the week of january 24 - 28, 2022
wading into the Black List discourse
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in-person theatre
The world premiere of travis tate’s Queen of the Night starts performances January 29th at Victory Gardens. The “hilarious, heart-rending family portrait about reckoning with the wilderness of a shared past…[and exploring] masculinity and queerness through the lens of multi-generational Blackness” is directed by Ken-Matt Martin.
Susan Soon He Stanton’s Today Is My Birthday is now playing at Yale Rep. Mina Morita directs he “wise and witty comedy about loneliness in the age of connectivity.”
Robert O’Hara’s reimagined, intermission-free version of Long Day’s Journey into Night is now playing at Audible Theater’s Minetta Lane Theatre. The production, which stars Elizabeth Marvel, Bill Camp, Jason Bowen, and Ato Blankson-Wood, will also be released as an audio production on — you guessed it — Audible.
Liqing Xu’s Yellow Dream$ will have a one-night-only reading on January 31st at Second Stage. The “dark comedy with music that follows an aspiring Asian-American producer and her quest to diversify the white imagination” is directed by May Adrales.
Joshua Harmon’s Prayer for the French Republic opens February 1st at Manhattan Theatre Club. Directed by David Cromer, the world premiere follows five generations of a French Jewish family and is “a sweeping look at history, home, and the effects of an ancient hatred.”
The world premiere of Aleshea Harris’ On Sugarland starts previews February 2nd at New York Theatre Workshop. The “spectacular pageant and spirited meditation on remarkable people transcending difficult circumstances” is directed by Whitney White.
Hansol Jung’s Wolf Play starts performances February 2nd at Soho Rep. Dustin Wills directs the “mischievous and affecting new play about the families we choose and unchoose.”
Sanaz Toossi’s English begins February 4th at the Atlantic Theater Company. Knud Adams directed the Iran-set world premiere, which follows four adult students prepping for the TOEFL.
Charly Evon Simpson’s sandblasted premieres February 6th at the Vineyard. The WP Theatre co-production, directed by Summer L. Williams, is a “deeply stirring, funny, theatrically daring story of waiting and hoping, time and healing.”
playwright news
Martin González De León is the 2022 Page 73 Playwriting Fellow. González De León will receive artistic and financial support to develop one or more new plays with an unrestricted award of $10,000 and a developmental budget of up to $10,000 for research, workshop and reading presentations, and fees for collaborating artists.
The Black List is expanding into theatre. The platform for undiscovered television and film writers is widening its scope to include playwrights and musical theater writers. As part of the expansion, Miami New Drama, Victory Gardens, Woolly Mammoth, and The Movement Company will each extend a $10,000 commission to a writer found through the List.
There’s a lot of conversation swirling about this program, since writers are asked to pay $30/month to host one script on the server. Devoted Nothing for the Group readers know that I suffer from the disease of never minding my own business, so I posted some hot take concerns and Black List founder Franklin Leonard responded. I thought his reply, and our subsequent DMs, were very thoughtful. I’m glad there are fee waivers and an ecosystem of free opportunities built within the platform. I also appreciate that he’s willing to engage with criticism and acknowledges that skepticism from playwrights is warranted, given the historical lack of industry transparency and accountability. (The Black List hosted an open town hall and Q&A for Dramatist Guild members on Wednesday.) I still think there’s work to be done with regards to the disparate potential return-on-investment for playwrights versus screenwriters. These are two vastly different industries and the financial rewards of play commissions or productions are not comparable to screenplay sales. Any service promising access and opportunity for playwrights should factor this disparity into its fee structures. The program is obviously in a nascent stage, so I’ll be curious to see how it evolves.
things I read this week that were not leslie jamison’s the recovering (which I cannot put down)
Mark Larson’s Chicago Reader interviews with stage managers and front-of-house staff from across the city about the impact of the pandemic, the evolution of their work, and the possibility and uncertainty of their professional futures.
For once, a worthy reason to read The Hill: OSF artistic director Nataki Garrett wrote an op-ed about how the one-two punch of COVID and wildfires affected the company, the undeniable impact of the creative economy, and why the arts needs federal funding:
“I think about the hundreds of thousands of artists around this country who drive so much of our economy but themselves live in poverty. How can we continue viewing an industry that makes up more of our GDP than agriculture and mining combined as a luxury or the purview of the elite? How can we look millions of arts and culture workers in this country in the eye and not take the simple, common-sense steps to simultaneously make their lives and our economy more secure and robust? How can we continue cutting arts programs in schools when we know that students who participate in arts education are more likely to go to college and less likely to go to jail?”
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.)
Programming Assistant, Mayo Performing Arts Center: $30,000 - $33,000
Living Wage for Morris County, NJ: $47,203Foundation & Government Giving Assistant, Roundabout Theatre Company: $42,000
Living Wage for NYC: $51,323Business Assistant, Manhattan Theatre Club: “40K range”
Living Wage for NYC: $51,323
upcoming paid subscriber treat
Next week, I’ll be sending out the first edition of Season Planning Futures, a new subscriber-only feature where I'll talk about trends, developments, and my personal predictions for the upcoming 2022-23 regional theatre season.
When I was a literary manager, I used to casually bet on season announcements (i.e., derail artistic meetings with my gossipy but educated theories). Season Planning Futures aims to recapture that energy. It’s kind of like fantasy sports — which I have no context for outside of the FX series The League — except it's for plays. If that sounds appealing:
