Application Details

CALL FOR PROPOSALS: WORKS-IN-PROGRESS 2026

Applications will be accepted through October 19, 2025 for Works-in-Progress 2026. This is the opening week of Red Eye's annual festival, Red Eye Festival (formerly New Works 4 Weeks)—a 4-week festival exploring the expansive relationships performance makers cultivate with process as ongoing practice.

OVERVIEW OF WORKS-IN-PROGRESS

Works-in-Progress is a cohort-based container for creative process, peer exchange, and public sharing of live performance work. Each year, Red Eye assembles artists who wish to engage in dialogue around their creative process. These artists form a temporary community of practice with varied backgrounds, aesthetics, and approaches to performance, united by shared commitment to questioning artistic form and challenging dominant culture.

This cohort is intentionally composed to strengthen community relationships, bringing together artists with balanced perspectives and shared, parallel, or adjacent interests. Process is non-linear and takes many shapes—"work-in-progress" means different things to different artists. The program invites artists to hold their process open and experiment with public sharing.

This might look like a sketch toward a larger project, a format for sharing ongoing practice, compositional experiments, practical visioning around particular concepts, workshopping segments of larger works—anything except fully contained, completed, or produced pieces.

Participants receive modest technical, production, and marketing support, plus access to rehearsal space as available. Cohort members meet periodically for showings, exchange, cohort engagement and feedback where each artist shares material and participates in sharing protocols developed over Red Eye's history. The program involves critical reflection on both making and how we talk about making.

Each artist presents 10-15 minutes during a shared evening in the first weekend of the Red Eye Festival. Works-in-Progress. Works-in-Progress has been part of Red Eye's programming since 1983, forming a recognizable feature of the Twin Cities performance landscape. Many alumni serve as key makers in the community.

Stipend

Each cohort participant will receive a stipend of $1000

Program Support and Experience

Participants receive access to rehearsal space at Red Eye as available, along with modest technical, production, and marketing support. Throughout the cohort, artists meet periodically for feedback sessions where each shares material from their process and engages in collaborative feedback and exchange, developed and evolved through Red Eye's history. The experience emphasizes critical reflection on both the act of making and the language we use to discuss it.

Works-in-Progress presents 4 artists or collectives as part of the Red Eye Festival. Artists present 10-15 minute segments of new work in a shared evening. Running since 1983, this longstanding initiative has become a recognizable feature of the Twin Cities performance landscape, with many alumni now serving as key contributors to the community.

Since 2025, a collective of producers - Festival Producers - have been involved in stewarding the program and locating it deeper in community. This creates more perspectives, mentorship, co-learning and support within the structure. Festival Producers have responsibilities ranging from scheduling, running cohort meetings, coordination, box office, marketing, and relationship building. This year, Festival Producers are Lelis Brito, Rebekah Chrisante De Ybarra and Marcela Michelle. All three are MN community leaders and are alumni of the program.

WIP 2026 Application Dates and Info Session

• Tuesday, September 16: Application opens
• Sunday, October 12, 1-3 pm: Information session, in person at Red Eye Theater, 2213 Snelling Ave, Minneapolis, MN 55404 // Register by email: wip@redeyetheater.org
• Sunday, October 19, 2025 11:59 pm: Applications due.

WIP 2026 Program Dates (Important)

• November 2025-May 2026: Program developmental period
• Selected artists MUST be available in person during dates below

Mandatory: Artist Cohort Meetings November 2025 - June 2026

Full Cohort Meeting (All Artists)

Saturday, November 15, 2025, 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.

Full Cohort Meeting - Orientation and Logistics

Cohort Sharing Session

Sunday, January 18, 2026, 4:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m

Saturday February 28, 2026, 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.

Sunday, March 1, 2026, 2:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.

Saturday, March 7, 2026, 2:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.

Cohort Activity

Saturday, April 11, 2026, 2 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.

Photoshoot

Sunday, April 12, 2026, 10 a.m to 10:00 p.m (shoot is 1 hour per person)

Final Cohort Sharing Session

Friday, May 8, 2026, 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.

Final Cohort Sharing Sessions

Saturday, May 9, 2026, 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.

Sunday, May 10, 2026, 1:00 p.m. - 4:00pm.

Tuesday, May 12, 2026, 6:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.

Saturday, May 16, 2026, 2:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.

