WELCOME to this week’s #TheatreClique Round Up... my emphatically irregular newsletter dedicated to clicking on some of what I found to be most interesting, intriguing & noteworthy writing about drama, theatre & performance in our world today…
This Week's #TheatreClique-ing:
As this week’s opener, I lift this video by actor/advocate Lynne Marie Rosenberg (creator of the PBS video series, Famous Cast Words). When all of Rosenberg’s gigs evaporated in spring 2020, learning “stop motion animation” started as a way for Rosenberg to keep busy but soon became a new facet of her career. She has since created an impressive suite of short animations, including this lovely piece — “Normal” — commissioned by The Museum Of Dead Words…
on Friday, a tweet about arts workers goes viral • on Saturday, the tweet’s author Howard Sherman offers some reflections on what the responses revealed • The University of Texas Harry Ransom Center announces an initiative to document, collect and archive the 2020 experiences of theatremakers for future historians • The Wall Street Journal considers “how COVID broke Times Square, the heart of New York’s economy” • Actor’s Equity and SAG-AFTRA clash over how (and how much) actors in streaming theatre should be paid • Sarah Jessica Parker insists “we must save Broadway” • Broadway stars gather to perform a surprise rendition of ‘Sunday’ in Times Square • a longstanding dinner theatre announces its permanent closure • meanwhile, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival is weathering both the economic, artistic and political challenges COVID and historically disastrous wildfires…
reflecting on two recent Philadelphia festivals, Alix Rosenfeld insists “artists are more than up for the challenge of changing our expectations of what constitutes a piece of theatre” • Vinson Cunningham considers this epoch of remote performance and asks what it now means to be part of an audience • and what about when you get paid $150 to be in the audience for SNL? • SNL cancels musical guest for failure to adhere to safety protocols • an “instant oral history” of the AMFAR benefit presentation of “The Great Work Begins: Scenes from Angels in America” (available through Monday 10/12) • Taylor Mac receives Ibsen award • Larissa Fasthorse becomes a Macarthur genius • on the occasion of National Coming Out Day, filmmaker Alice Wu reflects on a life-changing college assignment • Emma Lynn chronicles the TikTok artistry on display in this classic for our times, “Fighting in the Grocery Store” • and then there’s this remarkable reflection on the extraordinary mid-20th century phenomenon that was celebrity dinner theater…
Barbie — yes, that Barbie — discusses racism with her friend, Nikki (it’s worth the watch — trust me) • also worth the watch is Tamara Tunie as Kamala • GIFs drawn from Kamala Harris’s debate expressions reactivate conversation around “digital blackface” • Tim Murphy talks to Ricardo Montez about the racial politics of Keith Haring’s art • Mat Fraser talks about his curation of BBC's CripTales • John Leguizamo tells Hispanic Executive “On Broadway, I have no gatekeepers” (and some other things) • the continuing reverberations of that 9/22 Executive Order • but this is what happens when a linguistic anthropologist and a performance historian decide to livetweet the Vice Presidential debate…
...and this week in Fornésiana: I am pleased to know that the remarkable ecofeminist riff on María Irene Fornés legendary Fefu and her Friends — Ensayo’s Cucú and Her Fishes — is now freely available for viewing thru December 30, including a Discussion and Q&A with members of the collective. (And remember the resource of Reflections on Cucú and Her Fishes from scholars Una Chaudhuri and Olivia Michiko Gagnon.)
Definition Checks:
In which I offer resources in response to informational questions raised in last (or in anticipation of this) week's meeting of "Theatre & Society Now"...
Q1: what’s with the use of the word “crip”?
Q2: what is dinner theatre?
Adventures in Remote Theatre-going:
Wherein I highlight some priority destinations for the upcoming week.
Circle Jerk — a multi-camera, live-stream “queer comedy about the tragedy of being gay” that “combines quick changes and live chat, theatricality and the post-COVID live-stream, to take on the laptop-orchestrated sh*tshow that is online life and its political discontents” • October 18-23
What the Constitution Means to Me — a video capture of the play featuring writer/performer Heidi Schreck • streaming via AmazonPrime (pricing particulars are as yet unclear) • beginning October 16
American Utopia— David Byrne’s critically acclaimed Broadway show filmed by Spike Lee during its run at Broadway’s Hudson Theatre • available with HBO/Max subscription • beginning October 17
CripTales — a curated anthology of 15-minute monologues, written, directed and performed by disabled artists • streaming for free and without a log-in via BBC America (as well as AMC, IFC, SundanceTV, and AMC+) through October 31.
