Recent Essays

Part two of this series, curated by Aditi Kapil, playwright-in-residence at Mixed Blood Theatre, examines the pragmatics of how Radical Hospitality works, “The Financial or Business Case,” in a conversation with Managing Director Amanda White Thietje, Community Outreach & Marketing Manager Brie Jonna, and Artistic Director Jack Reuler.

Perseverance Theatre has a long history of creating new work. A great deal of that new work embodies one of Perseverance’s core values: regional voice. In 35 years, Perseverance Theatre has premiered close to 70 new works. Two of the challenges of creating this work are the distance and isolation of being located in Alaska. These also serve as great opportunities to be unique in perspective and specific in terms of the type of work we do. This article is part of a series of four articles on Creative Placemaking publishing in conjunction with the 2014 ArtPlace America Grantee Summit. The Summit will livestream Mon, March 3 to Wed, March 5 on HowlRound.TV. In Twitter, use #ArtPlace to participate in the conversation. View the full series, schedule, and archive here: http://bit.ly/artplace2014.

We completed our ArtPlace funded Arts on Chicago initiative in June of 2013. Arts on Chicago engaged forty artists in twenty placemaking projects to turn a ten-block stretch of Chicago Avenue into an arts district. It was a massive effort that taught us a lot about what Creative Placemaking means in the context of our South Minneapolis community. This post is part of a series of four articles on Creative Placemaking publishing in conjunction with the 2014 ArtPlace America Grantee Summit. The Summit will livestream Monday, March 3 to Wednesday, March 5 on HowlRound.TV. In Twitter, use #ArtPlace to participate in the conversation. View the full series, schedule, and archive here: http://bit.ly/artplace2014 .

The Great Chicago Fire Festival is a new signature event for the City of Chicago. It is a citywide spectacle, co-produced by Redmoon Theater and the City of Chicago. It will be Mayor Emanuel’s first major cultural initiative and is wedded to his federally funded effort to convert the Chicago River into a hub of downtown recreation. What Mardi Gras is to New Orleans and the Running of the Bulls is to Pamplona, that’s what The Great Chicago Fire Festival will become to the Windy City. This article is part of a series of four articles on Creative Placemaking publishing in conjunction with the 2014 ArtPlace America Grantee Summit. The Summit will livestream Mon, March 3 to Wed, March 5 on HowlRound.TV. In Twitter, use #ArtPlace to participate in the conversation. View the full series, the schedule, and archive here: http://bit.ly/artplace2014.

“Creative Placemaking” describe projects in which artists and arts organizations are explicitly working as part of a larger strategy to help shape their communities’ social, physical, and economic characters. In other words, these projects are doing art to change a place. This work is not new—in ancient Greece, the theater was the literal, spiritual, and civic center of the community—but putting a name on it is. And creating a sense of community among previously unconnected projects is new as well. This article is part of a series of four articles on Creative Placemaking publishing in conjunction with the 2014 ArtPlace America Grantee Summit. The Summit will livestream Mon, March 3 to Wed, March 5 on HowlRound.TV. In Twitter, use #ArtPlace to participate in the conversation. View the full series, the schedule, and archive here: http://bit.ly/artplace2014.

Dani Snyder-Young looks at the world premiere of Joel Drake Johnson’s Rasheeda Speaking, and reflects on seeing a play about race, with a mostly white audience. 

The question from TEDxBroadway 2014: How do you make the magic of theatre?

The idea that there are profound plays of political content, and then there are “relationship plays” is an attitude I have encountered many times in many places. It seems to me that there is this idea that theater must be political theater, because we, in our cushioned Occidental culture, have determined that diversity is a political issue, not a tool through which to be inclusive and explore humanity…right?

How do you work as a group? How do you work without a script? How do you ask someone to fund a group without a script? And how are you still together—financially, artistically? The non-traditional model of creation is frequently mysterious if only because it is hard to understand without doing.

Alice Stanley Jr. reviews Orange Theatre’s experimental production of Federico García Lorca’s Blood Wedding, which incorporated contemporary multimedia technology in its warehouse set.