The Brewing Dept.

Part producing organization, part mad scientist’s laboratory, The Brewing Dept. fosters collaborative contexts in which theater artists can develop and produce their work. Now in its eighth year of operations, The Brewing Dept. is proud to announce the return of Corkscrew Theater Festival in the summer of 2020.

Corkscrew selects each season through a free and open submissions process, culminating in a five-week repertory festival of five world premiere productions and five works-in-progress. We pay commissioning fees for mainstage shows, assist with physical production costs, and provide comprehensive dramaturgical, casting, and design support over our months-long developmental process. Corkscrew’s commitment to providing fiscal and creative resources supplants the usual limitations of festival settings, facilitating meaningful collaboration among a multiplicity of theatrical perspectives and offering audiences a unique mix of work across disciplines and development stages by artists they may not know—yet!

While Corkscrew's live theater presentations are postponed until the summer of 2021, from August 10-23, 2020, we will present Corkscrew 4.0, a curated collection of virtual experiences created by the season's artists based on their plays. Through non-traditionally theatrical media including aural narrative, hypertext, cinematic intersections, and illustration, Corkscrew 4.0 will deepen the relationship with the work for both artist and audience ahead of next year's live world premiere productions and readings.

The New York Times called Corkscrew “packed with young talent,” concluding, “in the risk-taking venture that is summer festival-going, encountering talent you want to see more of is a worthy payoff.”