124 stories by "Isaac Butler"
It turns out that, even with all sorts of moves taken to deflect such a possibility, David Adjmi is now forbidden from allowing subsequent productions of or publishing his play "3C" due to a…
Frequent commenter Jack Worthing has left a humdinger over on a post last week about Stagegrade. Responding to the idea floated by a friend fo mine that, by aggregating reviews, Stagegrade h…
As longtime readers of this blog know, over three and a half years ago, 99Seats (then writing at his old blog) floated the notion that someone should make a metacritic for New York theater r…
George beat me to the punch by writing about the latest gambit for a heretofore unknown to me company called Strut & Fret and in particular a producer named David Watson who sent around an e…
A recent New York Times video conversation between film critic A.O. Scott and the garrolous David Carr has sparked a lot of conversation on the internets about the value and necessity of (es…
In the wake of the last Broadway season, New York Magainze's Vulture is doing a big ole roundtable on the future of the musical and what can be done to save it that includes two pieces by...
It's good of the Guthrie to add more women and people of color into their season in the wake of the earlier outcry. That was the right thing to do. Details on the new announcement here. Hope…
Over at the Hooded Utilitarian, a theatermaker in Florida talks about his experience making the (totally illegal and beloved) "Anne Frank Superstar." You can find his discussion of that show…
By Isaac Butler Beautiful, passionate, compelling:
Perhaps you've heard of this whole Naomi Schaefer Riley kerfuffle, perhaps you haven't, but basically what happened was this: In a blog run by the Chronicle of Higher Education (the closest …
One of my favorite finds over the couple of years I've been doing Stagegrade has been the work of critic David Barbour at Lighting & Sound America. He's been in the game a long time, long en…
By Isaac Butler "As for Dowling, he's working with Louise Erdrich to adapt some of her novels for the stage. He says that he expects the Guthrie to be able to stage more women's work if…
Congratulations are due to the Guthrie for taking an early lead in the Worst Season In America prize, after winning it hands down last year. Here it is, folks, read 'em and weep.
By Isaac Butler On twitter the other day dynamic pricing raised its ugly, seductive head again, this time via the feed of the (new to me) Pitchcentral out of England. Oddly, they seemed to b…
I apologize in advance for how angry this blog post is. I normally try to be somewhat restrained (while still spunky!) with my rhetoric but sometimes you just gotta unload. Richard Dare, CEO…
I woke up this morning still troubled by that Hilton Als's blog post about August Wilson's Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, because I think it shows some serious problems with his critical practice…
I forgot to mention this earlier, but the ASME nominations just dropped. ASME is the American Society of Magazine Editors. Their awards are a big deal. Anyway, in case you haven't heard, not…
Over at the Huffington Post, Lauren Gunderson makes the case for more roles for women onstage, something that often gets left out in conversations about gender parity in theatre. She notes, …
By Isaac Butler I should also say that Roxane Gay positively nails the dynamics that shape these conversations whereever they occur. And the dance she outlines should be very familiar to rea…
By Isaac Butler (Updated Below) The good people over at the Guardian Online have a great Noises Off roundup of the latest series of articles and posts about the lack of female voices (includ…
By Isaac Butler Here in Minneapolis, we have a station run by our local NPR affiliate called "The Current." The Current mainly plays up-to-date indie rock. They play a lot of local…
By Isaac Butler The Lark is administering a brand new grant from the Jerome foundation that will pay out to winners something $40K over two years. The twist? It's for early-career writers an…
By Isaac Butler A short essay by yours truly on intellectual property and theatre is up at HowlRound. You can point your browsers this-a-way to take a gander. The essay is more a laying out …
It was fun when off-off Broadway was just starting…when I lost all of those playwrights or when we all went wandering away, they stayed with me and just increased and added some of the oth…
Perhaps you have seen the trailers for the new cinematic adaptation of The Lorax that are making the rounds. Here's one: This marks yet another chapter is ongoing descecration of Dr. Seuss's…
