the week of february 1-5, 2021
get ready for the definitive case on why reading White Fragility doesn't make you an ally
Welcome to Nothing for the Group, the newsletter where one dramaturg rounds up one week in theatre news, reviews, and takes.
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Identity design by Elizabeth Haley Morton.
virtual theatre
Audible announced its spring slate of programming. This month’s releases include Adam Rapp’s The Sound Inside (directed by David Cromer and starring the original Broadway cast), Tonderai Munyevu’s Mugabe, My Dad & Me (directed by John R. Wilkinson), James Anthony Tyler’s hop thA A (directed by Stevie Walker-Webb), Daniel Goldfarb’s Men’s Health (directed by Scott Ellis), and Cornelius Eady’s Brutal Imagination (also directed by Walker-Webb).
Mfoniso Udonia’s On Love streams on February 11th at 6:30 PM with MCC Theatre’s LiveLabs. Directed by Awoye Timpo, the play is “a series of 7 short vignettes, poems and songs showcasing the eight different types of love and the depths in which the human emotion can feel.”
Clubbed Thumb’s developmental showcase, Winterworks, will present multiple works over the next month. Upcoming director-driven projects include Max Abner, Corey Umlauf, Ashley Chang, and Joan Sergay’s roost; Michaela Escarcega’s Michaela & You: an indefinite draft and exquisite corpse; Estefanía Fadul’s Untitled Theatrical Tour of Williamsburg; Nana Dakin’s Climate Meditation; Arpita Mukherjee’s A Portal.
A digital stream of Jill Sobule and Liza Birkenmeier’s F*ck7thGrade is now available from City Theatre Company. In a concert film directed by Lisa Peterson, singer-songwriter Sobule “takes audiences through a rock ‘n roll celebration of coming of age and coming out.” (A key indicator of being an old millennial is associating Jill Sobule with the makeover montage in Clueless.)
The Huntington Theatre’s audio production of Mike Lew’s Tiger Style! launched yesterday. Directed by Moritz von Stuelpnagel, it will be released in four installments, alongside a companion podcast Exploring Tiger Style!.
Theater Mu’s multicamera capture of Susan Soon He Stanton’s Today Is My Birthday runs February 6 - 21. The comedy about loneliness in the age of connection is directed by Lily Tung Crystal.
this week in debacles: erin mee & TINATC
An unexpected perk of compiling this newsletter is the random DMs/emails I get with links saying, “Have you seen this mess?” and I received several this week about a Facebook thread from Nicole Orabona, a former This Is Not A Theatre Company (TINATC) member, detailing founder Erin Mee’s “racist and unprofessional” behavior.
(FYI: This was a public post and I’ll never recap information from friends-only posts or private Facebook groups. Don’t mistake this policy as journalistic ethics — we’ve been over this, I’m not a journalist — this is my personal code of “out here trying not to be an insensitive twit.” But if you ever see people acting like fools on Al Gore’s internet, I want to know about it.)
Orabona posted a series of email conversations, dating back to the start of the George Floyd protests in late May, as TINATC members discussed how to respond as individuals and as a company of predominantly white artists. Orabona writes that she wants to make sure the group isn’t virtue signaling and commits to examining their own practices and procedures, and it’s all downhill from there. (Kudos to Orabona, who presents the receipts with a narrative flair that doesn’t obscure the clarity of the information.)
The communications are a case study in the insufficiency of good intentions, problematic organizational power dynamics, and the importance of valuing the lived experience of artists of color. In my favorite bit, Erin Mee repeatedly recommends the group read Robin DiAngelo’s White Fragility, then she engages in all the classic behaviors of white fragility: intimidation, defensiveness, paternalism, tone-policing, repeatedly asserting her history of allyship, etc.
The story Orabona weaves is a real journey, culminating in a series of absurd emails from Mee accusing Orabona of plagiarizing an audio project about bathtubs. (It honestly defies my recapping abilities.)
But, as Orabona concludes: “This is about Erin Mee, a white academic from a wealthy background and the scion of an iconic theatre family, resenting being held accountable by someone with neither her privilege nor means…I hope what I have been through serves as an example to other white theatre artists of what not to do and can help create an atmosphere where BIPOC artists feel more able to speak out about our experiences and create the more equitable and just theatre community we all long for.”
assorted news
The Susan Smith Blackburn Prize announced the 2021 finalists. The finalists are Glace Chase, Triple X; Erika Dickerson-Despenza, cullud wattah; Miranda Rose Hall, A Play for the Living in the Time of Extinction; Dawn King, The Trials; Kimber Lee, The Water Palace; Janice Okoh, The Gift; Ife Olujobi, Jordans; Frances Poet, Maggie May; Jiehae Park, The Aves; and Beth Steel, The House of Shades. The winner will be announced in early April and receive a $25,000 cash prize; the other finalists will receive a $5,000 award.
The Playwrights Realm announced the International Theatermakers Awards. The recipients are lighting designer Alexandra Vásquez Dheming, director Danilo Gambini, lighting designer Omar Madkour, playwright Jeton Neziraj, and lighting designer Cha See. The award recognizing five immigrant artists for their critical contributions to the American Theatre, and they’ll receive no-cost O-1B artist visa applications and immigration legal assistance.
2021 season updates
TheaterWorks Silicon Valley revised its 2021 season. The theatre will postpone its in-person mainstage season to October 2021, with eight plays to be presented through August 2022. The productions include Justin Huertas’s Lizard Boy (directed by Brandon Ivie), August Wilson’s Gem of the Ocean (directed by Tim Bond), Madhuri Shekar’s Queen (directed by Jeffrey Lo) and the premiere of Jessica Dickey’s Nan and the Lower Body, directed by Giovanna Sardelli.
things I read this week
J.R .Pierce on what a new Federal Theatre Project could actually look like (American Theatre)
Joey Sims interviewing a collection of theater workers — stage manager, house manager, company manager, and audience services manager — on how they’re getting by during the shutdown (Transitions)
Jordan Levin on how Miami New Drama produced its socially distant theatrical event Seven Deadly Sins, which was performed in vacant storefronts for small rotating groups (NYT)
Mark Fisher’s review of the first three releases of Earwig, a series of experimental audio dramas from Tron Theatre: Stef Smith’s The Deadlift, Hannah Lavery’s There Is Still Something Yet to Discover, and Johnny McKnight’s Tikka (The Guardian)
Lilith Wozniak’s review of the Edinburgh-based puppetry and visual theatre-focused Manipulate Festival’s experiments in digital physicality (Exeunt)
