Recent Essays

Allison Vanouse reviews a performance by Jeffrey Gibson and Patty Chang at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts, and responds to other critics of the piece.

The term “collaborative” for me conjures up the idea of a loose group of artists with a shared Asian American identity and purpose, working together to produce a wide range of projects, from workshops, readings and short performances to full productions. If this process is successful, I believe it would be possible that within a three to five year period, there could be a significant Asian American presence in the Philadelphia theater community and a real demand for their work.

This week's conversation topic is "Curtain Calls & Curtain Speeches: Why, How, and When Do You Do It?" and will be moderated by Annie Paladino @anniepaladino and Zhenya Lavy @ZhenyaLavy—who like all of our moderators, authors, and content producers—self-selected to peer-produce on this commons-based platform! This hour-long Howl will take place on Thursday, May 15 on hashtag #newplay at 11am PDT (Vancouver) / 1pm CDT (Austin) / 2pm EDT (Toronto) / 18:00 GMT / 7pm BST (London).

Srila Nayak shares an overview of Pulitzer prize-winning dramatist Ayad Akhtar's career. 

In accepting the single story that "God’s Work" does not belong in a downtown Chicago theater, do we contribute to the silencing of the voices of our youth? I believe "God’s Work" is just as worthy of embodiment on stage as "Our Class" or any other current Chicago production, regardless of the age of the ensemble members telling it.

When I read the list of speakers on the mayor’s panel, it was made of six women, including five artists and one critic. In terms of racial diversity, only one was African-American and another was from Iran. The rest were white speakers. Where was the Latina? Dallas is an astounding 42 percent Latino and the mayor is going to “Re-Imagine Art in Dallas” without including anyone to speak on our behalf?

I think, rather, that playwrights readily turn over the fate of their work to these committees and power-players, simply because that is the way it’s been done for so long that anything else feels strange. A playwright wants to get produced, after all— and other writers traditionally aren’t the ones assigning production budgets. But this can change.

Lily Janiak discusses the world premiere of Stuart Eugene Bousel's adaptation of Rat Girl, a memior by Kristin Hersh, lead singer of Throwing Muses.

Playwright Jonathan Norton interviews Theatre Three's Executive Producer-Director Jac Alder.

I ended up staying in Dallas more through a process of elimination rather than an initial zeal for the theater scene here. But I chose right, plain and simple. I’ve lived here for about five years, four of which I was a student at Southern Methodist University earning my BFA. In that time I’ve watched an entire arts district somehow rise out of the ground, multiple theater companies be born, and I’ve joined the ragtag team of young artists looking to see what this town has to offer.