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Interviews

This section collects all HowlRound content that takes the form of an interview between two or more theatremakers. Interested in contributing your own interview? Here are our interview guidelines and best practices!

The Latest

Home and Exile in Queer MENA Theatremaking
Podcast
Home and Exile in Queer MENA Theatremaking
by Nabra Nelson, Marina Johnson, Zeyn Joukhadar, Raphael Amahl Khouri
6 December 2023
How Pay As You Are Changed Theater Mu
Essay
How Pay As You Are Changed Theater Mu
by Lianna McLernon, Wesley Mouri, Anh Thu Pham
27 November 2023
Queering Film
Podcast
Queering Film
by Marina Johnson, Nabra Nelson, Mike Mosallam, Amin El Gamal
22 November 2023
Kunafa & Shay teaser image with guest headshots.
Home and Exile in Queer MENA Theatremaking
Podcast

Home and Exile in Queer MENA Theatremaking

6 December 2023

MENA cultures are deeply familial with a strong connection to home, defined geographically and through close family bonds. With fraught political and religious opinions about queerness throughout the region, making queer art can threaten those deep connections. How do queer MENA artists consider those complications when making theatre? How do individuals change culture in the face of possible exile? Multi-hyphenate artists Zeyn Joukhadar and Raphaël Aimé Khouri interrogate these questions.

A group of actors perform a fight onstage.
How Pay As You Are Changed Theater Mu
Essay

How Pay As You Are Changed Theater Mu

27 November 2023

Theater Mu managing director Anh Thu T. Pham and development director Wesley Mouri discuss the ideology behind the theater’s Pay As You Are program, how it works, and what impact it’s having on the theatre six years after its implementation.

A promotional graphic for the Kunafa and Shay podcast
Queering Film
Podcast

Queering Film

22 November 2023

Film reaches a larger public than theatre due to the way it is produced and disseminated. In this way, it has a large and lasting cultural impact. In this episode with Mike Mossalem and Amin El Gamal, we discuss the ways the film and theatre fields influence each other as they both contribute to culture change and performance methodologies.

Three students stand with two chairs in the middle of a circle of audience members outside.
Setting the Stage for Empowerment with Theatre of the Oppressed
Essay

Setting the Stage for Empowerment with Theatre of the Oppressed

9 November 2023

Applied theatre scholars and practitioners Jennifer Schaupp and Dr. Felicia Owusu-Ansah discuss the empowering potential of Theatre of the Oppressed, and how Felicia has been able to utilize it in Ghana and other places around the world.

A promotional graphic for the Kunafa and Shay Podcast
Art, Activism, and Connecting to the Past
Podcast

Art, Activism, and Connecting to the Past

8 November 2023

Activism and storytelling often go hand in hand. What does it mean for queer art and activism to take center stage? How can we look to the future while honoring the places and people from where we all came? In this episode, Sivan Battat talks about their ancestral storytelling workshops within queer and Middle Eastern communities and how they see the relationship between art and activism.

Porsche McGovern sits at a tech table taking notes.
More Cultivation, Less Crane Machine: Who Gets to Design in LORT Theatres
Essay

More Cultivation, Less Crane Machine: Who Gets to Design in LORT Theatres

6 November 2023

Designers Porsche McGovern and Sherrice Mojgani discuss the impact of Porsche’s multi-year study looking at designers and directors in LORT theatres by pronouns, and how theatre leaders can better support and learn from the freelance artists they hire.

Kunafa and Shay Teaser Image with guest headshot.
Art as Politics
Podcast

Art as Politics

25 October 2023

Is art inherently political? Must artists consider sociopolitics in the development of their work? Hamed Sinno’s art has been constantly and publicly politicized. In this episode, we hear about Sinno’s own artistic process and how they approach their art in light of this politicization and their perspective on the role of art in politics in the MENA region and beyond.

Kunafa and Shay Teaser Image with guest headshot.
Breaking Out of Queer Boxes
Podcast

Breaking Out of Queer Boxes

11 October 2023

Queer SWANA theatremakers are constantly breaking out of boxes. Even within queer and/or SWANA spheres, some artists are pushing boundaries and redefining broad identity categories. Join two such artists, Bazeed and Pooya Mohseni, in a discussion on the present and future of SWANA theatremaking.

