2013 HowlRound Blog Round Up

January 2014 marks the three-year anniversary of the launch of HowlRound. Since our beginning, we have published nearly 600 theater artists who have contributed a journal article or blog post, which have been read by 350,000 unique visitors to the site—an average of over 15,000 regular readers each month. This year, HowlRound blog published deeply important, insightful and vigorous conversations about everything related to theater and our roles as artists, producers, directors, innovators and consumers. Thank you to our contributors and readers; thank you for participating in the ongoing conversation about American theater. In the coming months of 2014, look for a HowlRound that will continue these conversations and will include more of what you have come to expect from the journal—transparent and honest dialogue about how we make theater and why.

For now, we leave 2013 by offering you an assortment of quotes from the blog this past year.

How often do you stop to think about the metaphors that govern the way we make theater and run theater institutions? The “hidden patterns” we follow, often subconsciously, as we structure our work? There are two such hidden patterns that I think we really need to pay attention to. I’m going to call them waterfall and agile, for reasons that may be obvious to anyone with software development experience… because that’s the milieu they come from. Techne: Goodbye Waterfall, Hello Agile by Gwydion Suilebhan

Most plays listed here are published; however, some like Tatiana Suárez-Pico’s Flesh and Blood, Law Chávez’s Señora de la Pinta, and Christina Hjelm’s Casualties of Dreams and Sand still await publication and productions. The works are made by, for and with Latina/os, but not always all three at the same time. Although the list is confined to only one drama by each of the 101 playwrights, many on the list have also written a number of other powerful plays on the Latino experience. 101 Plays by the New Americans, or on Latinidad by Tlaloc Rivas

One can speculate as to why such apparent discrimination exists. Is it because media outlets have always preferred to employ men (at least in print)? Are these aging critics left over from an era before society became conscious of gender parity issues? Will audiences trust the voice of a woman over that of a man? Where America falls short, Britain seems to be making strong efforts to include the voice of female critics. Almost every other review listed on The Guardian website is written by a woman, and nine of the seventeen faces they include on their “Stage Staff” list on Twitter are women. Blistered and Burned: The Absence of Female Critics by Daniel Jones

This is what I shall say to you, my young playwrights who are black. Without you, the black theater is not going to last, because the voice of a generation—your generation—is squarely rooted in the details of your specific story. Don’t allow your voice and unique black experience to be muted by this country’s efforts to move us all past race. Because when you allow your voice to be muted, you participate in the genocide of the black experience and the death of the black story. You, the black playwright are the future of black theater. On your shoulders rests the responsibility to add the rich cultural tapestry that is blackness to the American theater canon. What Shall We Tell Our Young Playwrights Who Are Black? by Carla Stillwell

I love my work. I make very little money. But I would not trade my life of working long days, raising money, engaging in public relations, practicing accounting, and very pleasurably reading plays, for anything. Yes, I have to do other things to keep myself afloat and at this late stage of my life in the theater am blessed that those other activities are directing or acting in a play, now and then. When I do those other things, I am enriched in ways that for me are unsurpassed. But it makes things rather difficult in terms of managing the other parts of my life. Can that be a struggle? You bet. It’s what I bargained for. A Life in Theater by Paul Meshejian

But I’m on the record with that force of nature thing and besides, I’m a black woman playwright myself and our work as a group is still underrepresented on the stages of America’s LORT theatres. Lynn Nottage is my sister as well as my colleague and that sisterhood, which is based on race and tribe and blood memory, cares nothing for Pulitzers or glowing reviews in the New York Times or problematic second acts. No way I’m not going to be in her corner, have her back and happily bear opening night witness. Soul Serenade#2: The Challenge of Vera Stark by Pearl Cleage

When you have left home and gone into the world, their job of making you is almost completely over. There are those who believe that biology is the only important thing – that you were crafted as soon as you were born, and so they judge you on the merits of your Mum and Dad. To those people, I do not exist in your life. But you and me both know that your success is in the living, the learning and the failing, and for all your life I have always been here. A Child is Born and Lives: The Role of Mother, Father and… Another by Kai Green

“We propose to establish a theater in the deep South… a combination of art and social awareness… through theater, we think to open a new area of protest.” Such was the proclamation of the founders of the Free Southern Theater. In 1963, with the gale winds of change upon their backs, three freedom fighters sought a way to give an artistic catalyst to their deeply passionate activism. Gilbert Moses, already a writer for the Mississippi Free Press, joined forces with John O’Neal and Doris Derby, who were already field directors for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee to establish the theater in Madison County, Mississipi. Talkin Revolution: Free Southern Theater Then and Now by Michael “Quess?” Moore

I went along with my “mysterious” affinity with the Latina/o theater community for many years, falling in love with the way Luis Alfaro throws himself into his work with all his heart and intellect, how José Rivera trusts the swirling dream and tells the nightmare. I became enchanted with Maria Irene Fornes’ power, simplicity, and ability to give voice to those who cannot use language. Midgalia Cruz, who brings the house down with her wild heart and deeply empathetic stories, taught me the Fornes process, sharing with me that Fornes also had to find her own way, using a cookbook as metaphor. Learning to be Lusitanian Latina by Elaine Avila

When we devise theater with students instead of starting with a script (and roles you have to fill them into like square pegs into octagonal slots), we can work with what is actually in the room. We can look at the abilites and affinities of the students that can help guide us in our creation of a piece (Do we have a harp player in the group? Someone who can spin a basketball on their finger? An avid science student? Someone deeply religious?) We can pay attention to our specific context and our specific resources. And we can create instead of recreating. Devising Theater With High School Students by Joel Sugerman

My first disclaimer is I must be totally absolutely nuts to start a theater company in Camden, New Jersey. Camden consistently ranks as one of the poorest and most violent cities in the nation. The homicide rate is almost twelve times the national average; forty two percent of the city’s 77,000 residents live in poverty. Think 1970’s Good Times sitcom. So this has to be a calling, because if not, I need to check myself in and be examined. Especially because I built an African American theater company even as I watched African American theater companies all over the country struggle to keep their doors open. Projects, Plays, and Bobby Flay in New Jersey by Desi P. Shelton

Fightaturgy matters. Because it’s the moments of violence on stage that are among the most direct expressions of conflict and objective, and because if they’re done well and are dramatically motivated, these are moments that you know the audience is leaning forward in their seats. This goes as much for a slap as it does for a duel to the death. Fightaturgy: Towards a Dramaturgy of Stage Violence by Meron Langsner