Supply, Demand, and Quality in the American Theater Or, Just What Are We Supplying? NEA chair Rocco Landesman’s comments at the recent Arena Stage New Works convening – that we have a supply and demand issue in the American Theater, and that we should consider decreasing supply – has started...
conversation starter
Wherein I blog Bright Alchemy’s devising process for its newest project. My living room is full of artists eating baked goods and mainlining coffee. The latter is not surprising, since it’s 10:30 A.M. on a Sunday. What is surprising is that a dozen theatre-makers chose to subject themselves to this...
We had our annual board retreat for Woolly Mammoth last Saturday. One of our members arranged for us to use a gigantic conference room in the offices of his law firm. One brilliant logistical idea I wanted to share – he arranged for free parking in the building garage but...
Only one pays. You see, I have an MFA in Poetry and when I was in graduate school I knew that said degree wasn’t going to translate into a paying job. Are you kidding? You think playwrights have it rough? Try the world of poetry. Poets hobble together a living....
What the F@#k is Devised Theatre (Or How I Accidently Helped Start a Theatre Company) One of the great conversations that has arisen from Arena Stage’s New Play Convening is this discussion about devised theatre: what is it; who does it; why do they bother? As people started trying to...
Tom Robinson (Peter Macon), Atticus Finch (Mark Murphey) and Heck Tate (Peter Frechette) in the Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s To Kill a Mockingbird. Photo: David Cooper. Ashland’s a snowy, somewhat icy town this weekend for the opening weekend of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. First up last night was the Bill Rauch-directed...
I don’t like to talk too much about the employment situation I’ve enjoyed for the last nine or so years, because I’m not inclined to brag… but the truth is, for a playwright—for any sort of artist, really—I’ve got it good: very good. Of late, though, I’ve begun to think...
On January 21st of this year, my producing partners and I began previews of the first of its kind, interactive live streamed play. This was a full length production of Joey Brenneman’s Better Left Unsaid, cast with professional New York actors, staged in a small off-off broadway house in front...
The New York critics have weighed in, so what’s left? What I haven’t heard mentioned in articles and reviews about Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark is that, in 2011, for a mega-musical of this kind, Broadway is just an out-of-town tryout. Instead, the producers’ goal is to have a show that will eventually...
As Laurie Baskin says at the TCG site, “It is vitally important that you actively participate in advocacy this week regarding the NEA.” Click through to her post where you will find several links for action and advocacy. Do check them out, sign onto the lists, send messages to your...