the week of august 15-19, 2022
the calm before the season opener
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Graphic Design: Elizabeth Haley Morton | Editorial Support: Rebecca Adelsheim
in person theatre
Dominique Morisseau’s Confederates starts performances August 23rd at Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Artistic director Nataki Garrett directs the time-bending drama that traces “an enslaved woman turned Union spy and a brilliant professor in a modern-day private university facing similar struggles, though they live over a century apart.”
Enda Walsh, Gary Clark, and John Carney’s Sing Street runs August 26 - October 2 at the Huntington in Boston. Rebecca Taichman directs the musical adaptation of Carney’s 2016 film, which premiered at NYTW in late 2019.
digital theatre
Julia Izumi’s audio play His Chest Is Only Skeleton premieres August 23rd on Playwrights Horizon’s Soundstage. Sarah Hughes directs the “little meditation on what it is to carry what we can and can't control, and the crossroads of being and belonging.” Izumi’s Regretfully, So the Birds Are will premiere onstage at PH later this season.
Dramaturgs Todd Brian Backus, Nicholas Orvis, and Percival Hornak released the third season of Dungeons + Drama Nerds. The podcast explores the intersection of theatre and tabletop role-playing games.
2022-23 season updates
St. Ann’s Warehouse announced its 2022-23 season. Projects include the US premieres of Emma Rice and Wise Children’s Wuthering Heights and Gina Moxley’s The Patient Gloria (collaboration with Pan Pan, directed by John McIlduff), Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson’s The Jungle, the musical stage adaptation of Monsoon Wedding, and Amir Nizar Zuabi’s public art project Little Amal Walks NYC.
Manhattan Theatre Club announced two additional Off-Broadway productions. The world premiere of Emily Feldman’s the best we could (a family tragedy) (directed by Daniel Aukin) and Rajiv Joseph’s King James (directed by Kenny Leon) join Jeff Augustin’s Where the Mountain Meets the Sea (directed by Joshua Kahan Brody with music by The Bengsons). Qui Nguyen’s Poor Yella Rednecks (directed by May Adrales) will move from its originally announced spring slot to open the 2023-24 season.
Fiasco Theater announced its 2022-23 season. The company will present Without a Net’s production of Pericles, Francis Beaumont’s The Knight of the Burning Pestle (with Red Bull Theater), and a private workshop of Hamlet with Deaf West Theatre.
the regional theatre game of thrones
Taibi Magar and Tyler Dobrowsky are the new co-artistic directors of Philadelphia Theatre Company. Magar and Dobrowsky, who are married, have spent the last ten years as the associate artistic director and director of new play development (respectively) at Trinity Rep in Providence.
Megan Sandberg-Zakian is the new artistic director of Boston Playwrights’ Theatre. Sandberg-Zakian is a Boston-based theatre director, author, and facilitator. She succeeds Kate Snodgrass, who retired this summer after 35 years at Boston University.
Gabrielle Randle-Bent is the new associate artistic director at the Court Theatre in Chicago. Her responsibilities include “advising on season planning for the theatre, managing the development of new work, and setting and articulating new engagement strategies.”
assorted good news
Former Victory Gardens artistic director Ken-Matt Martin received a $30,000 commission from 10 ADs at major regional theatres to write an autobiographical work. The group of ADs said, “The unilateral actions of the Victory Gardens board of directors and the dismissal of our valued colleague hit us where we live. In response, we are collectively committed to support our fellow artistic leader where he lives – by providing financial incentive for him to expand his creative practice, use his voice to make sense of his lived experience, and share the power of that art with our cherished audiences—all across the country. We are commissioning Ken-Matt to make theatre of his experience.”
The entire ACT Seattle Board of Trustees voluntarily stepped down as part of a restructuring to “create a more equitable non-profit leadership model” for the theatre. The new board will have no committee structure and the selection process for the 10-15 trustees will be led by “executive leadership, representatives selected by staff, representatives selected by artists, and three remaining trustees, who will then step down and re-apply for appointments if they wish to resume their positions.”
that’s not a living wage
Here are this week’s featured underpaid job listings, paired with the living wage for a 40-hour work week for one adult with no children in that area and the most recently available 990 data. (You can read more about the methodology here.)
IT Systems Support Assistant at Signature Theatre: “mid-30s”
Living Wage for Arlington County, VA: $57,630
Revenue (2020): $8.9 million / Net Income: -$671,428
Executive Compensation: $193,658 (Artistic Director) / $143,631 (Director of Advancement)
Assistant Lighting Supervisor at Emerson College: $33,700.16
Living Wage for Boston: $57,611
Company Manager at Olney Theatre Center: $40,000
Living Wage for Montgomery County, MD: $53,074
Revenue (2020): $10 million / Net Income: $3.3 million
Executive Compensation: $139,053 (Artistic Director) / $137,681 (Managing Director)
Literary Assistant at Roundabout: $42,000 (overtime-eligible, but I’m curious if reading plays outside of work counts as overtime)
Living Wage for NYC: $56,718
Revenue (2020): $37 million / Net Income: -$12.06 million
Executive Compensation: $952,870 (Artistic Director) / $740,301 (Executive Director)
An excellent summary as always. Thank you!