Week 6: This is the first week where there was homework. For the last two months, we’ve been talking about Apocalypse on the grand scale. Lots of great thoughts circling vast concepts of evolution and society. I thought it might be useful to start thinking on the micro scale. Throughout...
So you’re at the Humana Festival of New American Plays and you’ve got a few minutes. You’ve seen the art, you’ve looked at the gifts, you’ve had a beer. Maybe you’re in the mood to play a game. Maybe you’re looking for something to engage audiences at your own theatre...
Last weekend, I saw approximately half of the shows at the Humana Festival of New American Plays at Actors Theatre of Louisville. I’m heading back this weekend for the rest, but I wanted to write about the themes and connections between those first three shows. I saw this combination by...
On the last day of the new play convening held at Arena Stage this past January, participants (and livestream satellite observers) were asked to come up with goals for the coming year. What could we do to further the state of new play development in our town/city/shire? One of my...
This past week I began a new director-to-director interview series on 2AMt. Here is the first profile (Meet Michael Leeds), just in case you missed it. The objective of this series is twofold: (1) to create more dialogue among directors (2) to provide more insight into current directing practices. Profiles...
While following the New Play Convening at Arena Stage in January, I was struck by a comment made about directors in relation to the supply/demand debate. The comment went something like this: directors have lacked opportunities to hone their craft and so have started companies in order to remedy this,...
Week 3. Is it just me, or are destruction stories a lot less interesting—or at least less fantastical—than creation stories? And there are a lot fewer variations on how things end than on how things begin. Maybe because with creation you have to work for it. We can’t imagine how...
So, here we are. Week two and hip-deep in the initial group dramaturgy of Bright Alchemy’s devising process, which started with the question “Why do we as a species feel compelled to tell stories of our own destruction?” It’s very early, but I’m already beginning to get that familiar feeling...