What StinkyLulu Says This Week:
Wherein I offer a brief overview of this week’s podcast episode.
In observance of my university’s fall break this weekend, there will be no new episode of StinkyLulu Says this week. So that means I will not be able to share my thoughts on this week’s unexpected Evita reprises — what with double hit of (brilliant) political videos from original Broadway cast members Patti Lupone and Mandy Patinkin in tandem with all those balcony moments from the current president — a professed Evita superfan. (There’s a smartypants essay for someone in their somewhere.) Nor will I have the opportunity to rave about the brilliant theatre-industry commentary embedded within Radha Blank’s remarkable debut feature, The Forty Year Old Version… Ah well. Missed opportunities…
On This TheatreCliquer's Dance Card:
Wherein I shamelessly promote my own upcoming public events.
The Profe Herrera Show has no performances scheduled for the upcoming week, aside from some principal photography (ie pressing record on my iPad) that begins Monday for a tiny little thing for my school. But save the date: toward the end of October, Profe Herrera will be all over the place…
Voices from Behind Academentia's Paywall:
If you are not academically-affiliated, or if your institution does not subscribe to these journals, shake the social media trees to see if some academic somewhere might hook you up with a pdf or two. Or check with your friendly neighborhood librarian to see if they can help. But download the pdf directly if you can. Because ACADEMIC CLICKS COUNT too!
Perhaps the most enthralling scholarly essay I’ve encountered this year, Christopher Grobe’s “The Artist Is President: Performance Art and Other Keywords in the Age of Donald Trump” (Critical Inquiry, Summer 2020) is increasingly feeling like required reading for our historical moment. In the essay, Grobe returns us to the distant past — or the summer of 2016 — when the worlds of performance (specifically the messily incoherent idea of “performance art”) converged with the worlds of politics (specifically the messily incoherent tactics of presidential electioneering) in unexpected, complicated and consequential ways. The essay is a fascinating, challenging and provocative explication of “our” commonplace fixation on performance and its unstable relation to things like “truth” and “authenticity.” For Grobe, the peculiar prominence of performance rhetorics in the 2016 election is a resonant example lesson — essential to apprehending not only what happened into 2016 but also to all that is happening right now. (Speaking personally, Grobe’s essay has been absolutely foundational for me as I’ve tried to wrap my brain around the “Q” phenomenon.) An essential essay for our moment, elevated by Grobe’s witty erudition and humane rigor. Quite simply, a must.
Encourage Your Institutional Library to BUY THIS BOOK:
Book recommendations from students, staff, faculty and alumni can have a major impact on institutional purchasing priorities, especially at college/university libraries. Visit the library page at your school/s and click around to figure out how to recommend a title for purchase.
Okay. I know it’s a bit of a repeat but, hey, it’s my newsletter… and, really, the pressure of the shutdown continues to impact by university and non-profit presses, that — with the widespread cancellation of academic conferences and other convenings — have lost a key platform for developing and launching scholarly titles. SO…
The University of Michigan Press is still running its SALE — 50% off (with free shipping) if you buy two or more books between now and December 7. Just use discount code: UM90. Rummage around the backlist to discover the many UMP treasures to be found (including this book from a few years back)…
And Duke University Press is running a comparable promotion — 50% off (with free shipping) all in-stock books between now and November 23 (with discount code: FALL2020). Click the image below to be routed to DUP’s Theater & Performance list.
SO, again this week, I do hope that you ask your institutional libraries to share the gift of one or more of these extraordinary university press books with your communities — and, as the holiday season approaches, that you also consider gifting yourself (or a worthy fellow reader) a title or two…
Until next week, dear #TheatreClique, please share this newsletters with those friends, colleagues and students who might appreciate the opportunity to encounter the many voices gathered in each week’s newsletter. Errors and oversights published in the newsletter will be corrected in the archival versions. And, in the meantime, keep clicking those links — good writing needs good readers and our theatre clicks count!