The news that Chicago is losing the American Theater Company–here’s the Chicago Tribune story–is stunning. Artistic Director Will Davis was let go, and the board has decided to fold the company. It’s the last paragraph that’s distressing. Under Davis, the theater took a more experimental turn, far from the pathway...
Another Giving Tuesday, another day spent deleting emails unread and maybe unsubscribing from the places that send more than two in a day. And I work in the arts. But every year, it’s the same thing. An avalanche of emails, often from theatres and organizations I haven’t heard from most...
Let’s posit two categories of theatre. To be dramatic (that’s what we do, right?) we’ll call the first category “Sit-down-and-shut-up” theatre, meaning theatrical productions in which the audience is fundamentally expected to watch attentively but take no action that might disrupt the flow of performances or distract other audience members....
There is good conversation and bad conversation. We’ve all been party to both. We’ve all had those talks that go late into the night and feel like you’re solving the world. Additive conversations where active listening provides the fuel for synthesis of new ideas better than the preconceived notions of...
This past weekend on NPR’s Weekend Edition, Scott Simon talked with David Marcus, a senior contributor to The Federalist and the artistic director of a theater company in New York City, about defunding the National Endowment for the Arts. Go ahead and listen. I’ll wait. And if you’re angry by...
The Chicago Reader published as careful and deliberate a piece of investigative journalism covering the arts as I can ever remember reading. In the piece Aimee Levitt and Chris Piatt laid out a history of mental and physical abuse and cultish insularity at Chicago’s Profiles Theatre that mirrors much of that...
Effort. Webster’s defines effort as “work done by the mind or body: energy used to do something.” I spend more time than you can imagine thinking about, analyzing, and trying to minimize effort required by a body to achieve anything – including the effort required to do nothing. My senses...
Why the Mikado is a No-No, and Other Painfully Obvious Realities About Race Representation in the Theatre Nearly 4 years ago, as a fresh face on New York’s scene, I attended the inaugural Asian American Performer’s Action Coalition (AAPAC) meeting held at Fordham University. A multicultural caucus of over five...
We are not doing a great job of teaching our actors to care for their instruments properly. This is clear to me when I read (regularly) about an actor in a particularly difficult physical role answering questions with an attitude of “of course my back hurts every day,” “I have...
