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Allison Vanouse

Allison Vanouse is a long-time advocate for cross-genre performance of all shapes and sizes in the Boston area.

Allison Vanouse is a graduate of the Theater Arts program at Brandeis University, and a long-time advocate for cross-genre performance of all shapes and sizes in the Boston area. She is a Ph.D. candidate at Boston University's Editorial Institute, where her research focuses on dramatic tropes in modern American poetry—especially in the group that surrounded the 1950s incarnation of the Poets Theatre of Cambridge, and one of its central figures: the poet and playwright V. R. "Bunny" Lang.

Portrait of Johnny Blazes.
Chosen Family
Essay

Chosen Family

A Festival of Plays, for Pride Week in Boston

24 July 2014

Allison Vanouse writes about Sleeping Weazel's 2014 festival of plays, trans cabaret, and solo performance coinciding with Boston Pride Week.

Tea bowl with the impression of a leaf.
Psychoanalysis and Breast Milk at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts
Essay

Psychoanalysis and Breast Milk at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts

13 May 2014

Allison Vanouse reviews a performance by Jeffrey Gibson and Patty Chang at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts, and responds to other critics of the piece.

Photo from a performance in the BCAP.
University Theater in Boston
Essay

University Theater in Boston

The Classical Experimental

13 March 2014

Allison Vanouse continues her look at productions from university students in Boston. In this post she reviews Steven Berkoff's adaptation of Kafka's Metamorphosis, directed by Elaine Vaan Hogue

Reviewing Student Theater is an Invisible Taboo
Essay

Reviewing Student Theater is an Invisible Taboo

Conspiracy

20 February 2014

Allison Vanouse looks at student theatre — which is infrequently reviewed — choosing to critique Conspiracy (an adaptation of the 2001 HBO film), from the Harvard Radcliffe Dramatic Club.

Photo from Romeo and Juliet.
Some Fringe Conventions for Performing Shakespeare, and Romeo and Juliet
Essay

Some Fringe Conventions for Performing Shakespeare, and Romeo and Juliet

28 January 2014

Allison Vanouse reviews the 2013 Actor's Shakespeare Project production of Romeo and Juliet, directed by Allyn Burrows and Bobbie Steinbach at the Strand Theatre in Dorchester.

Photo from Right of Spring.
Shen Wei's Lifts
Essay

Shen Wei's Lifts

A Unique Approach to Dance

17 December 2013

Allison Vanouse writes about the work of Shen Wei, and the modern semiotics of the lift in dance.

Peter Ubu performing.
Pere Ubu
Essay

Pere Ubu

An Ambiguation in the Mainstream

28 November 2013

Allison Vanouse writes about Pere Ubu, and how their experimental rock channels the ghost of Ubu Roi.

Photo from The Jungle Book.
Monoculture, and Pleasures of The Jungle Book
Essay

Monoculture, and Pleasures of The Jungle Book

31 October 2013

Allison Vanouse writes about Disney Theatrical Enterprise's approach to theatermaking, and how high art and children's theater meet in their regional theater collaboration: The Jungle Book.

Photo from Jacob's Pillow.
A Dance of Desegregation at Jacob's Pillow
Essay

A Dance of Desegregation at Jacob's Pillow

15 October 2013

Allison Vanouse writes about Pavement, an adaptation of the 1991 film, Boyz N the Hood at Jacob's Pillow Dance.

Fenway Park.
A Ballgame
Essay

A Ballgame

3 October 2013

Boston is a sports city. It also is an arts city. Allison Vanouse takes a look at the similarities including how both mediums and how they share time and space principles.

Photo from Re-Present Me.
The Business of Magic
Essay

The Business of Magic

Lucy Watson's Re-Present Me at Anthony Greaney

19 September 2013

Allison Vanouse reviews Lucy Watson's Re-Present Me, a performance art piece meditating on the artist's relationship with the supernatural.

Photo from Dead Art Star.
Bathaus, DEAD ART STAR and Abuse of the Document
Essay

Bathaus, DEAD ART STAR and Abuse of the Document

5 September 2013

Allison Vanouse writes about DEAD ART STAR at Bathaus, and how social media documentation interacts and intersects with performance art and its goals.

Rocco Sisto as Richard II.
Succession Complex
Essay

Succession Complex

Richard II with Rocco Sisto

22 August 2013

Allison Vanouse examines Shakespeare & Company's start to their history cycle: Richard II. She argues that Shakespeare's history plays work best when they speak to our contemporary concerns.

Film As Live Art
Essay

Film As Live Art

Gabriel Abrantes and Theatrical Gesture

21 August 2013
A photo from Giver of Light.
Poetic Drama, Guerilla Opera
Essay

Poetic Drama, Guerilla Opera

30 July 2013

Allison Vanousewrites about the premiere production of Adam Roberts' Giver of Light, an opera based on the life of the 13th-century Persian poet Rumi.

Photo from The Nina Variations.
Elegant Variation
Essay

Elegant Variation

4 July 2013

Brown Box Theatre Project’s production of The Nina Variations cast three actresses as Nina. Allison Vanouse constrasts Steven Dietz's play with other works that explore repetition and deconstruct classic plays.

A hallway in the MFA.
Notes on Odd Spaces
Essay

Notes on Odd Spaces

25 June 2013

Allison Vanouse reviews "Odd Spaces" at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. What is to be gained, she asks, in finding new ways to perform in odd spaces?

A ballet dancer executes a difficult leap.
Ballet and Time
Essay

Ballet and Time

20 June 2013

Allison Vanouse writes about Boston Ballet's 2013 triple-bill of George Balanchine’s Serenade and Symphony in C, and Wayne McGregor’s Chroma

Photo from the play Edge.
Exist Stronger
Essay

Exist Stronger

14 May 2013

Allison Vanouse profiles Near Death, a performance art presentation at Boston's Cyclorama.