Kunafa and Shay Teaser Image with guest headshot.
Queer Representation in the United States
Podcast

Queer Representation in the United States

27 September 2023

In this episode, playwright and dramaturg Adam Ashraf Elsayigh joins co-hosts Nabra Nelson and Marina Johnson to unpack what it means to put queer SWANA characters on stage and discuss the future of representation in the United States.

Three separate headshots for three artists, stitched together.
Kinship, Solidarity, and Working Towards Everyone’s Survival
Essay

Kinship, Solidarity, and Working Towards Everyone’s Survival

14 September 2023

As part of the Black and Indigenous Futures series, this conversation convenes Samora Pinderhughes, Storme Webber, and Mary Amanda McNeil to consider the ways that kinship and solidarity across broader collectives can coexist and mutually enrich one another through intentional practice.

Gender Euphoria teaser image featuring guest profile image.
The Queer-Trans Performance Family Tree is more of a Galaxy
Podcast

The Queer-Trans Performance Family Tree is more of a Galaxy

With Guest H. May

13 September 2023

Dr. H. May joins host Nicolas Shannon Savard, who introduces the Queer-Trans Performance Family Tree Project, an interactive, open-access digital exhibit visually connecting trans artists across the United States to the collectives and communities who have sustained our work. This episode explores the role of mentorship in both the research for the project and in their own work as gender nonconforming theatremakers.

Gender Euphoria teaser image featuring guest profile images.
Queer Archival Praxis Roundtable
Podcast

Queer Archival Praxis Roundtable

With Guests David Silvernail, Janet Werther, Victoria Lafave, Jordan Ealey, and Kelli Crump

6 September 2023

What role does white supremacy play in the creation of the queer theatre canon? What power and what responsibility do we—as queer theatremakers, historians, and educators—have to challenge canons and archives that define “queer” almost exclusively as white and cisgender? Artist-scholars Janet Werther, Victoria LaFave, Jordan Ealey, David Silvernail, and Kelli Crump join host Nicolas Shannon Savard to tackle these questions and to queer the archive.

A man stands on stage in the middle of a spotlight, with a projection behind him of him as a child.
Composting Queer Trauma through a Collaborative Process in SEAL
Essay

Composting Queer Trauma through a Collaborative Process in SEAL

24 August 2023

As writer-performer Dante Fuoco and director Clara Wiest came together to rework Dante’s autobiographical solo show SEAL, they developed a process that centered intentional care and trauma-informed practices. In this interview with Rachel Pottern Nunn, Clara and Dante reflect upon the production, discuss the relationship between writer/performer and director, and share insights from their generative process.

A tall Black man performs passionately while surrounded by audience members.
Shakespeare Against the Canon in Our Verse in Time to Come
Essay

Shakespeare Against the Canon in Our Verse in Time to Come

22 August 2023

Karen Ann Daniels, Malik Work, and John “Ray” Proctor sit down with Melissa Lin Sturges to discuss their work on Our Verse in Time to Come, a Folger Theatre production that used Shakespeare as a jumping off point to become a testament to “the other bards”—the ones still living and the ones still to come.

A man stands in an empty rehearsal space while a women sits across from him with a laptop.
On Collaborative Evolution with Friendship at its Core
Essay

On Collaborative Evolution with Friendship at its Core

21 August 2023

After three decades of working together as playwright and director, collaborators and friends Carlyle Brown and Noel Raymond are trying something new: co-creating a theatrical work and performing in it. They sit down to discuss the project’s genesis in their friendship and the research, questions, and experiences that are shaping their generative process.

Gender Euphoria teaser image featuring guest profile images.
Making Space for Queer Futurity in Texas
Podcast

Making Space for Queer Futurity in Texas

16 August 2023

Austin’s pop princess, p1nkstar, shares the story of her evolution from performance artist creating a pop star persona for Instagram to real life pop star to community leader creating spaces for fellow trans artists to showcase their work in Texas. This episode also features guest co-host Melissa Lin Sturges, coordinator of the annual Doric Wilson Panel for the Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE) LGBTQ+ Focus Group.

A man and a woman hold hands and look into each other's eyes on stage.
For Working Actors Teaching Their Craft in College, Those Who Can Do, Teach
Essay

For Working Actors Teaching Their Craft in College, Those Who Can Do, Teach

14 August 2023

What does it mean to teach acting at the college level? Gregory Jones and Adrianne Krstansky discuss the changing environment of university acting training, from students’ desires for purposeful and justice-oriented education to university expectations of market-driven “deliverables” from classes in the arts.

