When a theater is only open to the public for 15 minutes before and after a performance—and is otherwise closed and locked, with the public let in and, if necessary, kicked out—the question arises of how to make the performing arts ...
Eric Ziegenhagen
The Conversation After The Show
Travis Bedard
Let’s Get Vertical (Vertical)
On my own blog some time ago I wrote about smaller and regional theatres being considered “minor league” in the pejorative sense and the broken ideas around that vocabulary in a post called “Is this Heaven, No It’s Iowa”. ...
David J. Loehr
Side By Side By Side
Happiness is equilibrium. Shift your weight. -- Tom Stoppard, The Real Thing Over at Arts Journal, they’re hosting a discussion & debate this week called Lead Or Follow? In their words, “Increasingly, audiences have more visibility for their ...
Laura Axelrod
#2femt: Can Women Write Good Plays?
I’m 22 years old, a student at NYU’s Dramatic Writing Program. I’m sitting in a coffee shop, surrounded by friends. The topic of conversation is how a teacher admitted that he couldn’t name a female playwright he liked. I don’t ...
Kate Powers
Stoopid Shakespeare
An exuberant conversation, hosted by Peter Marks and Howard Sherman, broke out on Twitter yesterday about Shakespeare; many good ideas were debated and discussed. I am writing this post to delve more deeply into one of the fundamental questions about ...
Trisha Mead
Steal This Idea: The Only Winter Theater Pitch You’ll Ever Need
Sometimes its not the information you consume, it's how you use it: Fertile Ground Festival Project Lear's Follies did a clever thing recently. They snagged a link that was much shared around #2amt circles (the Marie Claire article about theatre being ...
Lee Liebeskind
#Newplay: A New Day in D.C.
I have spent the past couple days trying to get back into the real world. There is always this time period when you have taken a vacation and now need to get back to work and the world you ...
Trisha Mead
Steal This Idea: Cutting Your Way Through the NEVER HEARD OF IT Barrier
As the founder and now social media manager for Portland's Fertile Ground Festival, I have recently had the delightful and curious experience of being able to dip my finger daily into the stream of material our 100 plus world premiere ...
Julia Harman Cain
Beyond the Bechdel Test
Soon after I wrote this Forum Theatre post on the Bechdel Test, the question arose: what might be a similar test for LGBT characters? Being both gay and up for the challenge, I gave it a try. Here it is: The ...
Howard Sherman
Audience Overtures
The murmuring from Canada was startling, and grew louder. First Toronto Globe and Mail theatre critic J. Kelly Nestruck tweeted about the cognitive dissonance of the Canadian national anthem being sung prior to a performance of the musical American Idiot. Various tweets followed, ...
Howard Sherman
When Did Alec Baldwin Become My Spokesman?
I saw a comment on Twitter this morning which reminded me that Alec Baldwin will be delivering the annual Nancy Hanks Lecture on Arts and Public Policy at the Kennedy Center in April. This is not breaking news; it was ...
Mary Cahalane
On Board
A few weeks ago, during the TCG Fall Forum, I saw an interesting Twitter conversation and felt compelled to wade in. Kristoffer Diaz had written: Disappointed at the lack of response to question about non-financial contributions of potential board members. ...
