#230119 ~ Beginnings, Muddlings, Endings
Brian Eugenio Herrera's #TheatreClique Newsletter for January 19, 2023
WELCOME to #TheatreClique — my (mostly) weekly newsletter dedicated to encouraging you to click out to some of the most interesting, intriguing & noteworthy writing about drama, theatre & performance (at least, so says me)…
This Week's #TheatreCliquery:
I did not anticipate that the seasonal distractions/disruptions would interrupt this newsletter for a month, but such are as such things happen sometimes. But as the new year (and new academic term) gets well and truly underway, so too does the #TheatreCliquery. So be warned that these next few installments will likely include very current content, alongside links that will toss us back a few weeks (if not more), all of which I think worthy of your click. But to begin, I recall how I began this year touched by the the passing of singer Anita Pointer (1948-2022) because, just days before, I had been pondering the number 8 — don’t ask — which also put me in mind of a particular melody from the (incomparable) Pointer Sisters. I thought I would just post the one for 8 when I hit upon this minor masterpiece which is also kinda just part of me…
And here is some what’s been clicking since my last newsletter…
EDITOR’S 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! hi PhillyInquirer! — adopt similar technologies soon...
in one of my favorite pieces of theatre reportage in recent memory, BroadwayNews’s Ruthie Fierberg details the extraordinary artistry that went into creating the onstage piano in Broadway’s The Piano Lesson and how it “speaks to intense research, precise dramaturgy and the arduous labor that brought its design to fruition” • at HarpersBazaar, culture writer Wendy S. Walter offers a luminous survey of playwright Adrienne Kennedy’s pathbreaking life and work • in what might be my favorite piece about my favorite film of 2022, The Film Experience’s Nathaniel Rogers talks to actor Stephanie Hsu about her “insane year, stage history, and working with legends” • LATimes theatre writer Charles McNulty’s review of two Sondheim revivals reminds us that “criticism is the art of refining first impressions into second thoughts” • at TheAtlantic, scholar/writer Daniel Pollack-Pelzner invites his college students to teach him “what Gen Z Knows About Stephen Sondheim” • and the editors of AmericanTheatre highlight “2022’s 10 Most Popular Posts (and 10 That Deserve Another Look)”…
at Atlas Obscura, arts/travel writer Tanya Ward Goodman details the fascinating saga of John Enh’s Old Trappers Lodge collection and how its uncertain fate underscores the complicated vulnerability of folk art sites in California • NYTimes’ Ilaria Parogni reports on the rising call from deaf audiences for greater racial alignment of onstage ASL interpreters • at Into, arts writer Christian Lewis asks “Does Broadway have a trans and drag dilemma?” • Hyperallergic’s Elaine Velie profiles performance artist Courtney Desiree Morris and her effort to reckon with the violence of a recent incident in which an unhoused woman was hosed down by a San Francisco art gallerist • and at Lux Magazine, independent journalist Piper French profiles “artivist” Cat Brooks about her pathbreaking work toward police abolition in Oakland…
Watermark’s Ryan Williams-Jent talks to actor/advocate L Morgan Lee about her experience “entering and exiting A Strange Loop” •at Playbill, actor Anika Larsen posts “an open-hearted letter to all of the theatre makers who pour their hearts and souls into a production that closes much sooner than anticipated” • TheHuffingtonPost’s Curtis M. Wong serves two fascinating profiles of two pathbreaking performers currently on Broadway — Tovah Feldshuh on entering the fourth act of her already five decade career and Bonnie Milligan on carving a path for performers like herself • TheHollywoodReporter’s Abbey M. White considers “how LaTanya Richardson Jackson's Broadway reimagining [of August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson] has brought a new understanding and depth to the late writer's work” • on Global News Morning BC’s Jennifer Palma talks to playwright Elaine Ávila about her play Fado and its resonance across Canada…
People’s Michael Gioia reports on what happened when A Strange Loop’s writer Michael R. Jackson stepped into the lead role of Usher for two special concert presetnations of the musical • Playbill’s Margaret Hall reports on Death of a Salesman star Wendell Pierce’s efforts to talk down an unruly audience member • NBC News’ Uwa Ede-Osifo reports on what the #SaveAintNoMo campaign might reveal about Broadway’s financing and marketing models • and subsequent the cancelation of a Florida high school production of Paula Vogel’s Indecent, NPR arts reporter Elizabeth Blair reports on what happens when a play about censorship is censored; at The Forward, arts leader David Chack talks to Vogel about what the banning of the play has revealed to her about contemporary American culture; at TeenVogue, journalist Emily Bloch listens to the students who believe they’ve been ‘Don’t Say Gay-ed’ due to Florida’s anti-LGBTQ law; and student cast member Madeline Scotti takes to TikTok to offer her perspective…
at TheaterMania, arts writer Joey Sims talks to Museum of Broadway co-curator Ben West about “mak[ing] theater history come to life”• at TheChicagoReader, arts writer/critic Kerry Reid asks “will Victory Gardens ever bloom again?” • SF Chronicle’s digs into how and why San Francisco theatre attendance is still so down • NYTimes arts writer Hillarie M. Sheets reports on a campuswide slate of public events, exhibitions, and performances at Princeton to celebrate life and legacy of author Toni Morrison • The Sol Project launches the first and second installments of its new Playwrights on Playwrights series • the Latinx Theatre Commons opens the nomination window for the 2023 Diane Rodriguez Teatrista Award which recognizes an individual working in the theatre field who is committed to increasing Latinx representation across disciplines • BroadwayNews’s Ruthie Fierberg reports on the founding of League of Live Stream Theater (LOLST) • New York Theater’s Jonathan Mandell captures “Eight Things to Understand About Digital Theater Now — According to Jared Mezzocchi” • and speaking of the incredible Jared Mezzochi, check out this trailer highlighting the breathtakingly multi-disciplinary artistry that converges in the offerings of Bard at the Gate…
And Lest I Forget — This Week in Fornésiana…
Wherein I highlight noteworthy recent or upcoming engagements with the life, work and legacy of legendary playwright, director and teacher María Irene Fornés...
NYObserver’s Harry Haun profiles playwright Eduardo Machado, who “in the early ‘80s, under the spell and tutelage of María Irene Fornés, Machado [took] a deep dive into playwriting”…
Listen Up!:
Wherein I highlight recent theatrically-inclined podcasts and playlists…
Two new episodes of my on-and-off-again podcast, StinkyLuluSays, have dropped since my last newsletter. In the first, I read the paper — related to my current book project — that I presented at the most recent national meeting of the American Society for Theatre Research…
In the second, I reflect on my halting return to theatregoing in 2022 with a brisk overview of “only” 87 plays in 365 days...
Another episode will likely drop this coming Sunday, with my reflections on a very disparate array of productions — including a mildly notorious revisal of a major musical, one of the year’s most (briefly) controversial new plays, a mini-fest of funny strange and provocative new works, a hilariously haunting drag cabaret, and an immersive site-specific adaptation of what might be the book I’ve read more times than any other… So listen up!
Until next time, dear #TheatreCliquers, 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 emailed newsletter will be corrected in the archival version. And, in the meantime, keep clicking those links — good writing needs good readers and our theatre clicks count!