Technical Rehearsals and Performances

Monday, May 18, 2026 through Sunday, May 24, 2026

(Artist and Collaborators must be available for all Technical Rehearsals and Performances)

• Note: We are determining dates in advance so that all artists and collaborators can participate fully and support their cohort members. Red Eye staff might consider accepting an applicant with a conflict on one of the listed dates. Please note any conflict in your application.
• Works-in-Progress 2026 will be presented for three public performances Thursday-Saturday, May 21-23, 2026 at Red Eye Theater, 2213 Snelling Ave, Minneapolis, MN 55404. These performances are not open to critical review.

Program Details

PROGRAM DETAILS

Red Eye supports artists whose work is in deep conversation with and challenges conventional structures. Works-in-Progress welcomes applicants across all cultures, forms, and approaches to live performance—from ancient wisdom traditions and community practices to emerging expressions that center relationship, experimentation and collective knowledge. We particularly encourage artists of color, Indigenous artists, queer artists, artists with disabilities, and others whose voices have been marginalized.

Artists working in all live performance forms are welcome—whether rooted in community traditions, emerging from relational practices, or bridging ancient and current approaches. We celebrate work that honors lineage while transforming culture. Inter/Intra/Many/Trans-disciplinary, multimedia, and collaborative artists are encouraged. One application information session will be offered at the space for real-time connection, questions, and proposal support.

Works-in-Progress welcomes early career artists and those at any stage who have reached an inflection point or could benefit from a focused development container with peer exchange. Projects where primary artists are current students are not eligible. All lead artists must be based in/near the Twin Cities for the duration, and those with addresses outside Minnesota cannot apply.

Four projects will be selected by a panel of alumni artists. Participation is required in all group sessions plus attendance in at least one session with the other cohort. Each selected project presents 10-15 minutes regardless of scope. A $1000 stipend is provided for each project.

Festival staff includes a technical team and a producer cohort of Minnesota artist leaders.

Red Eye handles basic marketing and promotion for the Red Eye Festival, though artists are encouraged to promote to their audiences. Technical resources include rehearsal space (as available) and limited lighting and sound capabilities. During the program, certain weeks are reserved for festival rehearsals and showings, while other blocks accommodate curated rentals and Red Eye performances.

Technical support includes basic sound and simple lighting design for public showings. While participants may incorporate design elements into their development, technical requirements should remain flexible and self-contained for the shared evening format. Participants handle all other production elements including casting, design (except lighting), and direction.

Selection Criteria

Red Eye will select projects in which:

• The artist(s) are deepening their voice or perspective through relationship with particular forms, communities, lineages, or current questions
• The artist(s) bring embodied knowledge or lived questions while showing openness to being shaped by collective process
• Collaboration, community exchange, or relational practice is woven into the work
• The artist(s) genuinely desire to be in relationship with exchange, witnessing, and response, and are interested in full participation in the cohort ecosystem
• The experience has potential to strengthen the artist(s) and their community connections at this point in their journey
• Have minimal or no conflicts for the listed required participation dates

Application Checklist & Questions

1. Basic information: Your name, pronouns, project title (if applicable), email address, mailing address, phone number
2. Sharing your project (Full questions & additional writing prompts click button below)

Rebekah Chrisante De Ybara and Valerie Oliveiro have updated these questions and prompts. Red Eye believes application questions can be a barrier for some applicants and hope to increase access to the program with the re-imagination of these questions.

1) ABOUT YOU:

• Where are you on your artistic journey?
• What is the essence of the work you tend to create? What are the recurring themes, feelings, textures, explorations, curiosities.

2) CREATIVE VISION:

• What is the shape of it?
• What do you envision the work to look, sound, or feel like? What do you feel are its foundations?

3) FORMS / MOVEMENTS / LINEAGES bodies of research & work:

• Tell us about where you pull inspiration from. Where in space and time do you place yourself in relationship with artistic, cultural or political movements?
• Which form(s), field(s), research, or movement(s) are you working within, or in conversation with, or drawing inspiration from?

4) RELATING TO OTHERS:

• What is your creative process when you work alone?
• How might collaboration or exchange emerge in your WIP?

5) COHORT EXPERIENCE:

• Do you have experience in cohorts?
• In what ways have you collaborated in the community, your work, artistic cohorts, etc.? 

6) One-page resume or bio: Please submit either a resume OR bio of the primary artist submitting this proposal.

