Political Theatre

Keith Josef Adkins shares excerpts from Hands Up: 6 Playwrights, 6 Testaments, ten-minute monologues commissioned in response to the recent events in Ferguson and Staten Island.

Keith Josef Adkins shares excerpts from Hands Up: 6 Playwrights, 6 Testaments, ten-minute monologues commissioned in response to the recent events in Ferguson and Staten Island.

Director Lisa DiFranza employs Living Newspapers—an 80-year-old theatrical form that combines theatre and journalism—to share compelling narratives about twenty-first century homelessness in Chicago. 

Based on interviews with local teachers and students about the current educational climate, Forgotten Futures creates space for discussion of the dysfunction plaguing Chicago Public Schools.

At this historic moment in which it is still quite dangerous to be a black man in the United States, Native Son offers an important provocation. For all the world has changed since 1939, the production asks us to take a good hard look at what has not.

In addition to new works by Belarusian playwrights, writers as far-flung as Europe and the United States, Australia and New Zealand, ended up making excellent contributions. The Belarusian Dream Theater project linked playwrights with more than a dozen independent presenting groups in Europe and North America, who donated their time and talents to assemble the collaborators necessary to present as many of the twenty-five new plays as each group wanted.

Professor Jorge Huerta gives a short overview about the precedents that led to the historic and revolutionizing event, focusing on the growth of Chicano/a theatre festivals since 1970. 

Bertie Ferdman interviews Anne Hamburger about Basetrack Live, a multimedia theatre production inspired by Basetrack: One-Eight, a web project created in 2010 by photojournalists embedded with US Marines fighting in southern Afghanistan.

MJ Kaufman shares insight on the necessity of trans voices being developed and acknowledged in diverse, multi-faceted, and complex narratives. 

When we teach, how do we discuss something truly important? Specifically, how could I talk about the murder of an unarmed black man the same age as my students? What is taught in the not teaching? What is not covered in a course? When we omit difficult conversations or troubling current events, what does that teach students about what is important, worthy of attention, urgent?

While I was reaping the benefits of working internationally, my Belarusian friends were living as a theater company in exile. What could I do to help make a difference? What tools could I use, as a theater artist, to break down this silence, censorship, and oppressive regime?

Derek Goldman offers an overview of the production of Syria: The Trojan Women.

This week's Twitter conversation topic is "Ferguson and What Can Artists Effectively Do In the Context of Social Justice Issues, Crises, & Conflicts?" and will be co-moderated/prompted in open collaboration with anyone participating by Claudia Alick @claudiaalick and Danny Bryck @DannyBryck. This hour-long Howl will take place on Thursday, September 18 on hashtag #newplay at 11am PDT (Vancouver) / 1pm CDT (Ferguson) / 2pm EDT (New York) / 18:00 GMT / 7pm BST (London).

Talya Kingston continues her look at the 2014 Edinburgh Festival and diologue on the Scottish independence referendum, here she writes about Rona Munro's triology of James plays.

Todd London on playwright Kia Cothron on winning the Donald Windham-Sandy M. Campbell Literature Prize from Yale University.

I’ll always be fighting for my voice to be heard. That’s why we need more eyewitness accounts. People saying I was there. I saw everything. I know the truth. And that’ll be me. Telling the truth.

On Sunday, August 24th at the Regional Arts Commission in St. Louis, St. Louis-based theater artists Jacqueline Thompson and Don McClendon participated in the #FergusonMoment gathering and workshop with forty-five local artists and five visiting artists. In the workshop, Don's story of a recent moment of racial profiling was the basis of a short play that the group created and investigated. On Tuesday, September 2nd, Jacqueline interviewed Don about his experience in the gathering.

Researching the war and the following years, the ripple effects of World War I impacted not just international politics, but everything from race relations to art, music and literature. The Bonus Army is one of these ripples.

Talya Kingston writes about plays and events at the 2014 Edinburgh Festival which address the possibility of Scotland's independence from the UK.

Paul Adolphsen covers the 40th anniversary of the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown, South Africa, looking at the works exploring legacy and South Africa's first democratic elections.