Recent Essays

verity healey speaks with Alex Istudor, the Romanian-born director who lives and works in the UK, about the challenges of migrant theatremakers, different attitudes towards creating shows between the UK and continental Europe, and more.

Merve Parla shares her experience with Netherlands-based dance company Club Guy & Roni’s recent production of Swan Lake, an interactive experience with both offline and online components.

Holly Derr and Calley N. Anderson sit down to talk about how Calley adopted historian Saidiya Hartman’s theory of critical fabulation when writing her new play The Story and the Teller about the effect of the Memphis yellow fever epidemic of 1878 on African Americans and immigrants.

In a conversation that took place in November 2020, Meropi Peponides and Yury Urnov discuss stepping into shared leadership roles, adapting during the pandemic, paying salaries to actors, and more.

Alexis Frasz and Holly Sidford of Helicon Collaborative share their findings from the most recent assessment of the National Playwright Residency Program.

Lighting designers Annie Wiegand and Michael Maag discuss how being part of the Deaf and disability community intersects with their design work.

Masha Tsimring talks about pay equity in the design world, the upsides and downsides of freelancing, how COVID-19 has affected designers, and more.

Kate Freer and Porsche McGovern begin their series, Design (in a Time of Reckoning), with an opening essay about how theatremakers are currently being presented with a chance to reimagine the way the art form is made and how designers are an essential part of the solution.

Annalisa Dias and Ronee Penoi, on behalf of Groundwater Arts, argue that there cannot be a just arts sector within an unjust world, and that contrary to what people think, arts workers do have the means and the agency to make change. What is needed is a new narrative.