Acting & Performance

Poet and playwright Tammy Gomez offers a look at the personal, political, and artistic landscape that poets have navigated to arrive at writing for the stage.

Patrick Gaughan explores the ideas of fame, talent, and originality in the world of celebrity impersonation.

Addie Gorlin describes the benefits of casting actual teenagers to play the roles of teenagers, despite what common practice is.

Bob Leonard looks at historic duos who don’t get along, and compares them to his own experience with his long-time radio partner.

Jayne Benjulian sits down with director and actor, and now, author, Jeff Zinn, to talk about acting and his new book The Existential Actor.

Kyle Thomas discusses the benefits of incorporating mobile platforms into theatrical performance.

Paul Zimet, Artistic Director of the Talking Band, speech to the New Center for Advanced Psychotherapy Studies on Repetition.

Matthew Gray offers support from the academic arena for HowlRound contributor Seth Lepore’s charge that university theatre departments are not readying the next generation of theatre artists.

Jody Christopherson shares the piece she has been devising about Clove Galilee—what it was like for her to grow up around Mabou Mines, and the legacy of women generating work.

David Dudley talks to Colleen Sullivan of Shakespeare Academy at Stratford, where they are about to begin a second season of educating theatremakers in ensemble and Shakespeare.

LA playwright Jon Caren discusses the theatrical Renaissance that’s currently happening in LA regardless of the 99-seat theater debate.

Caridad De La Luz talks about her personal journey becoming Betsy, and the inspiration she has encountered in this play and in these mountains.

Elise Santora explores the women of BETSY!, her experience portraying so many of them, and the poetry with which she is now embracing her own story.

Native voices week continues! August: Osage County’s Kimberly Guerrero explores her work on the show, and what lesson the American theatre can learn from it.

Martha Steketee looks at The Players, an 125-year-old club for actors and those that love them, and spends some time with all its history and archives.

Scottee shares the inner workings of a solo performer’s mind, and offers advice for those who may be venturing into the art form.

Eva Price tackles solo theatre from a commercial producer’s perspective, encountering all the classic challenges, and new ones that arise because of the art form. 

Michael Milligan explores the bare minimum needed to make solo theatre, as well as the grassroots nature of it, and what can happen when you collaborate with people who are deeply passionate, though perhaps not artists.

Director Seth Barrish talks about the process of directing a solo show.

Deb Margolin explores what it is to teach solo theatre, and the difference between an act of personal revelation and an act of performance.

Matt Hoverman outlines the process of creating a solo show in a series of letters with an aspiring solo performer.

Scott Wesley Slavin kicks off our week on solo theatre, exploring vulnerability, therapy, one-to-one relationships, and defiance. He asks, “What is solo theatre? What could it be?”

Avant-garde performer and director Paul Zimet offers a brief overview of his role in Joseph Chaikin’s Open Theater and his forty-year history with Talking Band.