This speech was presented at the opening session of the Audience Engagement track at this year’s TCG Conference in Dallas, June 6-8, 2013. The conference was designed on an academic theme, so each track was considered a “major.” Dear Majors in Audience Engagement, We all come to this conference with...
I grew up in a household that was… healthy. Healthy healthy. Lima (bean) burgers, grinding grain blends for homemade bread, fresh milk from family friends who ran a small farm… my folks idea of retirement was decamping the suburbs and repairing to a 10 acre tract further north in New...
Every time someone asks me to explain what I do I get flummoxed. Though I could probably avoid the word, I feel obligated to inform them that I am a dramaturg. The desire for avoidance and obligation are somewhat related. I know that mentioning the word “dramaturg” will lead to...
Fringe Festivals are a time for experimentation in theater. I look forward to seeing the mix of sights and sounds at the Capital Fringe Festival every year. There’s one thing I don’t understand: Why do so many people decide to produce Shakespeare? I will never produce a Shakespeare play for...
On early Monday, August 6th – right after my densest stretch of work in a long time – I got to join in the collective joy that was the landing of the Curiosity rover on Mars.I was crying on my couch at headset chatter and strangers eating peanuts. I hadn’t...
One of my favorite things about summer in an arts organization is that you get a couple of precious weeks where, in between the planning and the subscription mailings, there’s a little fallow time where you can sometimes rise above the fray and say, HEY. What are other people doing...
This afternoon, the New York Times ran a story by Patrick Healy about the producers of Three’s Company & their reaction to 3C, a play by David Adjmi. At issue is the question of copyright and intellectual property, fair use vs. parody and/or transformative, derivative work. Healy cites productions such...
I should be writing other things. And I hate to have two posts in a row reacting to Michael Kaiser’s posts at Huffington Post. But here we are. Instead, here are some quick reactions to Kaiser’s latest post about social media directly from Twitter. [View the story “Social Media on...