Recent Essays

I have to wonder why Berliners are willing to bring their children to film or theater like "Pluto". Why are they more apt to present for their children’s consideration an unvarnished exploration of what is dark and hard in the world, and Americans are not?

W.M. Akers looks at David Henry Hwang's Kung Fu, a bio-play about the life and career of Bruce Lee

Los Angeles Theatre Center Encuentro: A Festival of National Latina/o Theatre will be held October 12-November 10 2014 and will feature ten companies from around the country, presenting their work in repertory over the course of the Festival. During the day, the companies will work together to share artistic practice and methodology which will culminate the final weekend of the Festival with public performance(s) of the co-created new work.

Boston’s neighborhoods, some of whose origins can be traced to the 1630s, have been home to myriad political and cultural shifts over the centuries—a concept that blew my California-raised mind. It was somewhat intimidating to move to a city with such a wonderful and complex past and getting charged with the task of creating spaces for conversation across the various communities.

As a former fellow-traveler, albeit on a somewhat smaller scale than the summiteers, all of this got me thinking: For the twenty two years of Theater of the First Amendment’s producing life as the resident professional company of George Mason University, how did we do?

This week's conversation topic is "How hard is it to get a comedy produced?" and will be moderated by playwright Ken Ludwig @ken_ludwig and Samuel French, Inc. @MrSamuelFrench—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, March 27 on hashtag #newplay at 11am PDT (Vancouver) / 1pm CDT (Austin) / 2pm EDT (New York) / 18:00 GMT (London) / 7pm CET (Berlin).

In this installation, Alan Dupont interviews David Dower about his work with ArtsEmerson. 

Sheryl Sandberg, author of "Lean In", has just launched a campaign to "Ban Bossy," so that girls who used to be called bossy start to be told instead that they are leaders. Efforts like this to change the culture, though, are long-game solutions to an immediate problem. In the meantime, how do women directors, especially those just starting out, balance the competing demands of actually leading with gendered expectations as to what constitutes good leadership?

Alvina Krause, one of twentieth century’s most famous teachers of acting, believed, “if you can act Chekhov, you can act anything!” In the summer of 1976 she was 83 years old, long retired, yet still taking private students in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania. Little did she know that seven students from Northwestern University in Chicago would come to study “acting Chekhov” with her, and end up settling into the town for a much longer stay as the Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble (BTE).

As a response to the realities of the current state of the theater for religiously observant theater artists, I co-founded 24/6: A Jewish Theater Company with likeminded artists. 24/6 is a home for Sabbath-observant artists in New York which is committed to cultivating innovative theater grounded in a rigorous engagement with Jewish tradition.