7) List of proposed personnel: Any lead artists, performers, directors, designers, etc. you are planning or hope to involve in your project.

8) Development history: Background of your proposed project.

9) Work samples: Include titles, length of excerpts, your role in each, brief description of how the sample relates to your proposed project, and links.

WORK SAMPLES

You can submit up to 5 "minutes" of material, weighted as follows:

• Video sample: 1 minute = 1 minute
• Audio sample: 1 minute = 1 minute
• Visuals: 1 image = 30 seconds
• Performance text: 1 page = 1 minute

Please include links to your work samples on Vimeo, YouTube, Soundcloud, Dropbox, Google Drive, your artist website, etc. (no file uploads). Please make sure that they are set up for viewing (provide password, or send a private link)

Submission

Please apply through the Google form on or before Sunday, October 19, 2025 at 11:59 pm. To request application materials in an alternate format, please contact wip@redeyetheater.org.

Accessibility

Red Eye is committed to cultivating an organizational culture of equity, accessibility, and inclusion. We will provide accommodations to ensure individuals with disabilities can be full participants in the Red Eye Festival. To request accommodations for an info session, application materials in an alternate format, or alternative submission methods, please contact wip@redeyetheater.org or 612.870.7531.

Context

Works-in-Progress takes place in the first week of the annual 4-week Festival - The Red Eye Festival (formerly NW4W Festival). The dates of the first week are:

May 18 - May 24, 20264 artists, 10-15-minute works

Each week honors process as living practice—whether iterative, ancestral, improvisational, unconventional, community-based, publicly engaged, material or land-based, collective, time-based, durational, oral, memory-based, skill-based, or intuitive.

The Complete Red Eye Festival 2026 Schedule:

• Week 2 (May 25-31): Red Eye 30 features 2 artists with 30-minute process works, allowing for deeper exploration within the shared evening format
• Weeks 3 & 4 (June 1-14): Red Eye 60 presents full-length 60+ minute process works, each artist having an entire evening to unfold their processes

Technical Rehearsal and Performances

Technical Rehearsals will take place at Red Eye at 2213 Snelling Ave from Monday, May 18. 2026 through Thursday May 21, 2026 with a Dress Rehearsal on the evening of Wednesday, May 20, 2026. Each artist has 2 hours of technical rehearsal time. This time does not include setting up or striking after technical rehearsal. Additional time is reserved on Wednesday (May 20) and Thursday (May 21) afternoon as a contingency. Red Eye requests that you keep this week as open flexible as possible for yourself and all your collaborators so that we can meet the technical needs of the full cohort.

Performances are Thursday, May 21 through Saturday May 23, 2026 (All Performances are 7pm)

Thursday May 21, 2026 - Opening Performance

(Masks Required)

Friday May 22, 2026 - Second Performance

(ASL / Post Performance Engagement)

Saturday May 23, 2026 - Final Performance

(Video Documented)

Red Eye Space

Red Eye stewards a modest black box space in the Seward Neighborhood of South Minneapolis. If clarifying technical needs are an important part of of the decision for your application, please reach out to wip@redeyetheater.org with any questions. If you are able to read technical drawings, you may download technical information for Red Eye's space below.

About Red Eye

ABOUT RED EYE

Red Eye is an artist-run seedbed for live performance. Known for engaging the full constellation of artistic work, we lift up performance and processes that resist categorization and creation that challenges dominant culture.

The organization offers resources to walk with artists on their journey, working collectively and relationally with stakeholders, community and partners to cultivate these voices and imagine shared futures. Red Eye serves as a hub for community, exchange, and collaboration, prioritizing systemic change. We value relationship, complexity, integrity, and deep, transformative collaboration—practices that extend through our relationships with artists, audiences, and the broader community.

Our programs foster risk-taking, listening, learning, and expansive practice. Our purpose is to holistically support artists who resist dominant cultural categorization and challenge systemic injustices, walking with these voices toward a shared future while contributing to restoration and equity in the arts ecosystem.

After losing our former space in 2019, Red Eye worked to reestablish our community's artistic home. Since 2022, we have stewarded a flexible and accessible 2,500 sq. ft. performance space on unceded Dakota land in Minneapolis's Seward neighborhood—a home for radical performance in the Twin Cities where artists deepen embodied practice, build support networks, and contribute to transformative cultural shifts.

Contact

Please contact wip@redeyetheater.org with any questions about the program or application process.