Recent Essays

Multidisciplinary theatre artist Regina Victor (Pharoah) and playwright and director Sean Daniels discuss navigating being in recovery from addiction within the theatre industry, what recovering artists need, and the power of witnessing.

Educator Rainier Pearl-Styles recounts their experience of devising a show in response to Shakespeare’s Macbeth, using tenets of Paolo Freire’s theory of liberatory education. Through recasting, restorying, and restructuring, the participants were able to use Shakespeare as a tool for understanding power and identity.  

Scott Walters, author of Building a Sustainable Theater: How to Remove Gatekeepers and Take Control of Your Artistic Career, sits down with Munroe Shearer to discuss the ways artist-owned theatres can succeed and best serve their communities. 

Dramaturg Anna D. Novak and director Juliana Frey-Méndez discuss their collaborative dramaturgical process for Fefu and Her Friends, written by María Irene Fornés. Together they crafted a process that embraced the play’s mysteries and made space for everyone’s analysis.

Jacob Juntunen traces the collaborative network of theatres and theatremakers in St. Louis that share resources and make the city a rich environment for new play development. 

Megan Lummus shares her experience as the first openly autistic director to direct a professional production of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. She explores why it is important to have autistic artists taking the lead on sharing autistic stories, and what theatremakers can do to make sure productions are accessible. 

Theatremaker and political educator Chris Myers writes a companion piece to Ife Olujobi’s “$5000.” He explains the structural reasons behind Ife’s struggle to gain more money for playwrights, why this struggle belongs to us all, and the organizing it will take to change it. 

Joseph Dunne-Howrie reflects on DV8’s Can We Talk About This?, exploring how the show employs pinkwashing as a vehicle for Islamophobia and racism. Joseph highlights how, rather than espousing progressive values, the show uses similar tactics of alt-right troll Milo Yiannopoulos.

Playwright Star Finch sits down with AeJay Mitchell to discuss their time working as a creative culture consultant on Star’s play, Josephine’s Feast. Together they explore how AeJay’s role functioned as a “river in the room,” a fluid space held for the artists to address their human needs beyond the limitations of the Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) framework.