Recent Essays

Holly L. Derr argues against the traditional idea of a "pipeline" of plays flowing from New York to other places in the country.

In his autobiography, Amiri Baraka, born Everett LeRoi Jones in 1934, describes a stunned moment of self-discovery after reading a poem in the New Yorker. Baraka, then a 22-year-old aspiring poet, is confronted with a vast gulf between his reality and the sentiments and aesthetics of the poem, not to mention that of the New Yorker itself.

This week's conversation topic is "How Universal is Your Writing?" and will be moderated by Ross Howard @rhplaywright and Samuel French, Inc. @mrsamuelfrench—who like all of our moderators, authors, and content producers—self-select to peer-produce on this commons-based platform! This hour-long Howl will take place on Thursday, February 27 on hashtag #newplay at 11am PST (Vancouver) / 1pm CST (Austin) / 2pm EST (New York) / 7:00pm GMT (London) / 8pm CET (Berlin). On Thursday, get heard in the conversation by searching for #newplay in Twitter (sort by “all”) and by putting “#newplay” somewhere in your messages. Spread the word!

P. Carl interviews Director Lear deBessonet on her influences, inspirations, and current work.

This period of shared, relaxed time puts the performers in harmony with the theater, the rehearsal, and their fellow actors. It's like musicians tuning in the same room together. When I participated in this pre-rehearsal hangout, despite my initial antsiness, and not knowing what to do with this unstructured time, I found that my mind grew calmer. The flexible start was a moment of meditation before a strenuous activity: a deep breath before the dive.

Cape May Stage is a small Equity theater in Southern New Jersey—about as far south as you can go before your hat floats. Geographically, we are isolated from our colleagues in neighboring cities like New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C. Yet, because our audiences routinely come from those places, we are forced to compete with larger theaters with larger budgets. That demands a creative solution.

When we do a talk back after our public performances of a Shakespearean play, there's a particular question that frequently comes up. This one question does a fair job of identifying the mission of EclecticPond Theatre Company (ETC). It's also the reason I signed on with the company shortly after it was formed in 2010. Invariably, this question comes from a well-meaning adult, and it always manages to surprise me that it has been asked again. “Do you really think that students can actually relate to anything in this play?”

Allison Vanouse looks at student theatre — which is infrequently reviewed — choosing to critique Conspiracy (an adaptation of the 2001 HBO film), from the Harvard Radcliffe Dramatic Club.

In this installation, sound designer and playwright Tom Horan interviews Artistic Director Bryan Fonseca about the history and current status of the Phoenix Theatre.

We often discuss originality at Q Artistry, an Indianapolis based new works theater organization. We debate it and comb over it with dirty, bloody brushes or pluck at it with a solitary virgin pick. And we always come up with different answers. From talking bowling pins to singing bunnies, we've presented ideas in theater form that were brand new or re-imagined. We've set Edgar Allan Poe to theatrical music in "Cabaret Poe" and turned the villain from the oldest poem known to man into an experience for audiences in "Grendel".