Producing

Second Hand Dance embarked upon research on support for artists with access needs after artistic director Rosie Heafford had to pull out of a festival that did not provide sufficient accommodations for her invisible disability. She shares takeaways from that research in the form of actionable steps that festivals, showcases, and industry events can implement.

Communications manager Ramona Rose King chats with Abigail Vega on her last day as HowlRound’s creative producer to reflect on her work with HowlRound and the Latinx Theatre Commons, producing using commons-based practices, and advice she’d give to aspiring producers.

Hari Somaskantha and Gitanjali exchange letters discussing their work with Teardrop Collective, a Toronto-based group that centers stories of queer, trans, Deaf, and hearing people of Tamil, Sri Lankan, and South Asian descent.

Artist, facilitator, and cultural innovator Nikki Shaffeeullah kicks off this series by sharing her journey to creating Undercurrent Creations, a Toronto-based arts organization, and Parallel Tracks, a gathering of BIPOC artists that offers training in visioning, producing, and facilitating community arts projects.

Theatre critic Jonathan Mandell discusses virtual playwriting series Bard at the Gate and looks at the impact and future of digital theatre.

The International Presenting Now convening brought a collective of US-based presenters of international work together in physical space in January 2023, following almost three years of virtual conversations and events. Janice Paran details the conversations that arose around the convening’s key question: how might international presenters want to work differently?

For three years, Kristin Patton and Nick Rabkin worked with five case study theatre companies to study the often fraught, high risk, and complex decision-making process of theatrical repertoire selection. The result of their research project, the Moonshot Report, offers insights into their process and practical recommendations for strategic approaches to season planning.

Tatiana Hernandez-Mitchell, a podcast consultant for HowlRound, offers a guide to the technical side of producing podcasts. This guide focuses on equipment, software, and best practices.

Annie G. Levy shares how Emerson Stage works to make their season selection process as open, collaborative, and student-driven as possible.

Ronee Penoi and Shanta Thake discuss their transitions into new leadership roles as Director of Artistic Programming at ArtsEmerson and Chief Artistic Officer of Lincoln Center, respectively—including their work to shift narratives on stage, see institutions as community resources, and keep deep listening at the core of their leadership practices.

Rika Iino and Marc Bamuthi Joseph talk about the way trust and transparency have shown up in their work, both individually and as a duo, and how theatre practitioners and organizations can use those elements to work towards a more equitable future.

Miranda Wright discusses the vitality of supporting new work development in the field and shares learnings from her experiences doing so as the founder of Los Angeles Performance Practice (LAPP) and the Live Arts Exchange (LAX) Festival.

Carlos Diaz Stoop shares the impact of mentorship on his career as an arts administrator, educator, and independent producer and explains how the Creative Independent Producer’s Alliance (CIPA) and the International Creative Producers (ICP) are creating organizational environments that encourage co-learning and collective decision-making.

Independent producers Jennifer Harrison Newman and Marianna Mott Newirth kick off the Creative and Independent Producer Alliance (CIPA) series by reflecting on the creation of CIPA and highlighting the role and importance of creative and independent producers in the theatre field.

Playwright John J King shares his experience with and advice for centering sustainability in theatre productions.