Our Process
01. Discovery
A partner - sometimes an individual or organization - reaches out, asking for Waterwell’s collaboration on making a cultural project that could contribute to the work they are doing.
02. Research + Concept
Waterwell then does research and engages in many conversations around the subject matter to find the kernel of an artistic idea - a story, a question, a character, a circumstance - that will illuminate an aspect of the issue.
03. Focus + Work Ethic
These projects are often created on very fast timelines and evolve quickly in order to be responsive to our partners’ priorities. Waterwell has developed a nimble creative practice to facilitate bespoke processes that can match the deft, tireless work of the lawyers, policy makers, and organizers who are coming to us with ideas for cultural interventions that they think can make a difference in their work.
04. Vision → Quality
Waterwell has a track record of creating emotionally potent and artistically enlivening work that can reach across real and perceived divisions in our country’s political and cultural landscape.
05. Purpose
We are always seeking to build on the strength of our past projects by telling more urgently relevant stories and creating avenues to reach audiences in ways that can deepen empathy, shift perceptions, and inspire action.
Partnerships
Development
As we begin work on a project, Waterwell sparks relationships with people who have direct experience with subject matter at the core of a project. These collaborators, who work outside the arts, are invited into key parts of the creative development process to give feedback.
Each collaboration is unique based on the partner’s interests, bandwidth, and the organic development of the relationship but we deliberately create opportunities for them to contribute substantive input that can fundamentally shape a project and, in the later stages give us critical feedback that ensures the artistic vision of a project is aligned with the real-life complexities of the issue itself, and the questions about how change might be possible.
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Jeffrey S. Chase, a former immigration judge and renowned thought leader on Asylum Law, came to early workshops of The Courtroom to help us understand the language, acronyms and dynamics in the court transcripts we were trying to make into a script. He spoke directly with the actors, watched rehearsals and gave feedback, encouraged us to sit in on real immigration hearings, and connected us to countless other partners for other perspectives on the issues as well as audience-building efforts.
Sarah Hughes, a labor organizer with Labor Notes, read an early draft of 7 Minutes and advised us on how the play, which was based on a real-life story in France, related most sharply to dynamics of organized labor in the contemporary United States. She connected us with other leaders in the field who attended rehearsals to share their relevant real-life experiences with the actors, and also connected us with numerous audience-building partners.
Audience-Building
We believe it matters WHAT stories we tell, and it also matters WHO sees them.
Even people who are engaged and informed need to be enlivened again and again by creative work that animates their empathy, and dedication to do the hard work of showing up as a committed member of their community, and the world at large.
There is also tremendous value in finding ways that culture can break down the many boundaries created by polarizing media and political landscape that’s feeding off of division rather than communication.
To reach audiences who may not regularly attend theater, we recognize that they sometimes benefit from hearing about a show from a ‘trusted ambassador’ - an individual, organization or media outlet that they are already familiar with, and already rely on for information. Waterwell proactively builds relationships with people and groups who are invested in acting as ambassadors for a show in this way.
We also take a lot of inspiration from the practice of structural organizing - reaching people through large networks that already exist, unions, churches, associations.
The Values That Drive Us
Authentic Relationships
We build authentic, reciprocal relationships with partners so their real-world perspective influences the process of making artistic projects that reflect the real complexity of pressing civic questions that affect all of us, our loved ones, our communities, our country. The integrity of the artistic work that is born from those authentic relationships then has more meaning for the audiences who see our projects and in turn, gives them more confidence in translating their experience of a show into a new dimension of understanding of and dedication to a particular civic issue that they will carry back into their personal lives.
Change Requires Complexity
Making change is complicated. What to the outside lay person can seem like common sense and straightforward pathways to making some aspect of our society different is often riddled with nuanced, idiosyncratic, and intractable dimensions that people working closely on the issue are grappling with beyond what we readily see from the outside. When Art can reveal and make coherent some of that complexity, without being didactic or cheaply sentimental, there is an opportunity to bring audiences closer to the real-life nuances and complexity that it will take to make substantial progress on an aspect of our society that will in turn improve people’s lives.
Using Soft Power to Shine Light on Structural Power
The arts have long been an effective tool for humanization and winning over hearts and minds. Waterwell aims to build on those practices by getting past the melodrama of good guys and villains to the thorny questions about how structures of power create some of the circumstances that influence our families, our relationships, our professional and economic lives, our health, our safety, our sense of belonging. By illuminating the ways that structural power connects to the personal experience of our lives, and our agency, we can enliven audiences with a new understanding of how they could create change.