Tag Archive | theater
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 […]
Scn Std: wk1
I just had my first rehearsal? meet and greet? chat? run-through? stumble upon? of a short piece I’ll be doing with Sara Katzoff and three undergrad actors/actresses. For the past semester and a half I’ve been working on my thesis play which is this dark tragedy. It’s been so long since I’ve started a new […]
Statement of Objective
These three words together scare the shit out of me. I always question if I want to apply to programs that request a statement of objective – I feel locked in, panicked and I want to scream. I worry that I’m going to deliver a statement that sounds very inauthentic to who I am. It’s […]
As a writer
The setting is the first thing I think about – Where? In my plays the set becomes more than a prop, it becomes as much of an organism of force as the living characters on stage. When I begin to develop a play I think about how I can manipulate the set into consciousness. How […]
WTF is a play cycle – Pt. 6 – Night Cap
Returning to my former naive B.A. acting studies questions: They can do that? Of course they can, the mind and hand of a writer has no restrictions. If the writer feels the stories out of Pine City is incomplete and if there is an audience that will watch or read another visit. There will be […]
WTF is a play cycle – Pt. 5
I remember the day well when I first heard the words – play cycle A week before, my B.A. acting professor had given my small troupe a play to analyze – Craig Wright’s Orange Flower Water. It was my first real touch on something contemporary – very exotic and exciting to me. The play examined […]
WTF is a Play Cycle – Pt. 4
The Purpose of Play Cycles/Artist Prophet The Greeks were not only telling tales to reintegrate their citizens but they were developing stories that encapsulated their history, stories that allowed the viewer to examine civilization. In Julie Spark’s Playwrights’ Progress she states that the greek plays were performed as a mode of civic self-examination. Writers get […]
WTF is a play cycle – PT.1
Since I started calling myself a serious playwright (a writer in general) I’ve been invested in exploring what play cycles are. My goal in this weekly exploration is to expose the purpose and need of cycle plays in our modern day; and to answer some of these questions: What are play cycles? Why do playwrights […]
What makes theatre in Boston, ‘Boston theatre’? If anything…
As I find myself at the precipice of preparing for my move to Los Angeles, I am forced to acknowledge the fact that I am also about to leave behind a theatre community that has raised me, and like many familial relationships, I have complicated feelings towards. The individuals that make up Boston’s theatre community are some […]
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. […]
A Contemporary Epic
The Iliad. One of our most ancient stories, known for its epic elements and length. In 45 minutes. Seem impossible? Not quite. This past weekend I had the privilege of seeing Of Blood and Dirt, A new adaption of The Iliad directed by Jeremy Ohringer and devised by the company here at BU. It was […]
Science and the Arts: A Love Story
Where is the intersection of science and the arts? I believe if you asked me this question when I was in 5th grade I would have said “none”. I would have said that you are either a math/science person or an arts/humanity and I am the latter so please leave me alone. (5th grade was […]
Is my meal a play?
My family is really into food. Like… really into food. Last night at the Hise-Hargis-Lindquist household my step-father served crab cakes with an arugula and white bean salad with blistered shishitos and a kimchi remoulade. Nothing particularly unusual when you’re sharing the table with a professional food blogger and a chef. Every night we eat […]
“Submitting Like a Man”
A Howlround writer, Mya Kagen, has created a project where she submits all of her work under a male pseudonym to compare her success rates. She’s just started the project this month, so she’s still unsure of how the new name will be received over time. I find it sad that a woman, or a […]
A Spectrum of Experience: The Amish Project
Resilience. Compassion. Love. Confusion. Hatred. Despair. Empathy. The realities of these words live within us all, often simultaneously. This is the human condition. How can one both fully hate and love? How do we find compassion in the midst of despair? And how do we walk through life with heads held high in the midst […]
Spectacle-Based Drama
Jay Ruby, founder of The Carpetbag Brigade, recently wrote a blog post on HowlRound as the first part of a series were he will address the “basic tenants of spectacle-based drama” through the lens of his theatre company. This first blog of the series lays out the basics: What differentiates spectacle from drama? How do the […]
Vaginas 4 All
Last week I saw Boston University Athena’s Players annual production of The Vagina Monologues. It was clearly a meaningful experience for the cast and crew. All of my friends who were involved said they had a great time. I loved going and supporting them. But I had a little bit of a problem. I’ve actually […]
Disability in Theater
So I have always kind of vaguely been aware of the fact that people with disabilities are hugely underrepresented in the theater. Like, duh. How many productions of have you seen where the lead actor is actually in a wheelchair because he can’t use his legs? If you said zero, we would have said the […]
Taking Risks: The Future of Theatre
Today, as I looked through headlines about whats going on in the theatre world I saw one that caught my attention, “Why theatre should be a risky business”. This immediately caught my attention as I have been learning a lot more about what the world of theatre I will soon be entering is like. What […]
Too Much Theater
When I stumbled across an article about a city having too much theater, my first reaction was probably along the lines of this Which is probably why I stayed on board to read the entire article… and by golly if it didn’t put forward a rational point. While I love theatre and want it to […]
Drama Lit Blog 2.0: BU School of Theatre 