Criticism

Aley O’Mara reflects on Daniel Winder’s Hamlet and speaks to the lead—trans actor Jenet Le Lacheur—about the titular character in this production being nonbinary and transfeminine.

Juan Recondo looks at Luis Alfaro’s reimaging of Euripides’s Medea, in which the title character is a Mexican undocumented immigrant who arrived in New York after facing the horrors of the border.

Tara Brooke Watkins discusses how Oklahoma! has shaped the state’s cultural identity, the Tulsa Race Massacre, and Spinning Plates’s production of the musical with an all-black cast.

verity healey does a deep-dive into the Our Stage – 4th European Bürgerbühne Festival, which took place in Dresden, Germany, in May 2019.

Kitty Drexel and Regina Victor, both artists and critics, talk about working through biases, accountability, transparency, and more.

Shari Caplan discusses the Huntington Theatre’s production of Yerma.

verity healey examines the concept of theatrical space as it applies to two shows that were presented at Germany’s Our Stage festival in May: Invited and A Doll’s House.

Danielle Rosvally looks at the importance of theatre criticism, explores the idea that everyone’s a critic, and talks about the parking lot rule.

Catherine M. Young discusses the recent Broadway production of Oklahoma!, which she believes, despite inclusive casting and adventurous aesthetics, asks audiences to pay more attention to white men than anyone else.

Emily Garside discusses Y Brain/Kargalar, in which the playwright, Turkish refugee Meltem Arikan, who settled in Wales, explores her conflicting identities.

verity healey looks at Teatr.doc’s latest show, Torture, and the vital need for “truth-telling” theatre.

Alix Rosenfeld talks about the difference between inclusion and belonging when it comes to working with the disability community, using the Philadelphia-based FringeArts production of A Fierce Kind of Love as an example.

Sean Anthony Chia discusses Kristiana Rae Colón’s good friday, placing it within what he calls “theatre of the unashamed.”

Camille Cuzzupoli examines the themes present in Manual Cinema’s production The End of TV.

Jamie Potter from Middle Child Theatre discusses how their New Critics' Programme is helping grow and diversify theatre criticism in the UK. 

Arman Heljic uses the play Roma Armee to discuss how European Roma are rejecting their colonial legacy and reclaiming their narrative.

Alex Ates examines the recent production of Christina Ham’s Four Little Girls at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival.

Carlos Morton discusses Luis Valdez’s latest play, Valley of the Heart, what the Mexican philosopher José Vasconcelos calls la raza cosmica, and being part of a mixed-race family himself.

Trevor Boffone examines Isaac Gómez’s new play La Ruta, which focuses on the feminicides in Mexico, and talks about the growing canon of Latinx theatre that dramatizes and theorizes on gendered violence.

Maximilian Kempf discusses climate change theatre through the lens of the Anthropoligists’ show This Sinking Island.

William Hand reflects on Germany’s Politik im Freien Theater Festival and discusses several shows that were presented there in November 2018.

Jen Gushue explores the emergence of filk theatre, a niche genre that uses a folk-concert frame as a basis for storytelling.

Jenifer Schmidt examines Heidi Schreck’s new solo play that speaks to women’s political, cultural, and social history in the United States.

Emily White takes a deeper look at the parallels between artist Artemisia Gentileschi’s sexual assault trial from the 1600s and the trial testimonies of today, all of which is explored in the show Artemisia’s Intent.