Content here focuses on theatremakers, companies, and projects engaging with politics and political action. A great example of the power of this work is the video series Political Theatre as a Civil Right from the British-Romanian political theatre company BÉZNĂ Theatre.
This episode dives into the performance art of Lebanese artist Rima Najdi. From Hollywood's portrayal of Arab women to navigating complex personal and political landscapes, this thought-provoking discussion highlights the power of performance art in creating social change.
A Panel from the 2024 National Institute for Directing & Ensemble Creation Professional Peer Exchange
Wednesday 26 June 2024
United States
This panel, moderated by Liz Foster-Shaner, will include stories, examples, and reflections on how the panelists, as artists or as leaders of theatres or collectives/ensembles, have navigated, shifted focus, changed practices, re-prioritized, or evolved leadership in times of crisis—whether responding to natural disasters, state violence, political crisis, pandemic, war, or genocide. What does leadership mean in these times, and what is the way forward as directors and theatremakers now?
Panels and Conversations about the State of American Theatre
Thursday 20 June to Saturday 22 June 2024
Chicago, IL
The TCG National Conference is one of the largest nationwide gatherings of the not-for-profit theatre community. TCG has been gathering folks this way since 1976 and each year, the National Conference creates space for theatre practitioners across the globe to get inspired, learn from one another, and build toward collective action. It’s also been a way for TCG and the field to get intimately familiar with theatre communities around the country, and to channel the particular energy of their artists.
In the final installment of this two-part conversation, artists from the Freedom Theatre in Jenin, Palestine and Al Límite Collective in New York City come together to discuss the performance of Youth Against Invasion in the Cultural Resistance March, the Freedom Theatre’s global impact, and hopes for the future of the Freedom Theatre.
In the first installment of this two-part conversation, artists from The Freedom Theatre in Jenin, Palestine and Al Límite Collective in New York City come together to discuss the work of The Freedom Theatre and its school and the creation of Youth Against Invasion.
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.
Beto O’Byrne discusses the work of three theatre artists in New York whose acts of cultural resistance contribute to the movement for a free Palestine.
Displacement Plays from Uganda, Lebanon, West Africa, Haiti and Ukranian Playwrights Project
Monday 13 May 2024
New York City
Join us for an evening of plays by nine writers who personally experienced displacement, migration, and war. Alongside four thirty-minute pieces, we will hear shorter ten-minute works by five young Ukrainian writers.
Watch the Into Abolitionist Theatre: A Guidebook for Liberatory Theatre-making Book Launch Panel! Organized and moderated by Editor Rivka Eckert, contributors shared their perspectives and insights from the book.
Chantal Bilodeau kicks off another installment of Theatre in the Age of Climate Change by reflecting on her journey working on the Arctic Cycle against the backdrop of the continuously increasing global temperature, and introducing the other playwrights who will be sharing about their commitment to creating a series of work about the climate crisis.
Tímea Éva Bogya, dramaturg and project manager for Independent Theater Hungary and critic for Színház Magazine, and Márton Illés explore questions for theatremakers to ask themselves before portraying Roma communities on stage to ensure authentic representation.
Noémi Herczog, theatre critic and scholar based in Hungary and Romania, explores the question of how critics should be writing about Roma theatre. Should they take the social position of the Roma into account, or write purely about the art itself?
A talk with Dr. Julius Fleming on his latest book, followed by a discussion with Hillary Miller
Monday 11 March 2024
Dr. Julius Fleming visits the Segal Center to discuss his recent book, Black Patience: Performance, Civil Rights, and the Unfinished Project of Emancipation. This talk will be followed by a conversation with Hillary Miller.
verity healey speaks to Matt Woodhead and Helen Monks, co-directors of LUNG, about LUNG’s work making campaign theatre that uses verbatim theatre strategies and associated political work to explore issues impacting the United Kingdom.
How can theatre make an impact in moments of crisis? During a time of ongoing genocide and brutal occupation in Palestine, this special episode focuses on Palestinian theatre and political action across borders. We discuss The Gaza Monologues and To The Good People of Gaza. Then Palestinian actor, writer, and scenographer Jeries AbuJaber joins us in conversation about what is currently happening in the West Bank and Gaza and his experience as a theatre artist in Palestine.
Joseph Dunne-Howrie reflects on DV8’s Can We Talk About This?, exploring how the show employs pinkwashing as a vehicle for Islamophobia and racism. Joseph highlights how, rather than espousing progressive values, the show uses similar tactics of alt-right troll Milo Yiannopoulos.
How can we think of queerness as a form of political intervention? In this episode, we talk with Erdem Avşar about Turkish theatre, queer utopias, and ghosts. We examine queer dramaturgies in Turkish and international theatre, discuss translation into and from Turkish, re-think temporality in playwriting, and question what queer utopias look like onstage.
Dan Kpodoh’s The Struggle dramatizes governmental and corporate exploitation in the oil-rich Niger Delta by telling the story of a group of militants who sought liberation but became corrupted by financial interests. Eseovwe Emakunu, a Nigerian theatre professional, interviews Kpodoh about the play’s function as protest theatre against political oppression.
Hosts Leticia Ridley and Jordan Ealey discuss Woodie King, Jr.’s 1978 documentary, Black Theatre: The Making of a Movement. They explore the documentary’s different themes, its impact on Black theatre history, and what it means for our present and future.
Affinity spaces have been an undercurrent of discussion across the three seasons of Kunafa and Shay. In this live session at the 2023 MENATMA Convening at Golden Thread Productions in San Francisco, in partnership with Mizna+RAWIfest, Marina and Nabra sit down with artists to discuss the nuances of MENA and SWANA affinity spaces and MENATMA, Mizna, and RAWI’s roles in facilitating national cultural affinity among artists of intersectional identities.
Hosts Jordan Ealey and Leticia Ridley discuss the contributions made by Alice Childress and the historical and contemporary significance of her play, Trouble in Mind, including the filmed 2021 production at the National Theatre in London.
Kristin Idaszak reflects on experiencing Theatre Du Polet’s Be Water, My Friend at the Prague Quadrennial. This protest art about Hong Kong’s fight for democracy in 2019, performed in the Czech Republic, crosses cultures, political regimes, and time periods.
Conversations About the Present and Future of Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) Theatre
Saturday 28 October and Sunday 29 October 2023
San Francisco, CA
Does a Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) leader necessarily mean it's easier for MENA work to get produced? How do MENA theatremakers and educators from K-12 to university settings navigate questions of cultural competency, representation, and omission? How can we work together with other networks of color towards shared goals for our communities? MENATMA presented a weekend of intercommunity dialogues, panels, and keynotes to explore the state of MENA theater and artist sustainability moving forward.
Curator and Author Florian Malzacher in Conversation with Art Critic Claire Bishop
Thursday 21 September 2023
New York City
In his book The Art of Assembly. Political Theatre Today curator and author Florian Malzacher surveys theatre today to demonstrate its political potential in both form and content. In a time of wide-ranging crisis, The Art of Assembly is a plea for a strong definition of the political and for a theatre that is not content merely to reflect the world’s ills but instead acts to change them.
This episode will discuss the age old questions of what is Black theatre? What is a Black play? How do you know one when you see it? Leticia Ridley and Jordan Ealey provide an overview of the some of the most popular commentary on this question from Black theatre theorists of the past such as W.E.B Dubois, Alain Locke, and Alice Childress.
