Criticism

Jonathan Mandell takes a look at Broadway revivals about the theatre, contrasting them with a production of Six Characters in Search of an Author.

At this historic moment in which it is still quite dangerous to be a black man in the United States, Native Son offers an important provocation. For all the world has changed since 1939, the production asks us to take a good hard look at what has not.

Lou Harry offers insight on balancing the careers of a playwright and arts journalist. 

Emma Wiseman writes about the YOLO! Productions revival of John Patrick Shanley's Danny and the Deep Blue Sea.

Bertie Ferdman interviews Anne Hamburger about Basetrack Live, a multimedia theatre production inspired by Basetrack: One-Eight, a web project created in 2010 by photojournalists embedded with US Marines fighting in southern Afghanistan.

Chris Garza covers the Mu Performing Arts production Eric Sharp’s play, Middle Brother which tells the story of an adoptee searching for his roots in Korea.

Martha Steketee writes about the logistics and process of the OOB Festival, including quotes from an interview with the team behind it.

Haley Honeman writes about The Kirkbride Cycle, a site-specific musical performed at Fergus Fall State Hospital, a deinstitutionalized asylum in Minnesota.

"All Our Tragic," adapted and directed by Sean Graney and produced by The Hypocrites at the Den Theatre in Chicago, features all thirty-two surviving Greek tragedies by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides compiled into a single twelve-hour epic. It includes seven intermissions of varying lengths and a vegan feast of Mediterranean food is served throughout. The result is rather like a contemporary version of a Dionysian festival.

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.

Jonathan Mandell writes about the intimacy of Scenes From A Marriage, Love Letters, This is Our Youth, and I Am Me

He fought two guys; beat the crap out of them. And I looked around, and everybody had just stopped training.. And I thought: oh, my god, this is the show. There’s that magnetic presence of the ring.

Stephen Quigley writes about a production of Avenue Q in South Carolina, and what arises when producing a musical which tackles race outside of its original premiere and setting: New York City.

Jonathan Mandell writes about the second Theater: Village Festival in NYC.

Talya Kingston continues her look at the 2014 Edinburgh Festival and diologue on the Scottish independence referendum, here she writes about Rona Munro's triology of James plays.

Georgina Escobar writes about traveling from New York to New Mexico to see Cascarones at Teatro Paraguas, and the affirmation this production brought after she waited to see it staged.

Marcina Zaccaria looks at The Bolshoi Theatre production of Don Quixote performed at the 2014 Lincoln Center Festival.

Jonathan Mandell covers the beginnings and career of playwright A.R. Gurney, as serveral of his plays are presented in New York's 2014-15 season. Mandell includes quotes from Gurney about Broadway, making old scripts work in new ways, and advice for young playwrights.

Teresa Marrero writes about the 2014 International Hispanic Theater Festival in Miami and how/why Latin American theater and American theatre are embedded differently in culture

Talya Kingston writes about plays and events at the 2014 Edinburgh Festival which address the possibility of Scotland's independence from the UK.

Paul Adolphsen covers the 40th anniversary of the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown, South Africa, looking at the works exploring legacy and South Africa's first democratic elections.

Patricia Davis reviews Hub Theatre’s Abominable, by Helen Pafumi, discussing how the play looks at violence and bullying.

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

Dani Snyder-Young writes about Conor McPherson’s new version of August Strindberg’s The Dance of Death, at the Writers Theatre.