Recent Essays

Bertie Ferdman recounts productions from the 2014 UTR and COIL Festivals.

Indy Actors’ Playground also gives working actors a chance to see their peers at work, a chance for theater professionals in the audience to see other sides of these actors, and a chance for students from local theater programs to be exposed to a wide range of plays. It gives our actors a chance to get past commercial considerations and ask themselves, “What do I really want to do?” In a largely dependent career, the chance to act on their answer can be exhilarating.

Our Shakespeare productions have become beloved Indianapolis events that draw over one thousand people per evening. We offer pre-show bands, food trucks, and beer and wine vendors. Audiences also bring their own picnic baskets: there are couples with tablecloths, candelabras, caviar and champagne, and families with buckets of chicken.

The truth is, I’m a sucker for the well-timed arrival of useful data: just the right information, just when you need it. It’s the surest way, if you ask me, to make any system work… or work better. Over the last few days—often while I’m walking on the treadmill, trying to hit my step goal for the day—I’ve been thinking about the fact that we really don’t get very much well-timed useful data at all in the theater. For example, let’s think about one obvious piece of information we all care about: ticket sales.

This week's conversation topic is "How Can Theater Get Political Influence?" and will be moderated by Alan Katz @dcdramaturg—who like all of our moderators, authors, and content producers self-select to produce on this commons-based platform. This hour-long Howl will take place on Thursday, February 20 on hashtag #newplay at 11am PST (Vancouver) / 1pm CST (Austin) / 2pm EST (New York) / 19:00 GMT (London) / 8pm CET (Berlin).

In this installation, Courtney Sale, the Associate Artistic Director for Indiana Repertory Theatre, gives an overview of the theatre scene in Indianapolis.

Starting a theater company is much like getting ready to write a book report in the sixth grade. Before you get to the nitty-gritty, you first have to figure out the “Five Ws and One H.” Who? What? Where? Why? When? And, How?

Matt McGeachy looks at the Tarragon Theatre's production of The Ugly One and how it tackles the phenomenon of the "handsome bubble"

Before I was a mother, I was a mini-revolutionary. I say was, because I currently feel as if my politics are lost in a world of Elmo and potty-training... That is another story for another post, but after the loss of such a great writer in early January, I have been trying to form the most appropriate words to honor a man whose work encouraged my own in the theater and a man who later encouraged me personally, Amiri Baraka.

Chris Garza reviews Muy Very Authentico, from the Minneapolis based collective Theatre Forever. Garza shares his skepticism the production as it balances between absurdity/satire and offesnive misrepresentation.