Susannah Clapp: “There used to be a template for the artistic directors of theatres. A template about as restricted as candidates for the Tory party leadership. White and male. Obviously. This was so continuous with the default position for power in Britain that for ages it went unremarked. Not any more. … British theatre is in the process of a massive change. More far-reaching than any I have seen in more than 20 years as The Observer‘s drama critic. Accelerating. Overdue. Irrevocable. Welcome.” Here are Q&As with half a dozen of the new leaders. – The Observer (UK)
‘125th And Freedom’: A Marathon Dance Piece Stretching Across Harlem’s Main Thoroughfare
“Stopping at sites including the Harriet Tubman Memorial and the former Lenox Lounge — now a Wells Fargo — the 16-part ritual tells the story of a tribe fighting for its freedom with the help of Libra, a time-traveling descendant of Tubman who flies in from the future. As it progresses, the work grows more interactive; at Amsterdam Avenue, for instance, audience members write their hopes on slips of fabric and attach them to a sprawling ‘dream net.'” – The New York Times
‘Judy Punches Back’ — Creating A Feminist ‘Punch And Judy’ Show
“[Puppeteer Sarah] Nolen wanted a new challenge: save Judy from centuries of unfair abuse and repurpose her story as an empowering allegory for audiences of all ages.” Roxanna Myhrum, artistic director of the theater where Nolen developed Judy Saves the Day, writes about how it all went down. – HowlRound
Meet America’s Leading Trans Choreographer
“[Sean Dorsey] is an openly transgender choreographer and activist with a professional dance company that has been thriving for 15 years. His company is more in demand than ever. … His mission has always been to honor the lives and stories of the forgotten and censored LGBTQ and transgender elders before him.” – Forbes
Want To See A Ballet Company That’s Serious About Programming Female Choreographers? Go To Cincinnati
“56 percent of the works Cincinnati Ballet commissioned for the 2019-2020 season are created by women. Female choreographers will be featured in 71 percent of Cincinnati Ballet’s programs. [And] among the nation’s top 50 ballet companies, only 13 of the most prestigious full-length works are by women. Of those 13, two were commissioned by Cincinnati Ballet.” – The Cincinnati Enquirer
Remember Frances McDormand’s ‘Two Words: Inclusion Rider’? Hollywood Seems To Have Forgotten
More than a year after the 2018 Best Actress Oscar winner called for her colleagues to demand a rider to their contracts obligating producers and studios to diversify their crews, “it is hard to identify more than a handful of productions that have adopted the rider outright.” – The New York Times
Method Acting And #MeToo: A Brief History
“At least three of the fathers of the American Method — Lee Strasberg, Sanford Meisner, and Elia Kazan — had reputations for treating men and women differently, as well as for treating both women actors and women characters as sex objects.” Holly L. Derr examines what these men did, how they justified it, and how the aftereffects linger on. – HowlRound
If Your Theatre Company Wants To Produce More Plays By Women, Here’s Where To Find Some
For five years now, a collective called The Kilroys has been releasing an annual list of recommended new plays, as yet unproduced or “under-produced,” by female, transgender, and non-binary writers. “The list appears to be having an impact. The organization says that 100 plays it has named have been produced or promised productions, and one, Cost of Living by Martyna Majok, won a Pulitzer Prize.” – The New York Times
In Indie Films, At Least, Female Writers And Directors Are Making Progress (If Not Yet Parity)
“Women made up nearly a third of the directors, executive producers, writers, cinematographers and editors, and though they were still outnumbered by men two to one, the new figures represented a leap: A decade ago, women occupied just 24 percent of those positions.” – The New York Times
The Dilemma Of Creative Placemaking
The question of just how to execute creative placemaking without inviting gentrification sits at the forefront of creative placemaking circles. Jamie Hand, a researcher for ArtPlace America, says the friction between placemaking’s benefits and the onrush of gentrifying forces has happened frequently enough to spark vigorous discussion and dialogue on the efforts to walk a tightrope between uplift and displacement of the community. – NextCity
At This Ballet School, They Are Empowering Their Students With Important Life Skills
“The after-school program at the Thomas Armour Youth Ballet in South Miami … provides ballet, reading, math and etiquette classes along with access to mental health professionals. The program delivers professionally taught dance classes in multiple genres, at little or no cost to 500 students ages 5-11.” – Miami Herald
