On a Sunday in May, a friend and I planned to try for rush tickets to see Hugh Jackman at the Minetta Lane Theater in New York City. She woke up with bad sciatica and cancelled on me. But I went ahead to get in the rush line. I arrived at 11:15 for the noon box office opening and the line was already long. The man in front of me told us he’d come the day before (for the … [Read more...] about The Power of Strangers at Art
Theater
Now What? Celebrate Relevance.
Is local non-profit theater over? In crisis? In decline? About to pivot? On the verge of a massive shift? Funding is down down down. Ticket sales too. Was the pandemic the cause? Or did it hasten changes already in the works pre-pandemic? What are the remedies? My feed is full of dire threats and serious recommendations. I’ve been collecting these and am sharing some … [Read more...] about Now What? Celebrate Relevance.
Audience and Actors Sharing The Thin Place
Emily Cass McDonnell knows The Thin Place works because of magic. She stars as Hilda in the Playwrights Horizons debut of Lucas Hnath’s play which opens this week, but she’s been with the production since the first readings. Last spring, The Thin Place had its premiere at the 43rd Humana Festival of New Plays at Actors Theater in Louisville. That’s when McDonnell … [Read more...] about Audience and Actors Sharing The Thin Place
Civics is How We Take Care of the Space Between People
The most important thing I learned in a glorious Humana Festival weekend of theater — six new American plays and a lot of theater geeks—was not in a play at all. Anne Bogart gave a talk at the Festival. I recommend it to you. If you too are a contemporary American theater geek, you probably already know her name. As a mere lover of new plays, she was new to me when I … [Read more...] about Civics is How We Take Care of the Space Between People