When I read Howard’s HowlRound article “What’s Wrong with Canadian Theatre” I chuckled to myself. Name five Canadian playwrights? I immediately rattled off five Vancouver playwrights, three of which had shows or workshops produced in the last 12 months that I had been a part of. But if my friends...
I’m currently writing a play called The Secret of the Biological Clock, about a former girl detective who is turning 37 and wants to solve the mystery of what makes a family. I have spent the past two months flipping out about stage directions. Stage directions. The play itself is...
Somewhat by accident, I stumbled into a weekly twitter conversation about new play development (hashtag #newplay) despite the fact that I am not a playwright. What I am is a university professor who for six of the ten years I spent in academic administration led a large theatre/film school whose...
I’ve been thinking more and more about my responsibility as an artist. And just typing that feels a little weird—the idea that artists have responsibilities other than to their art. But our work does more than just sit there in our heads. It wanders out of our skulls and into...
As Adam Feldman pointed out this week on the Time Out New York site: “(Mike) Daisey acknowledged that he had erred in presenting his work—a hard-hitting look at the brutal Chinese labor conditions that underwrite our sleek electronic gizmos—on Ira Glass’s series because ‘the tools of theater are not the...
There are two kinds of light: the glow that illuminates and the glare that obscures. — James Thurber In the rush to parse statements and assign blame this weekend, it seems like we’re missing the point. This isn’t–or shouldn’t be–an attack on Mike Daisey’s art or his ability. What’s on...
The Denver Center Theatre Company solidified its growing place as a major player in the development of new works for the American theater with last weekend’s well-received 7th annual Colorado New Play Summit, which featured works by Lisa Loomer, Samuel D. Hunter, Richard Dresser, Michael Mitnick and Lauren Feldman. It’s...
I’m 22 years old, a student at NYU’s Dramatic Writing Program. I’m sitting in a coffee shop, surrounded by friends. The topic of conversation is how a teacher admitted that he couldn’t name a female playwright he liked. I don’t know if this story is true. I don’t care since...
As the founder and now social media manager for Portland’s Fertile Ground Festival, I have recently had the delightful and curious experience of being able to dip my finger daily into the stream of material our 100 plus world premiere projects have created to promote their shows. I asked myself,...