No More All-Male Comedy-Writing Teams, Declares UK TV Network
“ITV will no longer commission comedy shows with all-male writers’ rooms, the broadcaster’s head of comedy has said. Saskia Schuster said she realised last year that ‘an awful lot of my comedy entertainment shows are made up of all-male writing teams. … Too often the writing room is not sensitively run. It can be aggressive and slightly bullying.'” – BBC
Know a Theatre: Tennessee Women’s Theater Project of Nashville
“Among the throng of honky-tonk bars in downtown Nashville is the Z. Alexander Looby Theatre — home to the Tennessee Women’s Theater Project. American Theatre caught up with company’s founding artistic director, Maryanna Clarke, via email to learn more about producing theatre in a changing Nashville.” – American Theatre
New theatre company aims to make pubs and clubs more inclusive for women and non-binary people
“Co-founder of [the company] Part of the Night, Olivia Munk, said: ‘My co-founder Jessica Bickel-Barlow and I realised that while we weren’t comfortable going to a pub or club alone, we always enjoyed going to the theatre alone — so we decided to bring the two together. ‘Having spoken to a number of people who identify as female, non-binary, trans, and queer, we found that this sentiment was echoed by lots of people for a variety of different reasons. Ultimately we’d like to make nightlife spaces social centres where like-minded people can come together to enjoy food, drink and really good stories.'” – The Stage
How the Welsh-language national theatre has blazed a trail for women playwrights and directors
“In its 15-year history, more than half of Theatr Genedlaethol Cymru’s productions have been directed by women and close to half have been written by female playwrights. Notably, of the companies in the Arts Council of Wales’ national portfolio funded to regularly create work in Welsh, 60% are led by female directors. So, why does there appear to be a more egalitarian approach?” – The Stage
Choreography As Conflict Resolution — A Retired Dancer Becomes A Professional Mediator
Dana Caspersen, William Forsythe’s wife and a former member of his company, Ballett Frankfurt, “develops choreographic methods that let groups address differences in nonverbal ways. Many of her projects center on participatory ‘action dialogues,’ which allow groups as large as 250 to tackle fraught issues like racism and polarization.” – Dance Magazine
Redefining London Culturally
“More of us than ever consider ourselves culturally engaged, and we are now expanding the definition of culture “possibly to the point of extinction”. ‘Big c’ and ‘small c’ culture now intermix with a day-to-day theatricality that we all welcome, and the stage for this activity is places, from small community-owned plots to large brownfield regeneration sites, where these elements can be brought together in ways that benefit a range of communities and tell great stories.” – Arts Professional
Mexican Government Calls Out Fashion Designer For Cultural Appropriation, Calls For U.N. Involvement (?!)
Alejandra Frausto, Mexico’s secretary for culture, wrote an official letter to designer Carolina Herrera and her creative director, Wes Gordon, about a recent Herrera collection that Frausto described as “plagiarism”: “This is a matter of ethical consideration that obliges us to speak out and bring an urgent issue to the UN’s sustainable development agenda: promoting inclusion and making those who are invisible visible.” – The Daily Beast
By The Numbers: Picture Books In 2018 Were Less Diverse
Male characters continue to dominate the most popular picture books: a child is 1.6 times more likely to read one with a male rather than a female lead, and seven times more likely to read a story that has a male villain in it than a female baddie. Male characters outnumbered female characters in more than half the books, while females outnumber males less than a fifth of the time. – The Guardian
My Right To Speak On Campus
“Debates over free speech on campus are not about formal rights but rather about what we might call real freedom. We have the formal right to speak freely on a given topic whenever there is no law preventing our doing so. But those who claim to have been silenced by political correctness typically have the legal right to say whatever it is they claim they cannot say. What they are really objecting to is the social pressure not to make use of that formal freedom — a pressure that, they argue, reduces their real freedom to express themselves.” – Chronicle of Higher Education
Why Did Artists, Historians And Academics Just Spend Nine Weeks Protesting At The Whitney Museum?
