Helen Shaw, Time Out NY - September 18, 2008

Ask Brian Rogers what he'd tell someone who wanted to start their own performance space in an outer borough, and his customary Zen-like calm momentarily dissipates. "No!" he says, "Tell them not to do it!" When he realizes the question is hypothetical, he settles slightly, and then recants. "I would never kill someone's dream, but it's just impossible to overestimate how much energy running a facility is going to sap you."

Artists, though, are thanking their stars that Rogers, 35, made that sacrifice in 2004. His Chocolate Factory, an industrial space which boasts two stages and a number of weird nooks, has lured a steadily increasing stream of creators and playgoers (and even reluctant critics) to that hotbed of stage activity: Long Island City, Queens. Rogers (who is also the director of operations at Dance Theater Workshop) presents a carefully curated roster of multidisciplinary work, with an increasing emphasis on mid-career artists. There are still plenty of unfamiliar names on the Factory's calendar, but last season the venue presented choreographer Tere O'Connor's Rammed Earth to ecstatic reviews, and the Factory's current production is 1965UU, a premiere by veteran experimenter Mac Wellman.

After only a few years, Rogers and his wife Sheila Lewandowski have doubled the Factory's audience (to almost 9,000), while its budget has sextupled (to $250K). Wellman marvels, "They're still so young, and yet they're doing such interesting things. Who wouldn't want to work there? It looks like a big piece of rock!"

Originally, Rogers was after a venue for his own work. After crunching numbers for the usual spaces - "renting HERE for a month would cost me around $15,000" - he began looking elsewhere. The producer credits other pioneers: "The Brick and Collapsable Hole had opened out in Williamsburg, and the stigma of the outer borough was gone." Since Rogers already lived in LIC, he started by renting space in the old Dryden & Palmer Confectionary Company, a former chocolate factory, and quickly expanded into becoming a prolific curator and presenter. (The space's name survived the move to his permanent location.)

The new landlord has been unusually generous in his terms, but even though Rogers has 11 years left on his lease, he still worries. "Now it's a totally different scene - overtaken by yuppies," he says. "But this is still my neighborhood, and we have fund-raising goals that we hope will let us buy the building." Despite the economic pinch, Rogers doesn't actually think there is a terrible dearth of spaces. "We're all working from the same pool, so we're all competing for the same artists. All the good work is finding a home." It's just that now, "home" will involve a commute.

September 18, 2008

Reviews for 1965UU are pouring in! Andy Horwitz at culturebot; Claudia La Rocco at culturist; appolinaire scherr's foot in mouth; eva yaa asantewaa. Stay tuned for more!

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