Director/Producer Carl Forsman (Keen Company) on selecting plays for production

A pal wrote and asked if I’d talk about how I pick the season. It’s a very, very complicated question to answer.  It is by far the most important part of my job, something I take very seriously. It is both a creative and business endeavor, one I collaborate on in some ways,  but also do very much alone. I have picked some shows very slowly, and some quickly. Shows I have rejected in one year, and have gone on to do in another. We have done big and small, old and new, plays everyone knows and obscure gems. So there isn’t one answer, of course. Each play has its own story of how it comes to the top of my pile.

The simple, quick answer is: we do plays that are within our mission. Plays that champion decency and kindness, plays that speak to our ability to connect. Nothing that is outside our mission gets seriously considered, although there are plays outside our mission that I admire greatly (I love Agatha Christie, but she’s not very Keen). But literally thousands of plays are still on that list. How do I choose from there?

More at the Keen Company Blog