the week of december 7-11, 2020
tfw you'd rather publicly implode instead of paying artists
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this week in debacles: it’s still The Flea
Here’s the latest:
December 4th: The day after the Flea’s board dismissed them, the Resident Artists released a letter detailing the history of their negotiation with the Flea over the last few months, and their organizing accomplishments despite resistance and inaction from the Flea’s leadership. They also had one final demand: hand over the keys of the Flea to Black & Brown artists. The collective requested solidarity from the New York theatre community, signing off as “The Fled”.
December 6th: The Flea responded with this statement, inviting the recently dismissed resident artists to apply for two board positions, and included this choice paragraph:
“It was deeply painful to have to end our volunteer programs and we understand and share in the artists’ frustration around that. However, once the theater and the artists mutually agreed to begin compensating artists for their work, it was an unavoidable decision. As a small theater, we cannot afford to keep over 120 artists as paid staff, especially during an economically pandemic.”
This is so embarrassing because it’s so easily refutable. The resident artists never asked the theatre to put 120 artists on salary. They asked to be paid for their work on shows. Why misrepresent the demands when you’re dealing with an organized, tech-savvy collective of artists, armed with receipts? Why would you rather publicly implode instead of just paying people?
December 9th: The Resident Artists publicly and collectively declined the Board’s offer to apply for seats, calling it a move that “lacks integrity and thoughtfulness…an attempt to save face [after public backlash] and silence us.” The artists also responded to the statement with a series of fact checks, and noted that “the time for a shared leadership has passed.”
You can follow the resident artists, now The Fled (@thefledtheater), on Twitter and Instagram.
And, as expected, Twitter suspended the brilliant parody account @fleatheater. Icarus, you flew too close to the sun, but we’ll always have the screenshots:
virtual theatre
The only Christmas Carol I’m interested in (and please know, I am not interested in 99% of them) is Manual Cinema’s Christmas Carol, streamed and performed live every night until December 20th.
Penelope Skinner’s Friendly Monsters, directed by Nicole Charles, will have a virtual reading on December 15th. The event is part of MTC’s Ted Snowdon Reading Series.
Halley Feiffer’s Between the Two Humps, directed by Trip Cullman, will have a virtual reading on December 17th. The comedic one-act is part of MCC Theatre’s LiveLabs series.
If you missed Lileana Blain-Cruz, Saheem Ali, Whitney White, and Machel Ross discussing directing as part of LCT’s Spotlight Series, it’s now available on YouTube.
The UK-based sonic collective Darkfield released a trilogy of immersive at-home audio experiences: Double, Visitors, and Eternal. (I attended one of their audio experiments staged in a shipping container at Edinburgh Fringe — it simulated a plane crash — and it was deeply unsettling and I think about it all the time, mostly when I’m flying over large bodies of water. I have no doubt they will turn your home into a sci-fi dystopia, different from the one we’re currently living in.)
good news that involves Jeremy O. Harris spending his HBO money in A+ ways
Jeremy O. Harris and NYTW announced two $50,000 commissions for new works by Black womxn. In its first year, the commissions will be awarded to two generative artists who are Black womxn: one who has yet to have an Off-Broadway New York production, and one who made a significant impact early in their artistic lives but has not had adequate support of late.
Jeremy O. Harris also announced the publication of The Golden Collection, a tome of 15 plays by prominent Black playwrights. The makers of Slave Play will also donate copies of The Golden Collection, totaling 800 individual scripts, to public libraries and community centers in all 50 states, Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, and Guam. (You can buy it right now from Books & Crannies, a Black woman-owned bookstore in Harris’ hometown.) One of my favorite projects at my last job was advising DC Public Library on how to expand their play collection beyond Miller, Williams, and (ugh) Mamet, so I love this initiative.
Playwrights Horizons' Artists' Relief Fund will offer $1,000 grants to 135 theatre makers. Artists who have “been part of the fabric of the NYC non-profit theatre community, and who have been working in the field for a minimum of three years”, are eligible to apply starting December 14th, but the window closes December 20th (or when they reach 600 applications), so get it done if you need it. 50% of Playwrights Horizons’ fundraising will be allocated to the grants, which are also partially funded from proceeds of Jeremy O. Harris’s presentation of Will Arbery’s Heroes of the Fourth Turning.
2021 season updates
The Alley Theatre canceled its previously announced in-person 2021 season. The company will present an all-digital line-up centered around the resident acting company, including Rob Melrose’s translations of Pirandello’s The Man With the Yellow Flower in His Mouth and Strindberg’s The Stronger, A Half-Sheet of Paper, and Pariah; Mary-Kay Gamel’s translation of Medea; Isaac Gómez’s El Chuco Town Forever (directed by Laura Moreno); Chisa Hutchinson’s Choosing Love, Don X. Nguyen’s Man. Kind. (directed by Brandon Weinbrenner); Jiehae Park’s For Steve Wozniak, On His 67th Birthday; ShaWanna Renee Rivon’s Old Black & White Hollywood; Paul Walsh’s translation of An Enemy of the People (directed by Rob Melrose); and a preview of Shawn Hamilton’s Arnett Cobb Project.
Arizona Theatre Company also suspended its previously announced in-person 2021 season, citing rising coronavirus cases. The company will continue to premiere digital and audio works.
things I read this week
Tori Sampson’s Friends with Money interview with Jeremy O. Harris on his past and current relationship to money, knowing your worth and navigating capitalism as a Black creative, and the fine art of scamming
Larissa FastHorse’s list of plays to read written by Indigenous women
James Jarvis interviewing DC theatre artists (myself included, but also many people I’ve worked with) for City Paper on the financial and emotional hardship of the pandemic on local theatre workers.
Dan Kois on John Patrick Shanley’s extremely horny on main tweets. I will admit that I only had the emotional fortitude to half-skim this one. (I dramaturged Doubt; I have already suffered enough.)