Like most critics I'm sure, I think of myself as open-minded; in my more prideful moments, I even call myself a champion of the little-known. But one recent show, Theatre Rhino's A Lady and …
I was in search of a place where I would be surrounded by nurturing and supportive women where together we could create and share our stories free of fear and judgement. When I could not fin…
Ah, but once that inner censor/critic gets going, it can be pretty hard to shut him down. And that's when being a playwright feels the loneliest. Because once that dragon of insecurity (as I…
The Weekly Howl is a peer-produced, open-access discussion about theater culture and contemporary performance that happens in real-time on Twitter using the hashtag #newplay .* Join us Thurs…
The women write, they write ferociously, they write what they're feeling"they're doing their part. And through us, they do get a chance to submit to festivals, they stay on top of what's goi…
The Wild Plan was founded in the summer of 2011 by Eric Powell Holm and myself. From the very beginning, when Eric and I set out to devise our next round of projects, we often conceptualized…
I'm currently less than a week away from one of the biggest opportunities of my career as a young actor. As a recent graduate from one of the top MFA programs in our country, I'm now prepari…
Participation is the core of social media. Individuals share, like, pin, drop hashtags and handles, and otherwise create virtual word-of-mouth. As theaters like New Paradise Laboratories, Ne…
"How many of you have ever used the n-word?" asked Shá Cage at the informal talkback after her show to which a few people raised their hands. "How many of you have never used the n-word?"…
What do Mike Daisey, Tony Kushner, and Sarah Palin have in common? Each has bent history's facts to serve their dramatic needs. For that matter, nearly every playwright"and politician"does. …
In March, HowlRound hosted the first cohort meeting for the Mellon Foundation's playwright residencies . While we had folks in Boston, we decided to ask some of them just how their particula…
The Weekly Howl is a peer-produced, open-access discussion about theater culture and contemporary performance that happens in real-time on Twitter using the hashtag #newplay .* Join us Thurs…
This focus on the business of running institutional theaters, and the attendant administrative impulses towards standardization and optimization, tend to flatten the diversity of structures …
We always remember "where we were" when tragic news is delivered. When the two bombs were detonated at the Boston Marathon on Monday, April 15th, I was at a play. I was at Shakespeare's Love…
This post is the fourteenth column a regular series on Parenting & Playwriting. Find the previous columns here . Here's what my advice column will offer you: a place to ask questions and…
I open with two examples"let's call them "behind-the-scenes snapshots" for dramatic purposes"from the devising frontlines of dog & pony dc, the ensemble company I co-lead. Shortly before…
Here is grand spectacle on a limited budget, a few seconds of gravity-defying joy tempered by the moment of terror experienced as the characters fall. It is everything that is wonderful abou…
One of my strongest motivators for choosing theater was my heartfelt belief that the theater business was one in which your gender, look, sexual preference, ethnicity, religion, and politica…
"A gorgeous, great play. American theater at its most engaging." Could a producer invent a more perfect pull-quote?...Funny thing is, the line...comes from a review of another production. An…
Here's the thing"theater should lead culture, not follow it. If the theater we are making today solely reflects society, then we're failing it. We are not a mirror, we are a lens. We see wha…
South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa, California presents a new addition to the 16th annual Pacific Playwrights Festival : a playwrights' panel delving into the question "Why this play, now?"…
…in the post-performance talkback I attended, an audience member asked actor Jonathan Majors if he would take off his shirt again. This audience member viewed the actor's body, like his ch…
Lauren Gunderson: Do you think about gender parity when writing a new play? Lydia Diamond: I don't really. I take it for granted that I have a sort of built-in consciousness around gender, b…
You're invited to join Suzan-Lori Parks from the lobby of The Public Theater for Watch Me Work which will be livestreaming for the global, peer-produced, open-source HowlRound TV project. Th…
This latest push for parity for female writers (and directors, designers, choreographers, and actors for that matte) began for me in 2001 with Susan Jonas and the NYSCA study . I remember ho…