Ilana M. Brownstein talks with Dawn Simmons, Summer L. Williams, and Kirsten Greenidge about collaborating on new plays, creating healthy communities, vulnerability, and more.
Playwright/critic Ava Wong Davies talks to critic Maddy Costa and plawright Alice Birch about who reviews are for, responses to criticism, self-censorship, and more.
Caroline Reck, artistic director of Glass Half Full Theatre in Austin, Texas, talks about how her company uses clown and object theatre to engage people in the battle against climate change.
Playwright and professor Theresa May talks about creating a show about the planet, Sky Woman, and the Youth Climate Movement, and how collaborating with students enhanced the development process.
Zoë Svendsen discusses working with fellow theatremakers to build and present imagined realities of London and Oslo in post-capitalist and post-fossil-fuel cultures.
Celebrating the Artistic Journeys of Two Latino Playwrights
18 September 2019
Luis Alfaro and Herbert Sigüenza talk about their experience in the National Playwright Residency Program, learning about the inner workings of theatre companies, portraying Latinx people in a positive light, the importance of comedy, and more.
Michael J. Bobbitt and Raymond O. Caldwell in Conversation, Part II
16 September 2019
Part II of the conversation between Michael J. Bobbitt, the recently appointed artistic director of Boston’s New Repertory Theatre, and Raymond Caldwell, the new leader of Washington’s Theater Alliance, who talk about post-show conversations and self-care.
Melisa Pereyra talks about how suffering goes hand in hand with being a woman of color actor, how trauma is held in the body, and how audiences react when stories lack grief.
Playwrights Kirsten Greenidge and Peter Nachtrieb talk about what it means to be an artist in residence, how theatres constantly work on their mission, connecting with the community, and more.
An Interview with the Founders of Wry Crips Disabled Women’s Theatre Group
21 August 2019
Michaela Goldhaber, current artistic director of Wry Crips, talks to the founding and early members of the disabled women’s theatre group about their history.
Ben Barson and Gizelxanath Rodriguez, part of the Afro Yaqui Music Collective, talk about artivism—what it means, what it can look like—in relation to building a jazz opera with various communities around the world.
Playwright Peter Nachtrieb and artistic director of San Francisco’s Z Space, Lisa Steindler, talk about the National Playwright Residency Program, getting out of your comfort zone, making a living as a writer, and more.
Cultivating Meaningful Trans Inclusion in Theatrical Spaces
28 July 2019
John Meredith and M Sloth Levine, of StageSource’s Gender Explosion Initiative, discuss ways theatremakers can dismantle stigmas against trans people and continue creating an inclusive theatre scene.
Professor Christin Essin talks about problematic staging of gendered violence at a production she recently brought her students to and the importance of content warnings and taking care of survivors in theatrical works.
Sharanya shares her thoughts on restaging gendered violence, including how the representation of sexual violence has the power to be scripted and also to script, the importance of de-spectacling violence, and more.
Charlene V. Smith talks about asking hard questions around the interpretation of early modern English classics, Brave Spirits Theatre’s production of The Changeling, and five tips for dealing with sexual assault in art responsibly.
Holly L. Derr looks at the history of the Method, where it deviates from Stanislavsky’s System, and the connection between the Method and the behavior called out by #MeToo.
Kate Bergstrom investigates the open text, looking at how theatremakers approach the form, the balance between respect for the script and unique interpretation, and more.
