Friday Phone Call # 23

The discussion around the announced season at The Guthrie, and Polly's powerful, and powerfully personal, response to it have put me in mind of the richness and vibrancy of the American Theater as I experience it. It is a far from homogeneous community, and one filled with gifted, experienced, and influential people working in a variety of aesthetics, gender identities, cultural perspectives, and roles. Here's my conversation from last Fall with Meiyin Wang about her programming strategies for Under the Radar, itself a festival of "otherness" that has profoundly impacted the field over its first ten years. But you can drop into any of these conversations and understand that to remain isolated in a white, male story frame is to cut yourself off from the brilliant rangy vitality of our field. These are some of my bright spots: Lydia, Moisés, Katori, Kwame, Rajiv. Who are yours? I'll call 'em up and get them on record here.

Listen to weekly podcasts hosted by David Dower as he interviews theater artists from around the country to highlight #newplay bright spots. You can subscribe to the series via iTunes or this RSS Feed (for Android phones).