Aesthetics

Influenced by Greek tragedies, Andy Boyd sheds insight into the complexities of writing contemporary dramas.

Brighde Mullins provides insight into her journey of becoming a playwright. 

I feel fairly confident that if some sort of census was to be taken from the last decade of American theatermaking, counting up the total number of productions by playwrights who are dead versus playwrights who are alive, The Zombies would outnumber those of us with pulses by a large margin. Which sincerely begs to question: Do artistic directors have a bias against playwrights who are alive? Are they “Life-ist?” “Pulse-Phobic?” Do they hate my heartbeat?

P. Carl interviews playwright Sarah Ruhl on her collection of short essays titled "100 Essays I Don't Have Time to Write: On Umbrellas and Sword Fights, Parades and Dogs, Fire Alarms, Children, and Theater." 

Miranda Wright doesn’t want to be pegged – not yet. The theatrical environment that she’s creating is both local and global—theater for a world that is simultaneously more connected and isolated, more expansive, more community-oriented, more lonely. More than anything, she’s concerned with the present moment.

Whereas the old avant-garde was oriented toward an imagined future and engaged in a revolutionary project of overthrowing stale regimes and remaking art—and society—according to visionary principles, the new avant-garde is focused on the current moment.

Alex Ates and DCW3 offer an overview of the how the internet has shaped theatre.

Sound design alone is not immersive performance. Immersive performance is reliant on the audience experiencing related sensory stimulation to the performer and a multi-sensory design. The experience of sound can be the most recognizable and common part of our otherwise foreign immersive experience.

P. Carl reflects on the power of the brain and how it relates to creativity. 

Jonathan Mandell writes about seven tropes of the NY Fringe Festival, highlighting productions which fit into the reoccuring genres.

There is a prevailing sense that the millennial avant-garde is not creating political, activist theatre to the same extent as the avant-garde of the ’60s and ’70s. I don’t think this is true. But I do think that the challenge has changed.

Idris Goodwin investigates the potential financial and critical success of Hip-Hop-oriented theatre.

Translator Henning Bochert and playwright Carlos Murillo talk playwriting and directing US theatre.

The keynote address delivered by Caridad Svich at the 6th annual Graduate Theatre Syndicate Symposium at Ohio State University “Position: The Power and Politics of Witnessing" on February 28, 2014 at OSU in Columbus, Ohio.

There is much that can be done in a truck that cannot be done in a conventional theater—and vice versa. The shows we create for a truck will forever only be performed in a truck, as they’d be much different shows if we wrote them with a brick and mortar theater in mind. Working in trucks is a great primer in how to exploit the particulars of a given environment, and a great reminder that we shouldn’t take theater spaces and the assumptions that come with them for granted. Conventions are great, but using them should be a choice.

The Los Angeles Theatre Center (LATC), in association with the Latinx Theatre Commons (LTC), is proud to announce the 2014 LATC Encuentro: A National Latina/o Theatre Festival. This groundbreaking festival will be the largest national Latina/o theater festival in over twenty-five years, bringing together 100 artists from across the country to explore the aesthetic, thematic, and cultural diversity in the field.

Writers and directors such as Robert Wilson, María Irene Fornes, Richard Foreman, Caryl Churchill, Elizabeth LeCompte, Judith Malina, Julian Beck, Peter Brook, Ed Bullins, and Joseph Chaikin challenged our notions of space and duration, meaning and eventfulness, theatricality and chance. They revolutionized our sense of what a play might be. That was their revolution. What is our avant-garde?

Some might point out that Noh lacks the excess of Gothic. There is no visual, aural, or excess of story, but one cannot deny the emotional excesses of the tortured soul, the ecstatic god, the deranged woman. The emotional excess in Noh is so restrained that it feels, somehow, more Gothic than, say, the ravings of a mad scientist.

Jonathan Mandell looks at the 2013-2014 Broadway season and the six productions which featured men cross-dressing

Who is allowed to draw on cultural tradition in a creative process and still be considered a “contemporary” artist? When does something become “heritage” or “tradition” and what attains status or gains cultural currency? Through this first "Innovate Heritage: Conversations between Arts and Heritage" conference in Berlin, Germany, with nearly forty speakers and artists from over thirty countries, we hope to open dialogue around some of these issues and many more that continue to expand, reconnect and inspire us.

So "Noh" is generally a move from praxis to peace, an elegant elision of motive to arrive at what has happened and what always happens.

Alice Stanley Jr writes about three site-specific and interactive and/or immersive theatrical experiences.

This week's conversation topic is "Bringing New Genres to Theater: Sci-fi, Anime, Geek, Fantasy, Steampunk…" and will be moderated by Kelley Holley @Kelley_Holley—who like all of our moderators, authors, and content producers—self-selected to peer-produce on this commons-based platform! This hour-long Howl will take place on Thursday, May 29 on hashtag #newplay at 11am PDT (Vancouver) / 1pm CDT (Austin) / 2pm EDT (Toronto) / 18:00 GMT / 7pm BST (London).