THEATRE + PERFORMANCE
For the Labyrinth of Life, a Complex Theatre
by Guy Zimmerman
At UCLA LIVE the night after George Bush was re-elected president, 2004, I saw a production of Sarah Kane’s 4.48 Psychosis. It was really the perfect thing to see at that moment, partly because I was astonished at what had just happened. I think everybody in the audience felt a palpable sense that this was the right meditation to have at that More...
Evolving an Authentic Theatre
by John Steppling
Playwright John Steppling recently convened a gathering of Los Angeles theatre-makers for a discussion called The Uninvited: Crashing the Party, a conference to re-imagine the next 50 years of Los Angeles theatre. The party being "crashed" was Theatre Communication Group’s annual meeting of regional theatres, which was being held More...
Why Theatre Will Survive
by Adam Leipzig
If life’s but a walking shadow, how many shadows are cast along Hollywood’s Walk of Fame? The answer is 10 million a year; it is the city’s premiere tourist destination. A visitor recently stopped me and asked. “Are all American cemeteries are like this?” He imagined the celebrities had been interred below their bronze names.
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The Mad, Mad Chase for Innovation in the Arts
by Diane Ragsdale | Jumper
A few weeks back, I wrote in a post that I’m beginning to wonder whether the process of adapting to a changing environment has become harder for arts organizations than it needs to be because many arts funders seem to be fixated on the idea that future success will come only through ‘radical innovation’. I suggested that perhaps we More...
Homesteading the Performing Arts
by Adam Leipzig
“I don’t think I can support myself as a playwright at this point,” Tony Kushner recently told a reporter.
Tony Kushner has written more than 20 plays, including Angels in America, and Homebody/Kabul. He’s won two Tony awards and the Pulitzer. If he can’t support himself in theatre, no one can.
What is it about American theatre More...
Girls Gone? Wild.
by Ulli K. Ryder
Just for the record: I am not a slut and I would be offended if anyone called me a slut. But not everyone feels this way. Some women are trying to reclaim the term, like gays have reclaimed the term “queer.” I’m not sure I agree with this mission but, like it or not, sluts are coming out of the dark bars and nightclubs and taking to the More...
Performing Arts Hold Their Own
by The NEA
“The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it,” said American author Henry David Thoreau more than 150 years ago. Time and Money: Using Federal Data to Measure the Value of Performing Arts Activities is a new research note from the National Endowment for the Arts that looks at the value of the arts in three wa More...
Devil’s Advocate
Guest column by Donald Freed
The project that was to become the play Devil’s Advocate began with a telephone call from the legendary American director Robert Altman. Bob’s aim was to introduce me to the Academy Award-winning film producer Barry Spikings. They had been riveted by the United States invasion of Panama on Christmas Eve 1989. More...
Reason for Theatre
By Adam Leipzig
If windmills can be knights in battle, then chairs with wheels can be windmills.
Standing on the shoulders of Cervantes, Kafka and Beckett, the play La Razón Blindada (Armored Reason) is a work of theatre that’s simple and complicated at the same time. The play is simple because it is made out of poverty – two actor More...
