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.
Cherry Lou Sy looks at the one-woman show Mary Speaks written and performed by Angela Polite, about using Mary, the mother of Jesus, as a vehicle to explore black grief.
Kirsten Greenidge reflects on the playwright's relationship to this unruly moment of cultural shift and what happens to one’s work when the world around us is changing so rapidly?
ArtsEmerson in Boston presented the conversation Claudia Rankine: On Whiteness livestreamed on the global, commons-based peer produced HowlRound TV network at howlround.tv Friday 24 March at 3:00 p.m. PDT (Los Angeles) / 6:00 p.m. EDT (New York) / 22:00 GMT-UTC (London) / 23:00 CET (Berlin). On Twitter, follow @ArtsEmerson and #howlround.
Playwright Charles Gershman talks with seven fellow theatre practitioners about the impact of the 2016 presidential election on their work and view of theatre.
Seth Baumrin, artistic director of Subpoetics International, discusses the history, process, and journey of a company working with the stories of refugees and displaced peoples to find their way.
Looking Back on the Revivals of Sinclair Lewis’s Play During the Election of 2016
19 February 2017
Paul Gagliardi, a scholar of the Federal Theatre Project, considers recent productions of It Can’t Happen Here and why the play is resonating with both directors and audiences today.
Tiffany Antone makes a case for why we have to reconsider how/why we engage audiences, and why it is now every artist’s job to be out on the frontlines, cultivating radical empathy and civil discourse.
Jamil Khoury writes about curating a series of six staged readings about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and that power of theatre to speak to controversial issues.
Harvey Young, chair of Northwestern University’s theatre department, looks at how American theatre has responded to a rise in conservativism to forecast not only what may appear on the horizon but also to anticipate a renewed attention to political/activist theatre following the 2016 election.
Interview with Tina Brock, artistic director of IRC, Philadelphia’s only surreal theatre
3 February 2017
Henrik Eger interviews Tina Brock about how her company is responding to the current political climate in the US, and what she feels that absurdist theatre has to offer.
Sara Warner interviews performance artists Holly Hughes and Lois Weaver and social media coordinator Mary Jo Watts about their initiative Not My Presidents’ Day.
On the eve of the inauguration of Donald J. Trump, Jonathan Mandell looks at how the political resistance of theatre artists is playing out on and off stage in New York.
Celebrate with our community! Ashland, Oregon’s 28th annual Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday Celebrationfeatures music, spoken word, and dance livestreamed on the global, commons-based HowlRound TV network at howlround.tv Monday 16 January at 12 p.m. PST–1:30 p.m. PST (Los Angeles) / 2 p.m. CST–3:30 p.m. CST (Chicago) / 3 p.m. EST–4:30 p.m. EST (New York).
Theatre and Posttraumatic Growth After the 2016 Election
4 January 2017
Emily White writes about how her research on posttraumatic growth informs her belief that theatre can be an important tool to help America unite and heal.
