the week of august 16 - 20, 2021
movin' on up (and out)
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Identity Design: Elizabeth Haley Morton || Editorial Support: Rebecca Adelsheim
digital & in-person theatre
Makasha Copeland’s Fabuloso! streams August 20th at 7 PM at Sideshow Theatre Company. Directed by Micah Figueroa, the reading is part of Sideshow’s House Party series.
The Arboretum Experience, an outdoor, self-guided journey, starts performances at A.R.T. on August 21st. Audience members will explore the grounds, encountering movement experiences and pop-up music/dance performances while listening to four audio plays written collaboratively by Kirsten Greenidge, MJ Kaufman, Melinda Lopez, Sam Marks, Mwalim *7), and Eliana Pipes; the project is directed by Summer L. Williams.
Ngozi Anyanwu’s The Last of the Love Letters starts in-person performance at the Atlantic on August 26th. Directed by Patricia McGregor, the “haunting” world premiere stars Anyanwu and Daniel J. Watts.
The first of what I’m sure will be many revivals of Anne Washburn’s Mr. Burns, a post electric play starts August 27th at Theater Wit. Directed by Jeremy Wechsler, the production reopens the Chicago theatre after a 529-day shutdown.
british theatre
Josh Azouz’s Once Upon a Time in Nazi Occupied Tunisia opens at the Almeida on August 26th. The brutally comic world premiere, directed by Eleanor Rhode is about “home and identity, marriage and survival, blood and feathers.”
Percy and Eleonore Adlon’s Baghdad Cafe streams online August 25 - 28 from The Old Vic. The riotous, wily cabaret adaptation of the 1987 film is directed by Emma Rice.
Chinonyerem Odimba, Nina Segal, and GPT-3 OpenAI technology’s AI debuts at the Young Vic August 23 - 25. A collaboration between artists and artificial intelligence, the project is directed by Jennifer Tang and “asks us to consider the algorithms at work in the world around us, and what technology can teach us about ourselves.”
Winsome Pinnock’s Rockets and Blue Lights starts performances at The National on August 25. Directed by Miranda Cromwell, the new play toggles back and forth between present day and 1840, for “a swirling journey through Black history.”
2021-22 season updates
Baltimore Center Stage announced its 2021-22 season. Projects include Noah Diaz's The Swindlers: A True-ish Tall Tale (directed by Will Davis); the ArtsCentric production of Dreamgirls (directed by Kevin S. McAllister); Anna Deavere Smith's Fires in the Mirror: Crown Heights, Brooklyn and Other Identities (directed by Nicole Brewer, co-pro with Long Wharf); Bakkhai, a new version of Euripides's The Bacchae by Anne Carson with music by Diana Oh (directed by Mike Donahue); and the world premieres of R. Eric Thomas's The Folks at Home (directed by Stevie Walker-Webb) and Eliana Pipes Dream Hou$e (directed by Laurie Woolery).
Enda Walsh’s Medicine will play St. Ann’s Warehouse in November. Currently playing at the Traverse as part of a scaled-down Edinburgh International Festival, the production — “a dark and frequently absurdist work that shatters the boundary between cast and audience…[examining] social responses to mental health concerns, while deconstructing the fabric of theatrical performance” — will also be available to stream at a later date.
Theatre for a New Audience announces its new in-person season, with performances starting in October. The line-up includes Will Eno's Gnit (directed by Oliver Butler), The Merchant of Venice (directed by Arin Arbus), and the first New York revival of Alice Childress's Wedding Band: A Love-Hate Story in Black and White (directed by Awoye Timpo).
the regional theatre game of thrones
Karen Ann Daniels is the new artistic leader of the Folger Theatre. Daniels is currently the director of the Public Theater’s Mobile Unit and succeeds Janet Griffin, who led the theatre for 30 years. She will become of the few artistic directors of color in DC, alongside Maria Manuela Goyanes at Woolly Mammoth, Raymond O. Caldwell at Theatre Alliance, and Hugo Medrano at GALA Hispanic Theatre.
The Public is basically a farm system for artistic directors at this point, as Daniels joins fellow former employees Goyanes, Stephanie Ybarra (Baltimore Center Stage), Shanta Thake (Lincoln Center), Kelly Kerwin (Oklahoma City Rep), Jacob Padrón (Long Wharf), and Jesse Cameron Alick (Associate AD at Vineyard) in leaving the organization for prominent leadership positions elsewhere.
assorted news
Dane Figueroa Edidi and Jenny Koons are the newest artistic ensemble members at Long Wharf Theatre. They join Ryan J. Haddad, Mason Alexander Park, Bryce Pinkham, Madeline Sayet, Dexter J. Singleton, and Awoye Timpo.
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. (You can read more about the methodology here.)
Associate Master Electrician, Olney Theatre Center: $40,000
Montgomery County, MD Living Wage: $53,385Marketing Assistant, Victory Gardens: $31,500 - $33,000 (overtime eligible)
Chicago Living Wage: $38,605Development Associate, Atlantic Theater Company: $40,000 - $45,000
NYC Living Wage: $51,323Development Associate, Theatre for a New Audience: $35,000 - $39,000
NYC Living Wage: $51,323
things I read this week
Rebecca Ritzel’s thoroughly reported deep dive for the New York Times on Christopher Massimine, who finally resigned as managing director of Pioneer Theatre Company two months after a local television reporter uncovered multiple résumé exaggerations. In a statement, Massimine cited his “untreated and at times an incorrectly treated mental health condition.” Rebecca speaks with several of Massimine’s former colleagues and also uncovers additional untrue claims that he was born in Italy, performed on Broadway as a child, and was employed full-time at the Dramatists Guild.
AnaSofía Villanueva in American Theatre on how theatre culture is too organized around alcohol, and why institutions committed to anti-racism and equity need inclusive practices around sobriety.
J.R. Pierce on the Great Restaffing of the American Theatre, highlighting the disconnect between the leaders at the helm and the employees left behind.
(I appreciated the mention of this newsletter and linkback!)This feature has been rattling around my brain all week, and I can’t shake the casual "be open to relocation!" advice from managing directors to laid off and furloughed employees. Even when we’re not in the midst of a pandemic, forcing geographic flexibility is not a sustainable or equitable practice.
Between 2007 and 2011, I moved halfway across the country three times for various jobs. I could do this because I was single with no dependents, but there were significant personal and financial costs. (My starting salaries were 22K, 30K, and 38K; on average, I was expected to start two and a half weeks after the offer date; and for the last two positions I only received $1000 in moving expenses and no transitional housing.)
The presumption that low to mid-level theatre workers can continually uproot their entire lives — with zero regard for any family and community ties, or the limited finances of the average individual without generational wealth — just reeks of executive privilege and reinforces the greatest destabilizing force in the American theatre: the chaotic churn of employee turnover, glamorized as a byproduct of theatre’s elasticity rather than a tell-tale sign of institutional rot.
