th-26th, 2023
Asian Arts Initiative
July 13th - 16th, 2023
Pendle Hill
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November 27th-30th, December 9th-11th
Arch Street Meeting House
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May 31st - June 2nd
ExCITe Center
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The William Penn Foundation provided lead support for this project during 2021-2023.
Space Opera is made possible with funding by the New England Foundation for the Arts' National Theater Project, with lead funding from the Mellon Foundation and additional funding from the Doris Duke Foundation.