In Theatre, At Least We’re Honest About the Lie
A poet/playwright reflects on the pleasure and possibility of a medium where deliberate fakery can lead to a kind of freedom.
Category Archives: First Person
How ‘American Utopia’ Managed to Remain in Light
The Broadway stage manager recounts how her company conceived and staged a new concert version of the popular show in the face of COVID cancellations.
It Takes a Virtual Village: New Motherhood, Theatre, and the Pandemic
As if having a baby while working in the theatre isn’t hard enough, the pandemic has only intensified the stress—and the need for networks of support.
Contemporary Plays, Teaching From the Page as Well as the Stage
The work of writers like Jackie Sibblies Drury, Annie Baker, and Branden Jacobs-Jenkins is riveting in the theatre, but the rewards of close reading shouldn’t be ignored.
Second-Act Problems: What Comes Next Is Up to Us, and Also Not
Poised between a troubled but familiar past and the uncertain promise of a transformed future, is it any wonder we’re having trouble with the next act of our lives?
Once on This Island: How LaChanze Helped Me Heal After 9/11
The attacks on the World Trade Center hit close to home, and it was a Broadway cast reunion concert that pointed the way back to life.
Hope Is a Trail of Breadcrumbs
A leading maker of plays for young people thinks of good storytelling as an alert, wakeful, but necessarily uncertain journey through the unknown.
Touch the Wound, But Don’t Live There
Why we need resilience services as much as we need fight choreography.
Where Art Matters: In Praise of the American Regional Theatre
An Irish director hails the ensemble ethic and sharp focus of U.S. resident theatres, which compare favorably to any he’s worked with around the world.
Lunch With 2 Conjurers: A Dream Meeting About Our Nightmares
When Mac Rogers and I met our playwriting hero, Wallace Shawn, we were honored—and confronted anew with his devastating plays.
