Tag Archive | American Theatre
Vomit Writing Magic Muse
Being a playwright- finding your muse is very important- having your space, having your music, having your spells, chants, and charms around you as you write is very important. But sometimes it just doesn’t come. My first mentor/friend in playwriting was Stephen Adly Guirgis. Outside of my mother, he was the first person who told […]
The World of ‘Imperceptible Mutabilities in the Third Kingdom’ by Suzan-Lori Parks
The space is open-ended. A confined interior strategically placed on an exterior. Built with imagination from the remnants of reality. The ‘Natural’ is built with the mind. Can easily be torn down and built back up again. […]
Expanding the definition of the American Theatre
Recently, I have been thinking a lot about what is the “American theatre.” While I believe that we all as artists share a common sensation of the theatre world being an intimate community, I have been examining more and more the role of a national community and global thinking to theatre that I think is […]
My Favorite Play
My favorite play is Katori Hall’s The Mountaintop. In it she tells the fictional story of the night before King’s assassination at the Lorraine Motel. The play doesn’t ask to be a history play about the hero King but rather serves to be a portrayal of the human King. The opening scene you hear King peeing […]
To the companies who participated in the Ghostlight Project: I’m afraid you’ve already failed.
In the last few weeks, I, like many other actors who will soon graduate from BFA programs across the country, have had my eyes glued to audition postings on Playbill, Backstage, Broadway World—you name it—in the hopes of finding out which plays will be produced on equity stages across the country during the 2017-18 season. […]
Build Me Up: Architecture in the Theatre
This week has me thinking about architecture (thanks to Jeremy and his insightful post last week). I spent every summer from 2011-2015 working for an architecture, engineering, and interior design firm. In addition to padding my savings account, the job gave me a real appreciation for how much time, energy, coordination, compromise, and thoughtful design goes […]
Statistics Aren’t Impressive.
I supposed I am not easily impressed by numbers. I credit this to my skeptical attitude towards statistics and the ways in which they can be altered so as to be appetizing for an potential audience with potential money. While that skepticism can be useful, I find it increasingly difficult to get excited about progress […]
Sunday in the Park with Adam Chanler-Berat
A disclaimer: Sunday in the Park with George (Stephen Sondheim & James Lapine) is my favorite musical. Ever. To be clear, I don’t think it’s even close to perfect: the book certainly has it’s inconsistencies, and the time gap between Act I and Act II is difficult to reconcile in terms of emotional investment in the leading […]
Theatre Review: “The Debate” brings the heat, but lacks coherence
There was no telling what Monday night’s performance of The Debate would behold; even days later, processing exactly what this piece means for its audience of more than 84 million, I find it hard to reduce to any key phrase or unifying idea. Perhaps that was what resonated the most profoundly: there is no unity, or […]
Gloria’s Cause: An Examination of Present America in Light of the Past
Dayna Hanson‘s piece Gloria’s Cause is first and foremost a collage. It is not entirely dance theater, not exactly a musical, and it is definitely not a straight play. It kind of takes place during the Revolutionary war and it also kind of takes place now. In my first encounter with it on Ontheboards.tv, I did […]
Choose: Joy
I haven’t stopped recommending this play since I saw it on Sunday. I completely loved George C. Wolfe’s The Colored Museum at the Huntington Theatre Company. The production was beautiful, the cast immensely, immensely talented, and the script is just so – SMART. The Huntington in particular has a reputation for producing work by African-American playwrights. Not only are […]
“It feels like it happened…”
Suzan-Lori Parks is awesome. Well, duh. I mean, have you seen her hair? But in all seriousness, if you’re not already familiar with this brilliant, clever, down to earth playwright, you should be. Yesterday, I went with three other women in my Contemporary Drama class at BU to see Father Comes Home from the Wars […]
Currency of Exchange
Over the course of the past four years, my understanding of theatre as a young adult has shifted and morphed countless times, namely, my idea of how I wish to practice theatre. At Boston University, I’ve had the privilege of taking many exciting movement, voice, acting, and other related classes, yet the university form has […]
Coined “Czar” and it’s negative implications in our battle for The Arts
I understand that the term “Czar” for positions specific to tackle certain issues in all levels of government has become a coined term in the U.S….but can we just take a moment to notice that we are actually calling people czars? I guess once you’ve said it enough you forget what it feels like to […]
Ayad Akhtar- Releasing Limitations
A week ago I started rehearsals for a project of a series of 10 minute plays all student directed and I was annoyed at myself that I didn’t know all the playwrights of the 3 plays I was in. We started this semester in Dramaturgy class talking about the importance of getting to know and […]
Ivy League Arts
The Harvard Crimson recently posted about the new “Theater, Dance and Media” major or rather concentration to be offered for its students for fall of 2015. At first, being at BU in its B.F.A. Theatre Arts major, I think it can’t as good as our program because it’s so broad. I am proud of my […]
One Does Not Simply F*** with the Dramatists Guild: Champions for the Little Guys
If you haven’t yet heard about the heated conflict brewing between the Dramatists Guild of America and the South Williamsport Junior Senior High School of Pennsylvania, please, drop whatever you’re doing (including reading this blog post), and read THIS. THE ESSENCE OF THE PROBLEM: A high school cancels a production of Spamalot due to fear […]
50 Years of bringing new work to life
Thank goodness for TCG and their journal, American Theatre. I began my subscription to American Theatre because I realized that I was very focused on what was happening in the Boston Theatre scene, but was not aware of what was happening in my art form in the rest of the country. This was a problem. […]
Role Playing
When I came into the School of Theatre program as a freshman in the fall of 2011, I had a very narrow idea of what theatre was, and in particular, the roles in which a theatre artist could be involved: i.e. director, designer, playwright, technician, actor, etc. By the end of my first year at […]
Drama Lit Blog 2.0: BU School of Theatre 