Zoom is currently a common mode of communication for the world affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Schools and colleges use it for online classes; companies are using it for meetings; friends and family use it to stay in touch during a time of social distancing. For theatre companies, Zoom has proven to be an innovative […]
How I got hooked on theatre: John Geoffrion
“The transformative power of live theatre” has arguably become a cliché, co-opted by the marketing and development departments of large regional theatres to convince the locals of their cultural obligation to spend hundreds of dollars a year on subscriptions, or thousands of dollars to get their names engraved on a patio brick or lobby wall. […]
Artists in Quarantine: 3 playwrights write for the time of re-emergence
No doubt many of the playwrights in our community are feeling the sudden pressure to write and create during time of self-containment. So often we writers use “No Time” as an excuse, and now that we have the time, I suspect some of us are remembering that time was never truly the factor. We could […]
Woolly Mammoth uses its 3-D printer to help hospitals save lives
For years, theater artists have used their skills to create stage illusions from unlikely ingredients. Today, at Woolly Mammoth, two artists are using those skills to save lives. The artists are Woolly Mammoth Technical Director Joel Garcia and his assistant, Alec Sparks. They are using their skills with Woolly’s 3-D printer to create parts for […]
Playwright David Lindsay-Abaire’s Viral Monologues: “Charting my journey through the pandemic” and the emerging online theaters
Rachel Dratch portrays FrannyCakes, a makeup vlogger who fights with an old lady over a bottle of Purell in a Costco. Marylouise Burke is Penny, a lovely suburban matron who wonders where her husband went and why her dog is dead. T.R. Knight is an angel who behaves like a helpful social worker explaining to […]
Tẹmídayọ Amay: Being, among other things, a nonbinary actor
Hi, my name is Tẹmídayọ Amay. I am an actor, writer, director, producer, and artist all day, every day. I like to cook, and bake. My favorite television shows include Grace and Frankie, Sex Education, and Grey’s Anatomy. I am a Libra sun, Leo moon, and Scorpio rising. I have deeply melanated skin and the […]
Life at home: How coronavirus has changed our lives
Like most Americans, our staff are spending most of their time at home now. Some busy themselves with spouses, children and pets. Some with their art. Some have salaried jobs and easy transitions. Some do not. Here, they share their home lives and concerns. Gregory Ford Being mostly retired, my life has just not changed […]
L M Feldman’s Thrive wins ASC’s Shakespeare’s New Contemporaries competition; 2021 submission guidelines announced
If the present ceaselessly calls out to the past in life — and it does — it also does so in art. So, for example, we have many iterations of Jane Austen’s novels cast in the present day, including the movie “Clueless” and, a little more fancifully, “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.” There have been […]
Defining and defending the gray area: the invisibility of small professional theatre
I’ve spent nearly three decades working in nominally professional theatre. That is to say non-Equity but (usually) paid, albeit below a living wage, but with enough EMC points to join. Two theatre degrees, worked with some famous people, garnered multiple awards and nominations, co-founded a theatre company in Boston that’s still going strong, etc. In […]
From The Women Composers Festival. Timothy Nelson introduces the women and the music that will “surprise, delight, and inspire”
This first weekend in March brings together works from some extraordinary women working in exciting new directions today in the realm of ‘opera and beyond.’ In Series hosts a Women Composers Festival with two full operas and a total of six different programs in a compressed three days. It promises to be a rare glimpse […]
For Museum 2040, 4615 Theatre creates a museum of the future, then moves in.
Starting this week, Washington, DC is getting a new museum, and a different kind of immersive theatrical experience. 4615 Theatre’s upcoming production, Museum 2040, written by Renee Calarco and currently in its last few days of development by the cast and crew team at 4615, is set in a museum curated to highlight a domestic […]
Taffety Punks’ suicide.chat.room. For choreographer Paulina Guerrero, movement is the message.
Paulina Guerrero is the choreographer for the tenth year anniversary of suicide.chat.room, opening this week at Capitol Hill Arts Workshop. Guerrero joins us to talk about the differences of building this remounted production from a script versus from scratch, and how her movements affect the overall story. This expands on our talk with Taffety Punk […]