Recent Essays

Taylor Leigh Lamb argues that building the equitable theatre industry requires robust COVID precautions with steps like masking, air filtration, and advocacy within our theatrical spaces.

Teaching-artist Deen Rawlins-Harris reflects on their time facilitating an educational theatre residency at a school in St. John, United States Virgin Islands (STJ). They viewed Cinnamon Bay, a beach in STJ, as a teacher, and learned lessons that helped them have a stronger connection to students and reject settler colonial, hierarchical teaching structures.

The Latinx Theatre Commons will produce five convenings focusing on new Latinx musicals, Latinx actor training, and more between 2024 and 2027.

Jessica Elaine Ellison challenges training programs to position dramaturgs as creatives. Through this framing, these programs have the opportunity to expand and innovate in the way that embraces the expansiveness of dramaturgs working in the field. 

Multidisciplinary theatre artist Regina Victor (Pharoah) and playwright and director Sean Daniels discuss navigating being in recovery from addiction within the theatre industry, what recovering artists need, and the power of witnessing.

Educator Rainier Pearl-Styles recounts their experience of devising a show in response to Shakespeare’s Macbeth, using tenets of Paolo Freire’s theory of liberatory education. Through recasting, restorying, and restructuring, the participants were able to use Shakespeare as a tool for understanding power and identity.  

Scott Walters, author of Building a Sustainable Theater: How to Remove Gatekeepers and Take Control of Your Artistic Career, sits down with Munroe Shearer to discuss the ways artist-owned theatres can succeed and best serve their communities. 

Dramaturg Anna D. Novak and director Juliana Frey-Méndez discuss their collaborative dramaturgical process for Fefu and Her Friends, written by María Irene Fornés. Together they crafted a process that embraced the play’s mysteries and made space for everyone’s analysis.

Jacob Juntunen traces the collaborative network of theatres and theatremakers in St. Louis that share resources and make the city a rich environment for new play development.