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Recent Essays

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

Essay

The Closed and Open Door

25 August 2014

One of the stereotypes about the post-Grotowski Polish ensemble theaters is that their processes are rigidly closed and their rehearsal rooms are treated like devotional spaces. There is often a way through a more closed door, but you may have to put on your sweatpants.

Photo from The Gospel of Lovingkindness.
Essay
24 August 2014

Rebecca Stevens interviews playwright-poet Marcus Gardley on his impacts on the national performing arts community. 

The New Play Map.
Essay

Agnes Under the Big Top

23 August 2014

The Playwrights, Rewrites, Multiple Productions Series is a weekly series of interviews examining the process of developing a new play through a National New Play Network Rolling World Premiere as a part of their Continued Life of New Plays Fund. The series is produced by Thea Rodgers and Emma Weisberg. Visualizations are from HowlRound's community-powered New Play Map.

Essay

An Interview with Tlaloc Rivas

22 August 2014

As a Chicano director and writer, I am inspired by my own culture—the influence of poetry and magical realism, the contradictions and collision of European and Indigenous cultures, the corridos and huapangos of home, the memories of sitting on the porch hearing my family’s stories, and my own ever-growing inquiry into the nature of storytelling—from the specific to the universal—all came to mind in the design of the play.

Photo for Abominable.
Essay
21 August 2014

Patricia Davis reviews Hub Theatre’s Abominable, by Helen Pafumi, discussing how the play looks at violence and bullying.

Essay

My Journey to IRT Theater

20 August 2014

Evan Caccioppoli interviews IRT’s Artistic Director Kori Rushton.

Photo from Backyard.
Essay

Thoughts on Mickey Birnbaum’s "Backyard"

19 August 2014

Cory Hinkle reviews Mickey Birnbaum's Backyard, which used wrestling both literally and metaphorically to create "lurid storytelling" 

Essay

The Senses to Take the Wall Down—Sound and Common Wit

18 August 2014

Sound design alone is not immersive performance. Immersive performance is reliant on the audience experiencing related sensory stimulation to the performer and a multi-sensory design. The experience of sound can be the most recognizable and common part of our otherwise foreign immersive experience.

Props from #24teen.
Essay

Clobbering through a Collaboratively-Built Touring Show

17 August 2014

Ashley Laverty and Rivka Rocchio reflect on maintaining relationships during a theatre production

The New Play Map.
Essay

Se Llama Cristina

16 August 2014

The Playwrights, Rewrites, Multiple Productions Series is a weekly series of interviews examining the process of developing a new play through a National New Play Network Rolling World Premiere as a part of their Continued Life of New Plays Fund. The series is produced by Thea Rodgers and Emma Weisberg. Visualizations are from HowlRound's community-powered New Play Map.

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