Recent Essays

Today Westport has one of the wealthiest zip codes in the United States. A hedge fund responsible for $120 billion of the world’s money is nestled in the woods there. In this gilded environment, my family has always been slightly out of place. Though now winterized and expanded, our house is one of a dwindling number of non-mansions on the street. Recently, my parents and I decided to experiment with sharing that resource, thinking other artists might also benefit from the opportunity to get away and spread out.

The nerves about future productions depending entirely on the success of this first one are wiped away. It just pushes all of the anxious noise into the background. A lot of times the idea of taking chances has much more to do with design choices and how things are realized that might seem tiny to other folks, but can really influence the storytelling.

I could certainly choose not to work at a lot of small theaters. I could also try and negotiate higher rates. I have done both. But I like to work with good theater artists. It’s hard to say no to a good director or to a good script. As a Los Angeles theater artist, it is almost impossible to not work in 99-seat theater.

Stephen Quigley writes about a production of Avenue Q in South Carolina, and what arises when producing a musical which tackles race outside of its original premiere and setting: New York City.

Despite profound decentering from its source, Cuban theater has had a consistent representation in Miami. Mirrored by a repertoire of embodied theatrical practices, Cuban theater constitutes an important system of knowing and transmitting knowledge about Cuban culture. Using its own positioning, these epistemologies, in conjunction with actor’s training have gone unrecognized; yet, they have survived expatriation in the midst of divergent perspectives on both how to perform theater as knowledge, as well as how to generate knowledge through theater. Sainetes (or one- act farces), musical comedies, zarzuelas, and serious dramas in particular, are the fabric of this historically and culturally specific communicative process. Overall, the retention of the art form and the formation and maturity of Miami’s exiled actors has depended on the Cuban modern theater performed in exile.

Brighde Mullins provides insight into her journey of becoming a playwright. 

The kind of open, honest, rough-and-tumble way that we often approach our art-making seems to be inhibited, or even actively stifled, when it comes to addressing larger issues in the way we work and the ways we are part of the fabric of the country. Much of the time, it seems like we’re all living in a spirit of fear, instantly defensive whenever anyone questions the current status quo. And this despite the fact that, at least in principle, everyone seems to agree the status quo is far from ideal.

All you have to do, for ten days, is look at beauty and create. If you need to talk your ideas through, you have a teacher available, ready to listen and help. If you want to hear your pages read aloud, supportive comrades will oblige, then drink wine with you at night to a chorus of crickets and cicadas, the only loud nightlife around.