It’s time for this week’s installment of the director-to-director interview series. If you haven’t already done so, you can join our Twitter conversation on directing by following the hashtag #2amdir. Also, The Director’s Library I’ve been compiling from these interviews will be getting its own page, which I will update...
theatrical ecosystem
I discovered 2amt via #newplay. As a dance enthusiast just starting to learn about theater, it was exciting to jump right into the deep end. Choreographers’ and dance companies’ livelihoods depend on the development of new work, but also face the same challenges as any other performance-based art. Resources are...
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...
Ask not what your country can do for the arts, ask what the arts can do for the country. — Kevin Spacey The 24th Annual Nancy Hanks Lecture on Arts and Public Policy April 4, 2011, 6:30 p.m. John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts At exactly the same...
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...
It is a discouraging time to be a liberal in the United States. About every other day, I’m calling my representatives to ask them to stand up for the programming that I feel is vital to our quality of life — the National Endowment for the Arts, public broadcasting, women’s...
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...
I’ve been inspired by one of the emerging voices of the American theatre to take a good hard look at my generation. Over on HowlRound, Mat Smart has some biting and indicting words for his fellow emerging playwrights, as well as for artistic directors and literary managers the world over...