In 2018, California-based filmmaker and theater director Aranovich and partners launched Public Assembly, a nonprofit theater company born from the vexations of the journey from idea to the stage. “It often takes years, sometimes more than a decade, for something to evolve,” she says. “Many projects, if not all projects, eventually get caught in what’s called ‘development hell’ or ‘development purgatory.’ ”
Public Assembly cofounder Alexander Tavitian, a television writer and filmmaker, met Aranovich at film school at the University of Southern California. “We wanted to build a structure where writers, actors, and directors could practice their craft, make something quickly, and put it in front of an audience without waiting for the industry to give them permission.”
Public Assembly invites people to submit proposals for a monthly showcase. Each performance, open to the public, runs once. Along with the staging, writers receive the prized commodity of mentorship.
Aranovich, who majored in English and creative writing, believes Public Assembly’s Shakespearean low- or no-cost model returns theater to its roots. “Theater is meant to be the people’s art,” she says, adding that affordability and accessibility are key. “It is only by having these lithe, agile moments of conversation that I think the art can reach its maximum potential.”
Beyond international film and theater work, she served as playwright-in-residence at Dartmouth’s VoxLab in July, following her position as an associate fellow at the Harvard Film Study Center.
Tavitian credits Aranovich as the driving force behind the company’s commitment to community. “Many of the most socially conscious aspects of Public Assembly’s DNA were articulated and championed by Clara,” he says. “She has a natural instinct to lead and an equally genuine instinct to give power away, which is maybe the contradiction at the center of Clara: She wants to organize the room, and she wants the room to belong to everybody.”
