the week of december 8-14, 2023
is it friday yet? (yes)
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icymi: a guest essay, bills, bills, bills & call for submissions
Rescripted, 3Views on Theater, and Nothing for the Group co-published the next response in our ongoing series from prominent thinkers and leaders in the field who are thinking beyond crisis and toward transformation. This month’s essayist is estrellita beatriz:
This month’s Bills, Bills, Bills money diary is from an assistant business manager at a LORT theatre juggling a full-time job, online grad school, and queer kickball playoffs:
It’s also time for our semi-annual call for Bills, Bills, Bills contributors! You know the drill: we’re looking for theatre workers interested in anonymously sharing their monthly budgets and writing a seven-day diary tracking how they spend their money.
Jenna and I are specifically interested in diaries from actors, playwrights, directors, artistic directors, executive directors, assistant designers, choreographers, and theater musicians — especially those living and working outside the Eastern US.
To read previous columns to get a sense of the style, the full archive is available here. Other relevant information:
Selected participants will receive a $50 honorarium.
All diaries will be edited for clarity and anonymity and any identifying personal details will be obscured. Contributors will have the opportunity to review and approve their edited diary before publication.
We request that all contributors are transparent regarding their income, rent/mortgage status, student loan status, and current assets/debt.
If you’d like to be considered, please fill out this form. Selected participants will be notified and receive additional details by email.
productions
The world premiere of Joy Huerta, Benjamin Velez, and Lisa Loomer’s Real Women Have Curves is now playing at American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, MA. Sergio Trujillo directs and choreographs the new musical based on Josefina López’s play exploring the immigrant experience, friendship, and big dreams in 1987 Los Angeles.
Lynette Wallworth’s HOW TO LIVE (after you die) is now playing through December 9th at the BAM Next Wave Festival. The Australian storyteller’s solo performance recounts her early adulthood “acting as a Bible-interpreting prophetess in a radical Pentecostal community in Sydney.”
Lisa Schlesinger’s Iphigenia Point Blank: The Story of the First Refugee is now running through December 9th at the Sheen Center in NYC. Marion Schoevaert directs the “public ritual about a woman’s experience of war that fuses theatre together with documentary film, live music and dance.”
Jen Freeman and Sonya Tayeh’s Is It Thursday Yet? runs December 8-23 at the Perelman Performing Arts Center in NYC. The “stunning tapestry of dance, live music and home video footage that invites you into the unique complexities of dancer and choreographer Jenn Freeman’s life following her Autism Spectrum Disorder diagnosis at age 33.”
Christina Baldwin’s Dinner for One starts performances December 8th at The Jungle Theater in Minneapolis. Co-created with Sun Mee Chomet, Jim Lichtscheidl, and Emilia Mettenbrink, the new work combines physical comedy and live music to chronicle the unpredictable mishaps of an annual New Year’s Eve dinner party.
readings & workshops
The 2023 New Stages Festival runs through December 10th at Goodman Theatre in Chicago. The line-up includes readings of Zayd Ayers Dohrn and Tom Morello’s musical Revolution(s) (directed by Steve H. Broadnax III), Stephen Helper & Bobby Rush’s musical Slippin’ Through the Cracks: The Blues Journey of Bobby Rush (directed by Helper & Arminda Thomas), Karissa Murrell Myers’ Black Bear Island (directed by Henry Godinez), Lucy Thurber’s Perry Street (directed by Thomas Sadoski), and Mallory Raven-Ellen Backstrom’s Cephianne’s Reflection (directed by Malkia Stampley).
The 2023 DNA Works Series is now running through December 10th at La Jolla Playhouse. This year’s reading line-up includes Zakiya Young’s Suburban Black Girl (directed by Jacole Kitchen), Miyoko Conley’s Human Museum (directed by Jesca Prudencio), Marike Splint’s site-specific immersive soundwalk 59 Acres, Ayad Akhtar’s McNeal, Peter Kim George’s To Red Tendons (directed by Kat Yen), and Braden Abraham and Gordon Hempton’s audio installation Sound Place Love.
The 2023-24 Starr Reading Series continues December 12 & 13 at the Bushwick Starr. Readings include Michael Oluokun’s Have You Ever Thought About…, “a comedic crash course in the portentous power of proliferous pondering” and lily gonzales’ I must belong somewhere, described as “queer collage that dissects identity formation, violence, and memory.”
Sarah Saltwick’s Rabbits will have a reading December 9th at Vortex Repertory Theatre in Austin, TX. Chris Fontanes directs the three-hander about survivors colliding in a post-apocalyptic world overrun by monstrous rabbits.
streaming
Isaac Oliver’s Lonely Christmas streams live December 11 & 12 from Ars Nova. The “holly-jolly-melancholy show from everyone’s favorite yuletide gay” is co-directed by Jason Eagan and Jack Serio.
awards & commissions
Martyna Majok and Mona Mansour won the 2023 Steinberg Playwright Awards. The prize for early-to-mid-career playwrights includes a $100,000 grant for each recipient.
Ensemble Studio Theatre announced its 2023-24 Youngblood playwrights. The new writers joining the emerging playwright collective are jose sebastian alberdi, Libby Carr, Hanna Novak, Audley Puglisi, Eliana Theologides Rodriguez, Marissa Joyce Stamps, Graham Techler, and May Treuhaft-Ali.
Seayoung Yim is the recipient of the Woolly Mammoth x Black List Playwriting Commission. Yim will receive $10,000 and the opportunity to develop a new work with the DC theatre’s artistic team.
Matty Mahoski is the 2023 recipient of the Write It Out! Prize. The award for playwrights living with HIV includes a $5,000 cash prize and a year of dramaturgical support, culminating with an in-person reading.
The Contemporary American Theater Festival in Shepherdstown, WV announced its latest new play commission. Jeffrey Lieber will write Our Shepherdstown, a contemporary adaptation of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town based on interviews with local leaders and residents. (I’ve often referred to Shepherdstown as my small town fantasy camp, so I can attest to its Grover’s Corners vibes.)