“We can no longer accept the art-world logic of career over cause, with artists and critics making politically engaged work against the backdrop of an institutional framework grounded in the art-washing of profits for figures like Warren Kanders,” the group wrote in a statement in February. – Pacific Standard
Narrative-Sharing and Narrative-Shifting With Digital Technology
Members of the Detroit-based collective Complex Movements discuss the connection between technology, performance, and social justice community organizing. – HowlRound
Ali Stroker on Winning the Tony: ‘I Was Meant to Be in This Seat’
“So many times, our society is taught, ‘Don’t look, don’t stare and don’t ask — that would be rude. As an artist, I’m saying, ‘Look at me now. Look at my body. Look how I move my chair.’ I’m asking, and that makes me feel my most powerful self.” – The New York Times
On ‘Pose,’ dancing isn’t just about self-expression. It’s a survival skill for trans women.
“The series centers on the trans women and gay men of color in New York’s underground ballroom culture. … The ballroom scene arose from emptiness, dreamed into existence by young people, mostly black and Latino, who had been shunned by their biological families and faced homelessness, violence, sex work and disease. They filled the void with fantasies of wealth and magazine-cover beauty and strolling Fifth Avenue like they owned it. Their aspirations took shape at the balls. More important, indulging in the exaggerated femininity of the spins, dips and floor poses of voguing, and practicing a killer runway walk in six-inch heels, were keys to survival.” – The Washington Post
There’s One Corner Of Hollywood Where Women Are Making Real Progress: Animation
“Women hold half of the leadership positions at the major film animation companies, new research has found. And, of the top 120 animated films over the last dozen years, nearly four in 10 had female producers, which is more than double the number of women who produced live-action films in that time.” (Things don’t look as good for nonwhite women, though.) – The New York Times
Two Actors On Their Way To Perform Assaulted In Homophobic Attack In England
The two actors were embracing in the street when “‘assailants verbally abused them and thew stones at them from their car window,’ with one of the actors being hit in the face by a stone.” – The Stage (UK)
Can Britain’s National Portrait Gallery Cut Its Ties To British Petroleum?
It doesn’t seem entirely likely, but artists, activists, and even a judge have asked the museum to try. “They accuse the central London gallery of helping to launder the oil industry’s image through its BP sponsorship deal and say the oil company is aggravating the climate crisis by extracting fossil fuels.” – The Guardian (UK)
One-Dimensional Diversity Isn’t Actually Very Equitable At All
“Over the history of our big and small screens, audiences have been treated to thousands of variations of whiteness. White people have stood in as the face of humanity’s fullness and complexity. We’ve watched white people traverse the boundaries of class, history, sexuality, gender, disease, fame and technology.” Now it’s time for everyone else to get that fullness, complexity, and – The New York Times
The Director Of ‘Hadestown’ Won A Tony And Ripped Into The Reasons She’s The Only Woman Directing On Broadway This Year
It has nothing to do with who is ready to direct, Rachel Chavkin said. “There are so many women who are ready to go. There are so many artists of color who are ready to go. … This is not a pipeline issue. It is a failure of imagination by a field whose job is to imagine the way the world could be.” – The New York Times
The Hand Of Native American Women, Visible At Last
“The role of women art-makers in Native communities has gone widely ignored. Now a bold museum show [at the Minneapolis Institute of Art], by and for these women, is shining a light on 1,000 years of their art.” – The New York Times