Interviews

Part I of the conversation between Bill Rauch and Nataki Garrett—the outgoing and incoming artistic directors of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival—touches on personal values, gratitude, and how the joy lives in the struggle.

Members of the Detroit-based artist collective Complex Movements discuss the connection between technology, performance, and social justice community organizing.

In the lead-up to HowlRound’s Digital + Performance Convening, Michael Wheeler and Sydney Skybetter chatted, via Slack, about some of the big questions artists are faced with as they contemplate the connection between theatre and technology.

Amelia Parenteau, along with theatremakers Eva Doumbia and Marie Houdin, explores the similarities and differences of parades and protests.

In Part Two of this conversation, Sarah Rasmussen, artistic director at Minneapolis’s Jungle Theater, and Joanie Schultz, former artistic director at Addison’s WaterTower Theatre, talk about their biggest successes over the past couple of years, the difference in a board’s relationship to a founding artistic director and to a new leader, and more.

Cason Murphy speaks with Jill Stevenson of the American Society for Theatre Research about the last-minute cancellation of their 2018 conference due to a strike held by the union workers from the conference’s hotel venue.

In Part I of this conversation, Sarah Rasmussen, artistic director at Minneapolis’s Jungle Theater, and Joanie Schultz, former artistic director at Addison’s WaterTower Theatre, talk about the importance of working with a third party during leadership transitions, trusting your gut in decision-making, and more.

Kinan Valdez and Jacob G. Padrón talk about growing up in a theatre family, leadership in the Latinx community, the skills needed to be the artistic leader of a company, and more.

Naomi Campbell, Luminato’s new artistic director, sits down with Emma Stenning, Soulpepper’s new executive director, about theatre in Toronto, reaching communities outside of the downtown core, cross-collaboration, and more.

Joe Melillo, BAM’s outgoing executive producer, talks to Rob Orchard about his thirty-five-year-long time at the company, continuing his work with emerging artists, and more.

Sarah Bellamy, artistic director of Saint Paul’s Penumbra Theatre, talks to Jamil Jude, incoming artistic director of Kenny Leon’s True Colors Theatre Company in Atlanta, about learning from the founders, the funding disparity between predominantly white institutions and theatres of color, and more.

Susie Medak, managing director of Berkeley Rep Theatre, talks to Rob Orchard about how to best prep staff for a major leadership change, how an outgoing artistic director can work with the incoming one, and more.

Susan Medak, managing director of Berkeley Rep Theatre, speaks with Rob Orchard about a board’s involvement with changing leadership, reevaluating a company’s artistic mission in the lead up to hiring someone new, and more.

Director, dramaturg, and founding AD of Crowded Fire, Rebcca Novick, speaks with Marissa Wolf, the new AD of Portland Center Stage—and former AD of Crowded Fire as well—about knowing when you’re ready for change, leaving communities you’ve helped build, parenting in the arts, and more.

Lauren Smith sits down with Triad Stage’s Preston Lane and PlayMakers Repertory’s Vivienne Benesch to talk about regionalism in theatre.

Heather Jeanne Denyer speaks with Burkina Faso playwright Aristide Tarnagda about the inspiration that comes from where we live, the Récréâtrales Festival in Ouagadougou, women in Burkinabé theatre, and more. / Heather Jeanne Denyer discute avec le dramaturge burkinabé Aristide Tarnagda à propos de l’inspiration qu’on sort de là où on habite, du festival Les Récréâtrales à Ouagadougou, et des femmes dans le théâtre au Burkina Faso.

Kim Whitener, the former executive director of HERE, and theatre producer and consultant Mara Isaacs sit down to talk about moving from institutions to the freelance world (and vice versa), the generosity of other theatre creators, work-life balance, and more.

Howard Shalwitz, co-founder of Woolly Mammoth, talks with Carey Perloff, longtime director of American Conservatory Theater, about their decades-long tenures at their respective companies, covering everything from the throughline of founding manifestos, to the five- to six-year cycles companies go through, to how lonely it is to be an artistic director, and more.

May Antaki speaks with Brendan Healy, the new artistic director of Toronto’s Canadian Stage, about leadership changeovers happening across Canada, how his approach to being an AD has shifted over the years, his desire to cultivate curiosity inside audiences, and more.

Artistic directors Hana Sharif and Kwame Kwei-Armah discuss transitions in leadership in the US and UK and how they've helped define success in their respective institutions.