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Recent Essays

This is a repository of written content, sorted by most recent to oldest. Enjoy!

A woman with long dark hair stands in front of a microphone.
Essay
7 May 2024

Iraisa Ann Reilly recounts the introductions, histories, and memories shared throughout the first day of the Latinx Theatre Commons Tenth Anniversary Convening. 

An actor with one foot on a ladder hands a book to another onstage.
Essay
1 May 2024

Amelia Parenteau explores the creation of The < 3 G E N Project: a documentary theatre project in which the creators, Beatriz Cabur and Giulia Cavallini, are using digital theatre to bridge the digital divide between generations of women, and invite these women into conversation on how to better connect. 

Two people in stage blacks wearing masks stand backstage.
Essay
29 April 2024

Ezra Tozian, Claudia Alick, and Jon Jon Johnson discuss the need to challenge the status quo of ignoring COVID within the theatre industry and the impact that the lack of care is having on them and other disabled theatremakers. 

A performer in a headdress performs onstage.
Essay
25 April 2024

Ayesha Jordan writes about the intersection of performance and permaculture, and how slowing down and respecting the cycles of the earth are influencing her multi-species project in process. 

Performers in animal masks kneel on all fours beneath the shadow of a tree at night.
Essay
24 April 2024

Deke Weaver discusses his life-long project, The Unreliable Bestiary: an ark of full-length performances about animals, our relationships with them, and the worlds they inhabit. Through this ambitious project, Deke and his team draw out the connections between disparate local and global dots and illustrate how the personal is political.

Outside in a field, performer leans away from another stilt-wearing performer.
Essay
23 April 2024

Tannis Kowalchuk, artistic director of Farm Arts Collective, shares about the project Dream on the Farm—a ten year project of climate change plays performed on Willow Wisp Organic Farm that grapples with the questions: How do we imagine our future? What are our dreams?

A performer stands on a dimly lit stage in front of a whale setpiece.
Essay
22 April 2024

Chantal Bilodeau kicks off another installment of Theatre in the Age of Climate Change by reflecting on her journey working on the Arctic Cycle against the backdrop of the continuously increasing global temperature, and introducing the other playwrights who will be sharing about their commitment to creating a series of work about the climate crisis. 

A performer holds a large bag tagged PLOT DEVICE onstage.
Essay
17 April 2024

In Between Two Knees, the 1491s use comedy to destabilize rigid ideas of history. Sebastián Eddowes Vargas discusses the Perelman Performing Arts Center production, highlighting the narrative and political potency of laughing in the face of trauma.  

A group of performers stand in a brightly lit white tiled room.
Essay
12 April 2024

Yaşam Özlem Gülseven interviews Davit Khorbaladze about his play UNLOVE: an experimental work based on his personal documentary material about the loss of love during a time of global crisis and the identity crisis that followed. The two explore how UNLOVE and the rest of the “UN-” trilogy highlights the shocking resemblance between intimate experiences and global events.

A photo of an old lockbox.
Essay
11 April 2024

Kaneza Schaal shares the community practices she witnessed at her aunt’s home in Rwanda, and how theatremakers should embrace these practices when we create work together.

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