WELCOME to the #TheatreClique Round Up — my (sometimes) weekly newsletter dedicated to clicking on some of the most interesting, intriguing & noteworthy writing about drama, theatre & performance (at least, so says me)…
This Week's #TheatreClique-ing:
It’s been a minute since my last newsletter and, despite it being summertime, the clickable theatre content has been piling up. So much so that I got the dreaded post too long for email warning from Substack. I therefore offer this “Special Wednesday Edition” of the newsletter, with another edition to follow this coming Monday, after which I expect we’ll be back to our semi-regular programming schedule.
But, without further ado, for this week’s opener, I lift this CBS Sunday Morning piece about “MacArthur Genius” writer/advocate Reginald Dwayne Betts and his work on Felon — which titles both his 2019 collection of poems and the work-in-process performance he’s presently developing. fun fact: the performance space that you see in this segment happens to be one two floors beneath my campus office…
And here is some what’s been clicking since my last newsletter…
NOTE: whenever possible, whenever I link to pieces posted behind a paywall, I do so using the “gift” function that certain publications now afford subscribers. So clicking out to articles in the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal should neither present hassle nor burn through your monthly allotment of free views. Here’s hoping more outlets — hello LATimes! — adopt similar technologies soon...
at Public Books, attorney/scholar Benjamin Woodring assesses how Martina Majok’s play Sanctuary City might prompt a serious consideration of how theatre — as both an art practice and as a model of social organization — is particularly “equipped not only to represent but to practice sanctuary in its many dimensions” • at Governing, public humanities scholar Clay S. Jenkinson talks to theatre-makers Aaron Landsman and Mallory Catlett about how their collaborative art-making practice suggests “how creativity and rigorous inquiry could lead to a more complete and nuanced look at the structures of local government” — which is also the focus of their new book, The City We Make Together: City Council Meeting’s Primer for Participation (IowaUP) • and ViceNews’ Tess Owen reports on how a “wild bit of political theater” became a sensation at the recent convening of the 2022 Conservative Political Action Conference (aka CPAC) • for more context: tweeted video of the performance from attendees like freelance journalist Laura Jedeed — who described the installation as “the most astonishing thing I have ever seen” — stirred attention and commentary from mainstream news outlets (including CNN, BuzzFeed, and TheDailyMail, among others), thereby leading Brandon Straka — creator and co-performer of the so-called Capitol Riot Rage Cage (and co-founder of installation’s sponsor, the #WalkAway Foundation) — to proclaim himself the “most successful performance artist in America”…
at TheAtlantic, culture writer A.J. Goldmann evinces the process of how the director of the Passion Play at Obergammergau — or the Oberammergau Passionsspiele — “weed[ed] out the lingering anti-Jewish elements” from the nearly 400 year old performance tradition • at SourceNM, journalist Austin Fisher delves into the longstanding debate over the the tradition of live pageantry and historical reenactment of New Mexico’s settler colonial history • and WashingtonPost’s Timothy Bella summarizes the controversy stirred by the unauthorized (and “Christianized”) staging of Hamilton by a church in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley…
for AmericanTheatre, performer/writer Rachelle Legrand talks to (my colleagues) director Elena Araoz and lighting designer Jane Cox about Princeton’s “Try On Theater Days” — the Program in Theater’s experiment in “replacing high-intensity auditions with educational workshops as a means to cast performers and stagehands” for campus productions • scholar/advocate Noe Montez offers his annual update to his ongoing (and always sobering) research project tracing the career trajectories of PhDs in Theatre and Performance Studies from 2011-present • and independent artist/writer Berette S. Macaulay considers “the power of cohorts and collectivities” in a profile of how Drs. Kemi Adeyemi, Jasmine Mahmoud, and Nikki Yeboah — all Performance Studies PhD graduates of Northwestern University — have been reunited as faculty members at the University of Washington…
San Francisco Chronicle’s Lily Janiak asks “why are so many Bay Area theatre leaders leaving their jobs?” • at Rescripted, artist/advocate Regina Victor serves a two-part essay that, on the one hand, evinces the “institutional and systemic barriers [faced by] Artistic Directors who are people of color face” in this particular historical moment and, on the other, highlights how “the victories these leaders have had [might show]how to create success for incoming Artistic Directors” • at the NYTimes’ Scott Heller talks to arts leader Jim Nicola about the resolution of his 34 year tenure as artistic director of New York Theatre Workshop • at Phoenix Magazine, culture/arts writer Robert L. Pela asks “what happened to the Valley’s theater and art critics?” • writer/performer Clinton Roane reflects on his “experience in the five points” of Paradise Square, in its pre-Broadway run • and as part of his series “The Reformation” at the NYTimes, theatre critic/writer Jesse Green assesses the presumptive physical and emotional risks facing working performers and how contemporary arts workers are demanding change…
at The Ankler, fashion/culture writer Vincent Boucher assesses the challenge of adapting The Devil Wears Prada — that beloved (if overwhelmingly white) tale of elitist workplace bullying — for the musical stage in an theatrical era committed to body-positive multiracial inclusivity • in a lively conversation at American Theatre, director/dramaturg Emma Jude Harris and dramaturg Gabrielle Hoyt talk through how the “cross-cutting challenges of Jewish representation” exceed conversations about casting • NYTimes’ Marc Tracy considers the implications of disparate casting strategies used in three recent productions of Shakespeare’s Richard III • at AmericanTheatre, arts writer Meg Masseron considers the many ways fatphobia inflected the discourse around Beanie Feldstein’s turn in Funny Girl • and Slate’s Heather Schwedel digs into why “the internet is so obsessed” with the story of Lea Michele taking over for Beanie Feldstein in Funny Girl on Broadway…
the incomparable arts writer Don Shewey remembers Mary Alice (1936-2022) by revisiting his first conversation with her for Soho News in 1980 • at NBC News, arts writer Diep Tran talks to actor Phillipa Soo about “playing a Broadway Asian American Cinderella who rejects the prince” • at The Zoe Report, culture writer Evan Ross Katz talks to actor/singer Micaela Jaé Rodriguez about “the expansion of her career into new creative terrain” after her history-making turn in Pose • Vogue’s Marley Marius profiles A Strange Loop star Jaquel Spivey • and at AmericanTheatre, playwright/advocate Rhiana Yazzie (Navajo) talks with Muriel Miguel (Kuna/Rappahannock) — in a far-reaching “one-on-one with arguably the most influential figure in Native and First Nations theatre now working on U.S. soil”… (to hear Muriel Miguel speak, see also this 2017 video from TCG)
...and — lest I forget — this week in Fornésiana: brings word that Michelle Memran’s The Rest I Make Up is now streaming freely for AmazonPrime members and — remember, faithful Fornesians — every user review helps…
Until next time, dear #TheatreClique, please share this newsletter with those friends, colleagues and students who might appreciate the opportunity to encounter the many voices gathered in each week’s edition. 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!