Recent Essays

Heidi Coleman and Patrick Jagoda discuss alternate reality games (ARG) as a means of motivating audiences to take action, what goes into creating ARGs, game-based improvisation, and more.

Caroline Sprague reflects on Shey Rivera Ríos’s recent piece, Fire Flowers and a Time Machine, transformative justice, the nonprofit industrial complex, and more.

David Dower and Martin Faucher discuss leaving their leadership positions at Boston’s ArtsEmerson and Montreal’s Festival TransAmériques, respectively; the balance between artistic responsibility and activist responsibility as artistic leaders; passing the torch to the next generation; and more. / David Dower, directeur artistique du ArtsEmerson de Boston, et Martin Faucher, codirecteur général et directeur artistique du Festival TransAmériques de Montréal, discutent de leur départ respectif, de l’équilibre entre la responsabilité artistique et la responsabilité militante en tant que directeur artistique, du passage du flambeau à la prochaine génération, et plus.

Text-based director and adaptor Lavina Jadhwani chats with casting director Victor Vazquez about her shift from using “color-conscious casting” to “identity-conscious casting,” the importance of casting being seen as part of a show’s design and dramaturgy, and more.

Blair Nodelman discusses why theatremakers are well suited to deeply understanding the political machine and work toward dismantling the status quo, creating a more equitable and community-based iteration of governing.

Ralph Peña argues that private foundations play a vital role in sustaining nonprofit theatres in the United States and these funders must better recognize the value of, and make significant investments in, smaller, community-focused BIPOC organizations.

verity healey, who spent time in Kosovo for its Theatre Showcase last October, discusses the precarious nature of Kosovo’s independent theatre sector and shares her thoughts about the plays she saw while visiting.

Claire K. Redfield shares why it’s important for theatremakers to create trauma-responsive rehearsal spaces and offers four Rs—realizing, recognizing, responding, and resisting—as a way to approach the process.

Sophia Skiles, the incoming head of acting for the Brown/Trinity MFA program, and Nicole Brewer, who recently joined the acting faculty at the Yale School of Drama, dive deep into a conversation about what it means to be a woman of color in leadership.