Category
actors
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#2amt, actors, audiences, directors, dramaturgy
Stoopid Shakespeare
01.20.12 | Permalink | 4 CommentsAn 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 Shakespeare in performance, which is, after all, his native habitat. Shakespeare in performance should be, [...]
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actors, alternatives, community, spotlight, talk about what's good, the process, theatrical ecosystem
I Am An Actor.
11.16.11 | Permalink | 7 CommentsI haven’t been an actor in a long time. I had spent most of nearly three decades (I was a very, very young child actor…) working on one show or another before finding myself torn between those age-old female choices of nurturing myself or nurturing my offspring. Luckily, my first-born was a theatre, and I [...]
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actors, directors, playwrights, the process
I know what it’s like to have failed, baby
09.30.11 | Permalink | 15 Comments“There are still many more days of failure ahead, whole seasons of failure, things will go terribly wrong, you will have huge disappointments, but you have to prepare for that, you have to expect it and be resolute and follow your own path.” ― Anton Chekhov Over nearly twenty years of striving, struggling and occasionally [...]
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actors, arts service organizations, collaboration, community, corporate sponsors, designers, development, devised work, dramaturgy, ideas, new plays, non-profit theatre, partnerships, playwrights, producers, the process, Uncategorized
Devised Theatre: Terrible Practicalities
Previously in this column: Bright Alchemy Theatre, a very young company devoted to the creation of devised work, decides to begin work on a narrative and thematic sequel to A Cre@tion Story for Naomi, which explored the world’s creation myths. We began this new process with a question: Why do we feel the need to [...]
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actors, collaboration, community, directors, education, rabble rousing, the process
We are Arthur
04.25.11 | Permalink | 8 CommentsEven though I am in prison three times a week, I am only just beginning to understand what it feels like to be incarcerated. What I do know is that the men with whom I work with Rehabilitation Through the Arts (RTA) at Sing Sing Correctional Facility feel like they have been thrown away. They [...]
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actors, collaboration, community, conversation starter, development, devised work, dramaturgy, ideas, new plays, partnerships, playwrights, producers, social media, the process
Devised Theatre: Apocalypse as sequel
03.14.11 | Permalink | 2 CommentsSo, here we are. Week two and hip-deep in the initial group dramaturgy of Bright Alchemy’s devising process, which started with the question “Why do we as a species feel compelled to tell stories of our own destruction?” It’s very early, but I’m already beginning to get that familiar feeling of drowning in images and [...]
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actors, conversation starter, development, devised work, dramaturgy, education, ideas, new plays, playwrights, producers, the process
Devised Theatre: There’s a 10:30 in the morning?
Wherein I blog Bright Alchemy’s devising process for its newest project. My living room is full of artists eating baked goods and mainlining coffee. The latter is not surprising, since it’s 10:30 A.M. on a Sunday. What is surprising is that a dozen theatre-makers chose to subject themselves to this sun-drenched world while there was [...]
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actors, advocacy, directors, producers, technical work
With Great Power…
12.21.10 | Permalink | 9 CommentsI don’t think anything that’s really creative can be done without danger or risk. — Julie Taymor I’m not here to judge the merits of Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark. I haven’t seen the play, I’ve only heard one less-than-thrilling song. But I do know the people involved are capable of excellent work. Bono and [...]
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actors, audiences, conversation starter, follow friday, ideas, playwrights, rabble rousing, social media, the process, theatrical ecosystem
Follow Friday: 22 October 2010
10.22.10 | Permalink | 3 CommentsLooks like everyone’s wrestling this week, whether it’s playwrights & critics, casts & audiences, critics & artistic directors, journalists & editors… We’ve also been thinking, arguing and questioning what we do and why we do it. We even get a little political, but only a little. And there’s no intermission. (Unless you want one.) This [...]
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actors, audiences, conversation starter, directors, ideas, major regional theatre, marketing, non-profit theatre, playwrights, presenting, theatrical ecosystem
The Jewel Box
10.20.10 | Permalink | 2 CommentsWe all have regrets. We have the shows we almost saw, the times when we didn’t quite make it out the door, didn’t cross town, and then the show we wanted to see existed on Earth no more. It happened without us. We so wanted to go. We were tired, or we were distracted, or the cost was too [...]
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actors, dramaturgy, education, ideas, Uncategorized
Like an old tale still
10.11.10 | Permalink | 3 CommentsLast week, I coached an actor who had a big audition this past weekend. It was of the ‘bring two contrasting pieces’ variety. She came to me a little later in her process than I would have liked: I didn’t get a chance to consult with her about what pieces would show her off to [...]
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actors, audiences, directors, dramaturgy, education, ideas, the process
The Strip of (Textual) Terror
08.24.10 | Permalink | 2 CommentsCollation line. Apparatus. Strip of terror. Whatever you call it, it’s that somewhat inscrutable line or two of apparently Enigma code between the text and the annotations, particularly in a modern edition of, say, Shakespeare. It might seem irrelevant or irretrievably geeky, but there are all kinds of important, dramatically compelling questions lurking amid the [...]
