U.S. by State

In response to student demands for greater input in season selection, the Department of Theater and Drama at the University of Michigan has spent the past few years revising their selections process. Professor Christianne Myers details their approach, which centers on a department-wide feedback and a semester-long Student Selection Advisory course.

Gregory Moomjy and Marianna Mott Newirth share their approach to creating disability-affirmative opera productions in which disability artistry flourishes.

Daphnie Sicre discusses the way that Latinidad, Blackness, and queerness intersect in “Marimacha,” comedic coming out story about an AfroPanamanian family on their way to a wedding.

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.

Slovo. Theater Group uses theatre as a tool to fight against cultural oppression by promoting Ukrainian culture abroad. Audrey Rose, the group’s producer, discusses the process of making theatre during active war as a way of resisting oppression and violence.

The LTC announces they are now accepting applications for Colaboratorio, a series of learning opportunities to encourage authentic creative expressions and collaboration between Latinx designers and directors.

Writing from her little family farm in Oregon, E.M. Lewis applies the lessons learned in the garden to her experience as a librettist and playwright.

Writer and translator Livian Yeh examines the complexities of Asian identity within American theatre and gives her take on what it means to be a “third-culture” theatremaker.

Melissa Lin Sturges shares her experience attending Olney Theatre Center’s bilingual production of The Music Man, which was presented in both English and American Sign Language.

Ann James sits down with intimacy choreographer Raja Benz to discuss her experience implementing cultures of consent in rehearsal rooms, cultivating a localized approach to intimacy work, and centering trans perspectives in theatrical processes.

Robert Hubbard discusses the South Dakota Shakespeare Festival production of Othello, which Tara Moses adapted and directed through an Indigenous Futurist lens. The resulting production employed its Shakespearean source text to model solidarity between Tribal Sovereignty and Black Liberation movements.

Ekemini Ekpo applies W.E.B. Dubois’ concept of “double consciousness” to the experience of performing Blackness for a predominantly white audience that may or may not be interested in disturbing the primacy of their own lived experience.

As a part of their permanent closure, San Francisco-based theatre company foolsFURY embarked upon an ambitious oral history project. Emily Weak, the archivist employed for that project, shares the process and insights of an initiative that worked to collect dozens of individual experiences of the company and provide a sense of closure.

Trevor Boffone reflects on the 2022 Latinx Theatre Commons (LTC) Comedy Carnaval that convened at Su Teatro in Denver, Colorado, which was comprised of productions, readings, panels, and special sessions that showcased the depth and range of Latinx comedy in theatre.

Lauren E. Turner, producing artistic director of No Dream Deferred, sits down with Amelia Parenteau to discuss their recent experiences in anti-racist facilitation work through No Dream Deferred’s service, Equity and Justice for Institutional Change.

Gathering Ground Theatre—an Austin, Texas collective comprised of people with lived experiences of homelessness and allies—creates performances that aim to influence public opinion and local legislation. Anna Rogelio Joaquin sits down with Lisa Hoelscher to discuss Lisa’s experience as a co-creator and performer of works that expose issues like hostile architecture and camping bans, as well as the company’s current work on a memorial performance.

Denise Rogers Valenzuela shares the way that learning to perform improvised crowd scenes with large, flat puppets—called naked population puppets or potato people—encourages an embodied practice that resists individualism.