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...
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...
I spent all day absorbing what people said about New York Gilbert and Sullivan Players’s now cancelled performance of The Mikado at NYU’s Skirball Center. I read blog posts, groaned at comment threads, and rolled my eyes when the Artistic Director of NYGASP posted that defensive statement on the organization’s...
A roundup of articles about the current and recent productions of The Mikado and the controversy surrounding them. Leah Nanako Winkler from Sept 2015: The Mikado in Yellowface is Coming to the Skirball Center of the Performing Arts and We Should Talk About It Howard Sherman from Sept 2015: Putting...
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...
There is a mental habit formed early in the development of the modern American psyche: the immediate and perpetual recentering of yourself as the underdog. Our prevailing American narrative is one of rising above great (or more usually impossible) odds to achieve our heart’s one true desire. In the narrative the underdog...
I’m fascinated by observing chefs interacting with food. Unlike most folks who create they can’t avoid their work outside their “studio”, they need to eat after all. They are cursed to combine all the creativity of a visual artist with the what-about-me demands of an IT person visiting their family…...
A production of the musical Monty Python’s Spamalot, slated for the South Williamsport Junior/Senior High School in Pennsylvania in 2015, was canceled by the school’s principal due to “homosexual themes.” In case you haven’t been following the story, you might check out Howard Sherman’s overview at Slate for background, Drew...
It’s been said that good design is 99% invisible. Heck, that’s the title of one of the best public radio shows/podcasts out there, if you’re curious. But just because it’s invisible doesn’t mean it isn’t there. Yesterday, the Tony Awards announced that they were going to drop the sound design...
We’ve Named the Problem. Now what? Unless you’ve been living under a rock the last week (in which case, I hope it’s been warm!), if you’re in the theatermaking world, you are likely aware of the fallout from an event Twitter dubbed #thesummit. For the uninitiated, Brett Steven Abelman posted a...