Justice in the Rehearsal Room Syllabus

HowlRound's Learning Circles are short-term, discussion-based groups designed to build community and knowledge in tandem. Theatre practitioners from across the field gather for weekly sessions exploring a central topic. Assigned reading/viewing/listening pulls primarily from HowlRound’s archive, and we invite participants’ varied experiences into the room through facilitated discussion and activities. 

The Justice in the Rehearsal Room materials prioritize interventions in various stages of the theatremaking process. They focus on content (essays, interviews, podcasts, livestreams) by theatremakers who disrupt unhealthy and oppressive structures and/or offer alternatives rooted in equity, care, and justice. 

Curriculum and program design by Ashley Malafronte. Discussion questions created in collaboration with Alison Kopit, Taylor Leigh Lamb, Dolissa Medina, Nicolas Shannon Savard, and Daphne Sicre. 

Centering Trust and Care 

Assigned Materials:

• “Building Trust When Staging Others’ Intimate Stories” by Georgia “George” Evans
• “Alive, Unwell, and Defending Each Other” by Taylor Lamb
• “A Culture of Trust” by Taylor Mac
• “Toolkit for Community-Embedded Artistic Practice” by Lane Michael Stanley

Supplemental Materials: 

• “Are You Really a Parent-Friendly Workplace?” by Michelle Ramos and Ashley Walden Davis 
• “Creating Trust Through Money: A Conversation with the Common Wallet Project” by Tiziana Penna and Anna Rispoli
• “Everything Ghost Forest Touches, It Changes” by Taylor Leigh Lamb

Discussion Questions: 

• Identify one strategy for trust or care from the readings that excites you. Highlight or copy the quotation where that strategy is discussed. 
• What definitions of “trust” are at play in these readings? 
• What definitions of “justice” are at play in these readings?
• What is one instance when you’ve experienced or created deep trust or care in a rehearsal process? 
• Question for “Alive, Unwell, and Defending Each Other”: This essay discusses breadth of access offerings, including some that arose throughout the production process. Which of these stands out to you, and what kinds of access options can you imagine in your own rehearsal spaces? 
• Question for “Alive, Unwell, and Defending Each Other”: What connections can this piece offer us between just practices  in the rehearsal room and justice beyond the rehearsal room?

Gender, Sexuality, Intimacy, Autobiography

Assigned Materials:

• “I Designed a Series of Workshops to take back my body” by Nasima Bee
• “Composting Queer Trauma Through a Collaborative Process in SEAL” by Dante Fuoco, Rachel Pottern Nunn, and Clara Weist
• [Podcast] “Making Space: Consent, Collaboration, and Queer Access Intimacy” from Gender Euphoria hosted by Nicolas Shannon Savard, with guests  J. C. Pankratz and and Emmet Podgorski 
• “A Manifesto for Staging Gendered Violence” by Sharanya 

Supplemental Materials: 

• [Non-HowlRound]  “Access Intimacy: The Missing Link” by Mia Mingus
• [TV] “Nonbinary Acting Methods with Jo Michael Rezes” 
• [Podcast] “Training Cisgender Producers and Directors: It’s More than Remembering Pronouns” from Gender Euphoria, hosted by Nicholas Shannon Savard, with guest Maybe Burke 
• “The Mother of All Emotions” by Betty Shamieh
• “Examining White Gay Responsibility in Our Theatres” by Munroe Shearer

Discussion Questions: 

• Reflect on the following in your own practice: In what theatre spaces have you–and others–been able to show up fully and vulnerably? What contributed to that? 
• We’ve now read/listened to a few different approaches to casting that reject a standard, impersonal audition process. What do these approaches reveal about standard auditions? What do alternatives to mass auditions have to offer, and what might be the drawbacks of these approaches? 
• Several of these pieces consider the working relationship between director and performer. What are some of the ways directors and actors cultivate processes that establish boundaries, foster open communication, and care for one another? 
• Feminist refusal, de-spectacling, and non-realist legibility are some strategies Sharanya suggests for “restaging gendered violence.” Where have you seen these at play, or where might they be useful?

Anti-Racism, White Supremacy Culture, Collaboration, Power 

Assigned Materials:

• “Playwrights of Color, White Directors, and Exposing Racist Policy” by Nicole Brewer
• “Hold, Please: Addressing Urgency and Other White Supremacist Standards in Stage Management” by Miguel Flores, R. Christopher Maxwell, John Meredith, Alexander Murphy, Quinn O’Connor, Phyllis Smith, and Chris Waters 
• “The River in the Room” by Star Finch and Aejay Antonis Marquis 
• “Holding a Human: Caretaking, Play, and Design as a Social Act” by Dolissa Medina 
• “A Designer-Director-Dramaturg Dalliance” by Daphnie Sicre 

Supplemental Materials: 

• “We Commit to Anti-Racist Stage Management Education” by Narda E Alcorn and Lisa Porter 
• [Podcast] “Staging Black Intimacies” from Daughters of Lorraine, hosted by Jordan Ealey and Leticia Ridley, with guest Kaja Dunn 
• “Getting Specific: One Playwright’s Complicated Casting Choices” by Larissa FastHorse 
• [non-HowlRound] whitesupremacyculture.info and Dismantling Racism Works (dRworks) workbook by Tema Okun
• “The Molecules Changed in the Room”: Creating a Play from Real Asian Women’s Desires, Dreams, and Heartaches” by Amy Zhang and Danielle Iwata
• Additional documentation of the Latinx Theatre Commons Designer and Director Colaboratorio 

Discussion Questions: 

• What is one moment of successful intercultural collaboration you’ve experienced?
• Several of these readings respond to the concept of white supremacy culture, explicitly naming tenets like urgency, perfectionism, objectivity, power-hoarding, and quantity over quality. Where have you seen these tenets arise in received norms for creating theatre? 
• What are some of the ways these authors have put humans first in their generative processes? 
• How do these authors build anti-racist theatre in a way that goes beyond representation? What are their strategies?
• Question for “Holding a Human: Caretaking, Play, and Design as a Social Act”: Consider the positions of “Present,” “Fly on the Wall,” and “Beyond” that Dolissa introduces. Which of these dispositions is your default as a collaborator, and have you had the opportunity to use that as a strength?

Access, Disability, and Size Inclusivity 

Assigned Materials: 

• “Imagining Creative Fat Futures” by Morgan Davis and Jules Vordarek Hunter 
• “Introducing Access Dramaturgy” by Alison Kopit 
• “Finding Autistic Theatre Artists is a Challenge (If You Make It a Challenge) by Dave Osmundsen 
• “Moving from Disability Visibility to Disability Artistry” by Morgan Skolnik 

Supplemental Materials: 

• “Producing with a Disabled Lens”  by Claudia Alick 
• “I Am the Damage We Have Done to the Earth: Intersections of the Climate Crisis and Disability” by Hanna Cormick 
• “Taking Care: Supporting Delegates with Invisible Disabilities at Festivals and Showcases” by Rosie Heafford
• “A Community-led Approach to Making Theatre Safer for Photosensitive Audiences” by Nicole Hughes 
• “Going ‘Down to the Roots’ to Find Healing Through Theatre” by Keelin Sanz 

Discussion Questions: 

• How do we see access being imagined and enacted across these readings? 
• How does disability, neurodivergence, and/or fatness shape the theatre being made in these pieces? 
• An access dramaturg is both a creative team role and an advocacy role. Given that, what impact might an access dramaturg have on the way a creative team functions? 
• In your own position as a theatremaker, how can you point yourself in the direction of access? Where is your buy-in and power?