Gender Euphoria teaser image with guest headshot.
Making Space for Self-Authorship through Audio Description
Podcast

Making Space for Self-Authorship through Audio Description

With Guests H. May and Liz Thomson

26 July 2023

Host Nicolas Shannon Savard, Dr. H. May, and Dr. Liz Thomson discuss the creative and collaborative possibilities that emerge when audio description (AD) is made an integral part of the artistic process, as opposed to solely an accommodation for individual audience members. They critique traditional models of AD that demand objectivity and propose alternative approaches that embrace self-determination, specificity of lived experience, and universal design.

Gender Euphoria teaser image featuring guest profile image.
Making Space: Consent, Collaboration, and Queer Access Intimacy
Podcast

Making Space: Consent, Collaboration, and Queer Access Intimacy

With Guests J.C. Pankratz and Emmett Podgorski

12 July 2023

J.C. Pankratz returns to the podcast to reflect on the first full production of their play Seahorse, directed by Nicolas Shannon Savard, starring Emmett Podgorski. Nicolas, J.C., and Emmett discuss how the collaborative process, from auditions through closing night, was informed by queer community building, access intimacy, and consent-based practice. They offer behind-the-scenes perspectives and concrete examples of how tools and ideas discussed in previous episodes played out in practice.

A woman seated in a wheelchair speaks passionately to a man squatting in front of her.
Playwright Caregivers
Essay

Playwright Caregivers

6 July 2023

Playwrights Carlyle Brown, Elaine Romero, and Catherine Filloux come together to discuss their experiences as working theatre artists who also act as caregivers to their spouses.

Gender Euphoria teaser image featuring guest profile images.
Queer-Trans Intimacy: One Foot in the Academy and the Other in the Nightclub
Podcast

Queer-Trans Intimacy: One Foot in the Academy and the Other in the Nightclub

With Guests Raja Benz and Joy Brooke Fairfield

5 July 2023

Nicolas Shannon asks Joy Brooke Fairfield and Raja Benz how their intimacy work is informed by queer theory and critical theory. Their conversation bounces between queer of color theory, decolonial theory, disability theory, and the dim glow of the night club; between past, present, and future; between the ideas they’re sure of and the ones they’re working out in real time. Bonus! It comes with dozens of recommended readings.

Gender Euphoria teaser image featuring guest profile image.
Queer Intimacies in Too-Near Dystopian Futures
Podcast

Queer Intimacies in Too-Near Dystopian Futures

With Guest Leanna Keyes

28 June 2023

Host Nicolas Shannon Savard and playwright Leanna Keyes discuss her play Doctor Voynich and Her Children. What does it mean to stage trans stories about queer motherhood, abortion, intimacy, choice, and power in the wake of the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade and the ongoing legislative attacks on reproductive rights and the trans community?

Gender Euphoria teaser image.
Queer-Trans Intimacy Work: Cracking Gender Open
Podcast

Queer-Trans Intimacy Work: Cracking Gender Open

With Guests Dr. Joy Brooke Fairfield and Raja Benz

21 June 2023

In the first part of a two-part conversation on queer-trans intimacy direction and choreography, Nicolas talks with Theatrical Intimacy Education faculty members Dr. Joy Brooke Fairfield and Raja Benz about their courses Working with Trans & Non-Binary Artists and Staging Intimacy Beyond the Binary. They discuss crafting courses that are less Trans-101 and more cracking gender open, resisting patriarchal and colonialist scripts, and bringing queer culture into the rehearsal room.

A woman giving a speech at a podium on the left and a man speaking into a microphone on the right.
Projections and Reflections on Chicano Theatre
Essay

Projections and Reflections on Chicano Theatre

15 June 2023

Tony Garcia and Claudia de Vasco share their experiences becoming immersed in the Chicano movement, which has informed both of their careers in artistic leadership.

Gender Euphoria teaser image.
Queer Intimacies, Trans Futures, Grief, and Radical Hope in Seahorse
Podcast

Queer Intimacies, Trans Futures, Grief, and Radical Hope in Seahorse

With Guest J.C. Pankratz

14 June 2023

Host Nicolas Shannon Savard interviews playwright J.C. Pankratz about their play Seahorse, a poetic, stream-of-consciousness one-person show about a trans man’s attempts at artificial insemination following his husband’s unexpected death. The conversation will dive into the play’s approach to the “messiness” of imagining futures you can’t yet see and its use of magical realism to invite audiences to sit inside that mess as witnesses and confidants.