Massachusetts

In September 2024, HowlRound and Company One convened leaders from the theatres in the Mellon Foundation’s Future of American Theatre Cohort. Dramaturg and Company One new work manager afrikah selah reflects on the experience and shares some of the group’s discoveries.

In 2023, StageSource shut down, which was a great loss to the Boston theatre community. Kitty Drexel highlights the various resources that have popped up in its wake to fill the gap.

In Plexus Polaire’s Moby Dick, the line between the performers and the puppets they control sometimes blurs. Lucy Haskell explores the way that the shifting animacy of humans and objects on stage disrupts the audience’s expectations of where life resides.

Food Tank’s Little Peasants bridged theatre and advocacy by staging an interactive play set during a union vote at a fictional international coffee chain. Elena Morris discusses the play’s development process and its place in the theatre-based food systems advocacy strategies employed by the nonprofit Food Tank.

In this dispatch from the third day of the Latinx Theatre Commons (LTC) Tenth Anniversary Convening, Olga Sanchez Saltveit reflects on conversations about the LTC’s future, as well as the art, community, and celebration threaded through the convening’s closing ceremonies.

Georgina Leanse H. Escobar writes and draws a reflection on the second day of the Latinx Theatre Commons Tenth Anniversary Convening, which brought Latinx theatremakers together through poetry, conversation, and hope founded in community.

Iraisa Ann Reilly recounts the introductions, histories, and memories shared throughout the first day of the Latinx Theatre Commons Tenth Anniversary Convening. 

David Howse and Ronee Penoi, co-leaders of ArtsEmerson, introduce the Black and Indigenous Futures Series with an essay that discusses their commitment to a shared leadership approach that foregrounds solidarity between Black and Indigenous communities.

JD Stokely and Javiera Benavente discuss the ways the navigate they complexities of commoning while embracing listening, unlearning, and care in their creative practices and educational paths.

In their introduction to the Arts, Culture, and Commoning series, curators Jamie Gahlon and Matthew Glassman apply the concept of the commons to theatremaking as a practice and illuminate the potent intersection of these ideas.

Robert Barry Fleming, executive artistic director of Actors Theatre, and Courtney Sale, artistic director of Merrimack Repertory Theatre, converse about structural racism and systems of oppression, what can be learned from theatre for young audiences, the possibilities in a post-COVID world, and more.

David Dower and Martin Faucher discuss leaving their leadership positions at Boston’s ArtsEmerson and Montreal’s Festival TransAmériques, respectively; the balance between artistic responsibility and activist responsibility as artistic leaders; passing the torch to the next generation; and more. / David Dower, directeur artistique du ArtsEmerson de Boston, et Martin Faucher, codirecteur général et directeur artistique du Festival TransAmériques de Montréal, discutent de leur départ respectif, de l’équilibre entre la responsabilité artistique et la responsabilité militante en tant que directeur artistique, du passage du flambeau à la prochaine génération, et plus.