“Like women on Reclaim the Night marches, the mere presence of these girls on stage reminds us that it is not women’s freedom (to be themselves, to dress as they want) that should be curtailed, but rather the prurient way that they are perceived. What’s required is a shift in perception: a piece of hair twirled or teeth biting a lip is not an invitation to something else.”
Category: theatre
This English Theater Told A Woman Her Gender Ruled Her Out For Directing A Play
“There was nothing to misunderstand – those are the words they wrote; they wrote that a male was better.”
Is Push To Change Musical Theatre Form Hurting Creativity?
“Personally, I wouldn’t want to write something thinking about form, it would scare me. I want to tell something in the best way I possibly can. I would feel hamstrung if I was sat there thinking I have got to completely reinvent the form. The best things work because sometimes you do exactly what the audience wants.”
Why Mike Daisey Implicates Democrats In His New Monologue About Trump
“People in the theater are the left. I’m always interested in skewering, examining and implicating the people in the room because they are the ones that showed up for the performance. Once you implicate them, then they actually start thinking about what their position is. I’m doing the monologue and if I’m telling you, ‘You agree with me, don’t you?’ and you say ‘I do,’ and I say ‘I do too, I feel so good about that,’ that’s not useful.”
To Prepare For This Play About Gun Violence, The Cast Went To A Gun Range And Learned To Shoot
“It was important we expose them to other points of view, but also the experience of shooting. So we took everyone to a gun range in South Philly,” said Ginger Dayle, author of the play Roseburg. “We had reserved the range in advance, but the day we showed up happened to be the day after the Orlando shootings. It made us realize just how important it is to talk about this issue.”
How To Keep Your Immersive Theater Piece From Feeling Like A Glorified Theme Party
“[Director/designer Michael Counts] prefers to throw his audience into the action cold, toying with their minds, blurring the line between the actual and the merely apparent. ‘Reality doesn’t give you a lot of information,’ he said. ‘Often you sit in a place of wonder and mystery, and you’re trying to figure it out. And that actually enhances your agency.’ In an escape room, it also enhances your fear factor, which is fine by him. He wants people to feel like the danger is real.”
Theatre Historical Society of America Plans Move From Chicago To Pittsburgh (But Members Are Protesting)
At the society’s annual meeting at the Palmer House last week, that decision topped a list of complaints by members who say the organization has been hijacked by its staff, while dedicated volunteers, historically integral to its operation, have been “thrown under the bus,” as one member put it.
Samurai Spirit: The Exit Interview Of Signature Theater’s Founding Artistic Director
“On his last day as the leader of Signature, [James] Houghton – his voice raspy from recent chemotherapy but still suffused with passion – sat down to reflect on the origins and evolution of his theater. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.”
Actors With Disabilities Say It’s Time To Start Casting Them In Disabled Roles
“Recent conversations around this issue, in film and television as well as in theater, have become more contentious, with comparisons often drawn to traditions of blackface. As the journalist Frances Ryan wrote … last year, ‘Perhaps it is time to think before we next applaud ‘cripping up.’ Disabled people’s lives are more than something for non-disabled actors to play at.'”
What A Missouri Music Store Can Teach Theatres About Community-Building
For theatre to become a “front porch” space that welcomes diverse perspectives, we as theatre professionals must trust our communities to engage with challenging material, and we must trust ourselves to hear and act upon opinions that challenge our ideas.