California

Randy Reinholz shares his experiences as producing artistic director of The Autry—the only Equity theatre dedicated to Native playwrights.

Enrique's Journey, directed and adapted by Anthony J. Garcia, is based on Pulitzer Prize-winning  book of the same name by Sonia Nazario. The third production of Enrique’s Journey took place at the LATC's Encuentro 2014, performed by Su Teatro.

Jeni Incontro encourages the theatre industry to change the business model by embracing technology, filming performances, and giving theatregoers the option of watching whenever they’d like.

Teatro del Sol's Mariela en el desierto is a fantastic philosophical meditation on art and women artists obscured by the ambition of their partners, inhibited creativity, truth, beauty, and the sacrifices we make for our loved ones.

Commons Producer Laura Brueckner interviews Suzanne Appel, managing director of Cutting Ball Theater, about playwright Andrew Saito’s residency.

Responding to a lack of queer performance nights, Kolmel WithLove started The News, which led to a gathering of curators of queer performance to discuss the best practices.

Carol Kearns writes about Zoetrope: Part 1, a drama set in 1951 Puerto Rico, looking at its multimedia aesthetic, bilingual presentation, and political themes.

Cory Hinkle writes about Western Society from the British-German collective Gob Squad, and its multi-media, audience-involving production that investiages wish fulfillment, starting with the recreation of "one of the least watched videos on the Internet".

As a Black woman, millennial, playwright, and producer who is not Latina, I felt acutely aware of the gestures of absolute inclusivity, both small and large, that comprised my Encuentro experience.

This long standing collaboration can be felt through and through the ensemble work on display. Premeditation is tantalizing with promise—a talented cast and inventive staging in a noir 1940’s-esque comedy about marriage, infidelity, and murder.

This manifesto was delivered by José Luis Valenzuela as part of the opening session of the Latina/o Theatre Commons National Convening held at the Los Angeles Theatre Center’s Encuentro 2014 on Thursday, November 6, 2014.

Professor Jorge Huerta gives a short overview about the precedents that led to the historic and revolutionizing event, focusing on the growth of Chicano/a theatre festivals since 1970. 

The 2014 Latinx Theatre Commons Second National Convening at Los Angeles Theatre Center's Encuentro 2014 runs November 6-9, 2014 and is open to all theatermakers, artists, scholars, administrators, and advocates with an interest in Latina/o theater (or the New American Theater). If you plan to come to any Convening events, please RSVP here no later than November 1, 2014.

Brighde Mullins writes about Andrei Belgrader's production of Samuel Beckett's Happy Days, and then zooms out to discuss the sucess of Beckett's work in post-Katrina New Orleans and San Quentin prison.

If we truly want Los Angeles theater to grow and provide more jobs that pay, let’s examine what that will take. Help from the unions is certainly part of it, but the idea that tightening restrictions is a panacea for what ails us demonstrates a profound lack of understanding of what the problems really are. We need community awareness. We need much more support from local funders. We need to produce the kind of theater that makes us a vital and necessary part of the community and we need to get the community out to see that what we do is vital.

In 1999, I arrived in LA in a Ryder truck with the contents of several friends’ apartments and the unit set for a play we had just successfully produced together in Chicago. We remounted our play—largely unnoticed by audiences or press—in a fifty-seat space on theater row that never saw a sold out crowd. We were all in our early twenties. I don’t recall our non-Equity cast of six (which included me) ever discussing the possibility of getting paid.

Truthfully, as a Los Angeles-based theater artist working almost entirely under the 99-seat agreement, at a certain point I just gave up on earning my Equity card, and the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society (SDC) wasn’t popping up on my radar. While I may not currently carry a union card in my wallet, I do take great pride in how I am following in my grandfather’s footsteps. We both pursued our passion to craft and share stories, and simultaneously held careers working in the arts to pay the bills.

I could certainly choose not to work at a lot of small theaters. I could also try and negotiate higher rates. I have done both. But I like to work with good theater artists. It’s hard to say no to a good director or to a good script. As a Los Angeles theater artist, it is almost impossible to not work in 99-seat theater.

The kind of open, honest, rough-and-tumble way that we often approach our art-making seems to be inhibited, or even actively stifled, when it comes to addressing larger issues in the way we work and the ways we are part of the fabric of the country. Much of the time, it seems like we’re all living in a spirit of fear, instantly defensive whenever anyone questions the current status quo. And this despite the fact that, at least in principle, everyone seems to agree the status quo is far from ideal.

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.

P. Carl interviews Michael Garcés, Artistic Director of Cornerstone Theater, about their touring production California: The Tempest, which revisits ten California communities that were part of ten year’s of Institute Summer Residencies.

Cory Hinkle reviews Mickey Birnbaum's Backyard, which used wrestling both literally and metaphorically to create "lurid storytelling" 

Jamie Gahlon interviews José Luis Valenzuela on the LATC and the upcoming Encuentro 2014: A National Latina/o Theatre Festival.