Recent Essays

Viktor Vilisov talks about the realities of queer artists and art in Russia today.

Vera Starbard wonders if the time of the American theatre has come to an end and imagines the future of the performing arts looking a lot like it did in the past, pre-colonization.

Mike Lew and Rehana Lew Mirza sit down to discuss how COVID has forced a breakup between artists and theatres and what it will take to get back together again.

Mihaela Drăgan introduces digital supratheatre—a theatre of the future with two underlying principles: technological change and social change.

Melisa Pereyra writes to students of the American theatre from the future, sharing what the field looks like years down the road.

Jacob Juntunen shares how the MFA playwriting program at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale adapted their new play festival for the online world and how open-access software and streaming platforms helped students at the rural school transcend geography.

Alli St. John shares a guide she developed for directors of youth theatre to prioritize consent and safe practices for staging theatrical intimacy.

Andrew Pearson uses consent as a framework to discuss retuning to in-person theatre after the pandemic.

Hesam Sharifian reflects on how the blackface mask of the Hāji Firuz and Siāh-Bāzi clowns in Iran is reminiscent of an ugly past and should not be used in performance today.

Misheck Mzumara looks at the way the COVID-19 pandemic has affected theatre in Malawi and thinks through what comes next.