Massachusetts

Dr. Joan Lancourt reflects on collaborating with Boston-based theatre board chairs to discuss eye-opening ideas and shared frustrations.

Circus artists Ember Flynne and Michael "Mooch" Mucciolo discuss their work as professional fire performers in Boston, and shed some light on what it takes to succeed in the business.

Allison Vanouse writes about Sleeping Weazel's 2014 festival of plays, trans cabaret, and solo performance coinciding with Boston Pride Week.

Before college, I found myself in the stories of Shanley and Shepard—but now I was only getting cast in parts such as Mexican pregnant girl, homeless person, or getting included in all non-white casts. I am half Mexican and a quarter Lebanese, but that never mattered before. Growing up, white stories were reflected all around me so much that I thought I was white.

Srila Nayak reviews the American Repertory Theater’s production of William Shakespeare’s The Tempest, and highlights how the production uses music, color-consious-casting, spectacle, and stage-magic.

Allison Vanouse reviews a performance by Jeffrey Gibson and Patty Chang at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts, and responds to other critics of the piece.

Deborah Stein and Suli Holum share their inspirations behind creating The Wholehearted.

The Wheelock Family Theatre, Boston was started by four people: Andrea Genser, Susan Kosoff, Jane Staab, and Tony Hancock. The mission of the theatre was to make a professional theater that would be accessible to everyone, with a multicultural cast, with black, yellow, white, green people. When you start defining people by color, just pull in green and blue and orange, like the Muppets. We just want to widen our embrace. The priority was to be affordable, but from the start, we would always have a show that was interpreted. That was in 1981, and we worked with a lot of people to make that happen. Audio description started around 1990 at Imagination Stage, and Wheelock Family Theatre was drawn to it, as we wanted to cast a wider net, and include blind people.

We did "Pippi", and we had American Sign Language interpretation every weekend. This is because Wendy Lement, the producer at Wheelock, directed the play herself, and wanted the interpreters to be integrated with the cast. They were signing performers, rather than interpreters. They were each assigned a character in the cast, had their own blocking, and dressed to blend in onstage. "Pippi" was unusual in that the interpreters/sign performers rehearsed with the cast from day one until the opening night. They started from scratch, not knowing who the characters are, and worked alongside the cast to develop them. (This interview was conducted in ASL, and was translated and edited by Ariel Baker-Gibbs.)

In this installment of the Disability in Theatre series, Kevin Becerra interviews Adina Tal, Founder and Artisitc Director of  Nalaga’at Center in Tel Aviv, on her production of Not by Bread Alone. 

HowlRound is working with playwright residency sites around the country to track the impact of what it means to have a playwright on staff. At each of the fourteen theaters we have a Commons Producer—a theater practitioner from the local community working with the theater and the playwright to tell the story of each residency and make the learning from this experiment accessible as it's happening. Periodically we will post these residency updates on HowlRound in the hopes that it will be useful to field-wide learning on the question of what it means to employ playwrights inside of theaters.

Allison Vanouse continues her look at productions from university students in Boston. In this post she reviews Steven Berkoff's adaptation of Kafka's Metamorphosis, directed by Elaine Vaan Hogue

I have been making apple scones / For a friend who died / Doug, my neighbor, whose last name / I don’t know

Allison Vanouse looks at student theatre — which is infrequently reviewed — choosing to critique Conspiracy (an adaptation of the 2001 HBO film), from the Harvard Radcliffe Dramatic Club.

Allison Vanouse reviews the 2013 Actor's Shakespeare Project production of Romeo and Juliet, directed by Allyn Burrows and Bobbie Steinbach at the Strand Theatre in Dorchester.