Recent Essays

J Emilio Bencosme-Zayas shares the experience of participating in the Festival del Caribe in Santiago de Cuba as part of Open Channels/Canales Abiertos. In reflecting on the festival, he discusses what Open Channels has achieved so far, and imagines what else could happen in the future.

In the final installment of this two-part conversation, artists from the Freedom Theatre in Jenin, Palestine and Al Límite Collective in New York City come together to discuss the performance of Youth Against Invasion in the Cultural Resistance March, the Freedom Theatre’s global impact, and hopes for the future of the Freedom Theatre.

In the first installment of this two-part conversation, artists from The Freedom Theatre in Jenin, Palestine and Al Límite Collective in New York City come together to discuss the work of The Freedom Theatre and its school and the creation of Youth Against Invasion.

Sophie Sagan-Gutherz shares about Kat Mustatea’s ielele, a show that uses a unique instrument called the BodyMouth to sound out histories of the ielele, a genderless creature in Balkan folklore. Sophie highlights how this show’s use of technology illuminates connections between disability and transgression of binary gender.

Eseovwe Emakunu and Anita Anoma of Shanty Theatre recently launched a campaign that brought together primary school performers and university audiences for a dance drama performance about climate change. They discuss the creative process and impact of this performance project, which catalyzed action and learning about the impact of climate change and deforestation in Nigeria.

Thomas Schmidt, author of Power and Structure in Theater, shares his research on the German theatre landscape. He illuminates toxic power structures, explains how the way theatre operates is a result of Germany’s neocolonial and Nazi history, and offers recommendations for how to improve in the future.

Food Tank’s Little Peasants bridged theatre and advocacy by staging an interactive play set during a union vote at a fictional international coffee chain. Elena Morris discusses the play’s development process and its place in the theatre-based food systems advocacy strategies employed by the nonprofit Food Tank.

Rob Silverman Ascher chronicles the collaboration between Aaron Pang, a non-fiction storyteller with no formal theatrical training, and Johanna Kasimow, a director with a background in devising and physical theatre, on Herein Lies the Truth: Pang’s story that centers around sex and disability and confronts able-bodied expectations of what a disabled performer ought to share.

In Keiko Green’s The Bed Trick, a new adaptation of All’s Well That Ends Well, issues of consent in both the bedroom and the theatre classroom are explored in the modern context of college. Erin Murray explains how the show creates a theatrically slippery and inquisitive space which prompts audience members to examine their own role in a society that fosters rape culture. 

Barbara Fuchs shares findings from “For a Resilient US Theater, Post-Pandemic,” a Pandemic Preparedness Performing Arts research project which looked at how the nonprofit theatre sector responded to the COVID pandemic. The report asked what worked, where, and why, in order to recommend new measures to pave long-term stability in theatre.