Category: theatre

Basically, the problem is money. “The Houston theater scene knew and respected the couple, and critics generally adored the work they did. But a few years in, and after receiving grants to form the company, Lehl and Tobin-Lehl realized that there was no system in place for 4th Wall to grow. Billing themselves as champions of artists, their plea for more support – enough to pay a small, full-time administrative staff – fell on silent ears.”

It means the same thing it did before, only more so: “With a cast far more racially mixed than the European-descended men who penned the Constitution, the play’s power is that promises of equality made in the 1700s should never be forsaken. The American dream, the play suggests, belongs to all, not to the resentful and narrow vernaculars reverberating through red and blue state battles.”

You’d think that some folks in the suburbs near Chicago had, somehow, never met a lesbian couple: “More than 2,000 people have seen the outdoor show, which closes Sunday, since previews began July 12. Rice received about two dozen phone calls, letters and emails complaining mostly about the relationship between courtier Touchstone (a role typically played by a man) and shepherdess Audrey (a role typically played by a woman).”

The Pulitzer-winning playwright (Between Riverside and Crazy, The MF with the Hat, The Last Days of Judas Iscariot) began his career as an actor, and old colleagues still want to work with him. But until this summer, he hadn’t been onstage since 2004, and in the meantime he’d let stress affect his health in other ways and backed out of several acting jobs he’d already accepted. As the time approached for the revival of Mamet’s American Buffalo he’s now co-starring in, his body brought things to a crisis.

A reporter visits Summer Shakespeare, Adler’s five-week intensive program for teens living at or below the poverty level. Says director Kern McDonald, “The concept of the Stella Adler Studio – that being a better actor is equal to being a better human – is the base of this program.”

The Rolling World Premiere project, operated by the National New Play Network, “helps underwrite new plays to make sure they get at least three separate productions in three totally separate markets, all within 12 months – and all billed as world premieres as the play ‘rolls’ cross-country to various theaters, casts, and settings.”

The truth is, everybody is an outsider. Everybody. So, we mustn’t fear presenting that in a work of art so that people have different ways of seeing their outsiderness reflected. This is what I say to young people: “It is not a waste of your life to be a writer, or to work in the arts.” I think the more we see ourselves represented, the more that opens up possibilities for younger people.

Alexis Soloski, Ben Brantley, and Jesse Green survey the scene – and the damage. As Brantley puts it, “I don’t experience catharsis unless I’m startled into feeling more deeply than I do just reading the headlines on my phone.”