Recent Essays

Julia Hune-Brown and Keira Loughran discuss crafting Then Is Now, a concept album/video playlist they created through conversations with Chinese Canadian women who grew up in Toronto’s Chinatown during the era of the Chinese Exclusion Act.

Artist, facilitator, and cultural innovator Nikki Shaffeeullah kicks off this series by sharing her journey to creating Undercurrent Creations, a Toronto-based arts organization, and Parallel Tracks, a gathering of BIPOC artists that offers training in visioning, producing, and facilitating community arts projects.

Theatre artist and educator Katie Butler discusses the need to recalibrate movement practice toward accessibility and body autonomy, and shares her own experience navigating changes in her body’s abilities.

In response to student demands for greater input in season selection, the Department of Theater and Drama at the University of Michigan has spent the past few years revising their selections process. Professor Christianne Myers details their approach, which centers on a department-wide feedback and a semester-long Student Selection Advisory course.

Joseph Dunne-Howrie examines the way that three of Javaad Alipoor’s plays infuse the internet into theatrical performance, creating intersecting narratives that interrogate identity formation in the age of global interconnectivity.

Theatre critic Jonathan Mandell discusses virtual playwriting series Bard at the Gate and looks at the impact and future of digital theatre.

Playwright Carlyle Brown describes his journey with the play We Take Care of Our Own by Zainabu Jallo, detailing the joys and challenges that come from work featuring characters in their eighties and nineties.

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