Recent Essays

This week's conversation topic is "Marketing the New Play" and will take place on Thursday, January 30 on hashtag #newplay at 11am PST – 12pm PST (Vancouver) / 1pm CST – 2pm CST (Austin) / 2pm EST – 3pm EST (New York) / 19:00 GMT – 20:00 GMT (London) / 8pm CET - 9pm CET (Berlin).

In her essay, Annah Feinberg investigates infrastructural ephemerality in America's nonprofit theatre.

Yes, some rehearsals (not all, mind you) are paid, and have to be regulated, legally, as work. But why did we decide, as US practitioners, that theater rehearsals fell so wholly into the realm of work and were so utterly unlike things such as parties or play? Why did we push rehearsals all the way to one end of the work-play spectrum? How did we become afraid of rehearsing without a stopwatch?

Artistic director and playwright Wendy MacLeod and I wondered aloud: what would happen if, right then, that playwright was placed in a remote community of writers for two weeks, at Ohio’s quiet and serenely beautiful Kenyon College? And what if that playwright could work with the commissioning theater’s literary manager as an advising voice and with all the tools at hand—actors to read, writers to hear, and, at the end, a fully staged reading? And no ticket sales. No critics.

Summer Banks offers an overview of eco-theatre and talks about her experience watching Katie Mitchell's production of Atmen.

So I ask, is there a way to make disability a part of the world of a play, without reducing it to stereotype or "triumph-over-adversity" tales? Is there a way to make disability business as usual while sharing it with someone unaware of the daily accommodations involved? Is it possible for disability to serve as a metaphor for the emotional and social deficiencies we all carry around? Can it be the driving examination of a play without seeming wholly negative?

This week's conversation topic is "Short Form Theater and Short Play Festivals" which will take place on Thursday, January 23 at 11am PST – 12pm PST (Vancouver) / 1pm CST – 2pm CST (Austin) / 2pm EST – 3pm EST (New York) / 19:00 GMT – 20:00 GMT (London) / 8pm CET - 9pm CET (Berlin). In Twitter, use hashtag #newplay to participate.

Alice Stanley reflects on Binary Theatre Company's production of Jester's Cap, by Daniel Pennyway and making theatre that contains feminism and same-sex love for a possibly-conservative audience.