Episode 12: Z Space

Listen Now | VOC Producers | Share | Transcript | Donate | Resources

Other Episodes: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54 | 55 | 56 | 57 | 58 | 59 | 60 | 61 | 62 | 63 | 64 | 65 | 66 | 67 | 68 | 69 | 70 | 71 | 72 | 73 | 74 | 75 | 76 | 77 | 78 | 79 | 80 | 81 | 82 | 83 | 84 | 85 | 86 | 87 | 88 | 89 | 90 | 91 | 92 | 93 | 94 | 95 | 96 | 97 | 98 | 99 | 99 | 100 | 101 | 102 | 103 | 104 | 105

Z Space annually hosts over 50 performing arts groups, and supports more than 700 artists, to empower them to reach over 20,000 community members

Stay updated on future episodes and issues that matter

“Empowering artistic risk in the service of creating new work”

In this episode we feature the voices of Rose Oser Associate Artistic Director and Shafer Mazow the Managing Director of Z Space. Z Space has become one of the nation’s leading laboratories for developing new voices, new works, and new opportunities in American theater. Z Space’s performances span a variety of disciplines, including theater, dance, visual art, music and performance art. Through its Z Space New Works program, the organization develops unique works from initial concept to on-stage production. Z Space also provides technical residencies in which artists can make use of the entire facility, including the stage, lights and sound system to test and develop their concepts.

Stephen Shafer Mazow

Stephen Shafer Mazow, Managing Director at Z Space, is a writer, theater artist, fundraiser, and activist living in San Francisco and working in program development and strategic initiatives at the intersection of art, science, and social justice. Prior to joining Z Space, Shafer was Senior Grants Manager at the Exploratorium and Director of Institutional Giving and Strategy at American Conservatory Theater. He serves on the Boards of the National Queer Theater and Theatre Bay Area; leads the trans and gender-non-conforming advocacy and empathy project I.P.Freely; and has helped to establish space-sharing initiatives, community-based theater programs, and research and action initiatives to address gender equity in the non-profit theater field. He was a founding member of the gender bending sketch comedy troupe This Side of Butch. Most recently, he has partnered with exhibit designers and educators to develop and lead a series of temporal experiences in public restrooms that uses participatory practice, immersive theater, and inquiry-based learning to extend awareness and understanding of issues people face when they don’t “look” like they belong to a space or a group. Shafer holds a B.A. in English from Wellesley College and a M.F.A. in English and Creative Writing from Mills College. 

Rose Oser

Rose Oser is a theater producer, playwright, and performer. ​She is currently the Associate Artistic Director of Z Space in San Francisco, where she produces plays and musicals, helps curate the rentals and co-productions, and manages the grant writing. Through artistic positions at Z Space and FaultLine Theater, she has produced first workshops or world premiere productions by Rachel Bublitz, Karina Cochran, Barry Eitel, Vanessa Flores, Dan Giles, Jake Jeppson, Nayia Kuvetakis, Luna Malbroux, Savannah Reich, Kate E. Ryan, and Andrew Saito. She helped produce the Bay Area production of Every 28 Hours in 2016 in collaboration with A.C.T., Campo Santo, Crowded Fire Theater, FaultLine Theater, and Lorraine Hansberry Theatre; and remounted the production at Google. She is the book writer of Tinderella: the modern musical (world premiere April 2018 co-produced by FaultLine Theater and Custom Made, Portland premiere May 2020 at Funhouse Lounge ), which has garnered 9 SFBATCC nominations including Best Production and was named a TBA Finalist for Outstanding World Premiere Musical. She produces and hosts Tinder Disrupt, San Francisco’s longest running and most sexually successful PowerPoint dating show. She received the LMDA Bly Grant in 2018 to produce the first annual Problematic Play Festival at Z Space, to interrogate the process of evaluating and selecting new work. She was the Co-Artistic Director of FaultLine Theater from 2016-2019, and worked as a grant writer for American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) from 2014-2017. She holds a BA in Rhetoric from University of California, Berkeley and received the CAA Leadership Award. 

Z SPACE Empowers Artistic Risk

Z Space empowers artistic risk, collaboration, and camaraderie amongst artists, audience, and community in the service of creating, developing, and presenting new work. Operating out of an old can factory in the Mission District of San Francisco, Z Space now activates two performance spaces, an 85-seat black box and a 244-seat main stage, with a warehouse aesthetic and an adventurous edge.

Eschewing traditional theater models with fixed seasons and a singular artistic vision, Z Space strives to embrace a multitude of artistic voices through a variety of programs and partnerships. We meet the needs of our communities by providing co-productions and subsidized space, hosting open "salons" to have conversations about the issues facing the broader community, and ensuring that all of our venues and facilities are welcoming and accessible. Some of our regular partners have been: Word for Word (the resident theater company of Z Space since our founding in 1993), piece by piece productions, Youth Speaks, Sean Dorsey Dance, Fresh Meat Festival, 3 Girls Theatre, AXIS Dance, Chitresh Das, and Misfits Cabaret.

Annually, we reach approximately 22,000 audience members, 700 youth and children through Youth Arts (the vast majority are low-income, English Language Learners), and approximately 50 small and mid-size arts organizations.

In addition to being home to local and international artists and organizations, Z Space develops and produces its own new work. Over the past few years, Z Space has built a national reputation for developing and producing large-scale new works that reimagine the traditional “musical theater” form, receiving critical acclaim for Hundred Days (The Bengsons), The Lucky Ones (The Bengsons), and Weightless (The Kilbanes).

Donation / Volunteer

Z Space relies on the generosity of individuals and foundations o empower artistic risk, collaboration, and camaraderie to create, develop and present new work.

Get a behind the scene’s look into creating new works by volunteering

Videos

To find out more about Shafer, Rose and Z Space check out the videos:

Stay updated on future episodes and issues that matter

Our Sponsorship

We are fiscally sponsored by Intersection for the Arts, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, which allows us to offer you tax deductions for your contributions. Please consider making a donation to help us provide future shows just like this one. If you want to send us a check, please make checks payable to Intersection for the Arts and write [Voices of the Community] in the memo line of your check. This ensures that you’ll receive an acknowledgement letter for tax purposes, and your donation will be available for our project.

1446 Market Street | San Francisco, CA 94102 | (415) 626-2787