Recent Essays

Andrew Saito explores what being a resident playwright has afforded his rewriting process as he works on Mount Misery, a world where Donald Rumsfeld and Frederick Douglass coexist.

Emerging playwright Maggie Sulc evaluates the advice she’s been given and the options for how to finance her playwriting path, and realizes hers may be one no one else has walked yet.

Frequent contributor Jonathan Mandell considers the current condition of theatre criticism and theatre critics.

George Brant’s Grounded, at Olney Theatre, is a fast-paced, suspenseful, and moving one-woman show about a drone operator’s struggle to play two roles: annihilator and mother.

In this installation, Liane Tomasetti explores how tricky a first reading of a new site-specific play is, and how important it is to listen to all the community members involved.

Director Joanie Schultz talks to theatre critics and theatre artists about critic rating systems.

University of Arizona’s Dr. Maribel Álvarez on another version of American pluralism as evidenced in the creation and story of the Appalachian Puerto Rican musical, BETSY!

Caridad De La Luz talks about her personal journey becoming Betsy, and the inspiration she has encountered in this play and in these mountains.

The author explores playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins adaptation of The Octoroon, called An Octoroon, and its depiction of race and gender onstage. 

Lindsay Cummings looks at the issue of empathy in BETSY!, reexamining its definition, and argues that the play successfully acknowledges gaps and attempts to understand them.