the week of july 27-31, 2020
no one is coming to save us, so we have to save ourselves
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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virtual theatre
Ma-Yi Theater Company has opened a physical live capture studio and digital streaming platform to produce their upcoming 2020-21 season. Ma-Yi Studios will also be available to other artists looking to present new digital theatrical works.
The streaming service Play-PerView announced their August programming. Upcoming performances including Amiri Baraka's The Dutchman, starring Dulé Hill, Jennifer Mudge, and Chris Myers; the original company of Kristoffer Diaz’s 2010 Pulitzer finalist The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity; and the TEAM’s RoosevElvis.
Long Wharf will stream Black Trans Women at the Center: An Evening of Short Plays at August 5 at 8 PM. The free event will feature readings of Dezi Bing’s Things Unknown, CeCe Suazo’s You Will Nevaaa..., and Douglas Lyons’ Sunshine.
my favorite season is awards
The Lilly Awards and Dramatists Guild Awards were announced in a joint virtual ceremony.
Bess Wohl was named the inaugural recipient of DGF’s Georgia Engel Comedy Playwrighting Prize, which came with a $10,000 prize. The other DGF winners were Khiyon Hursey, Erika Dickerson-Despenza, Julia Meinwald, Benjamin Velez, Michael R. Jackson, Kia Corthron, Lydia Diamond, and Madhuri Shekar.
Lilly Award recipients included playwrights Antoinette Nwandu, Stacey Rose, Kirsten Childs, Jillian Walker, Donnetta Lavinia Grays; directors Whitney White, Melissa Crespo, Stevie Walker-Webb; costume designer Sarita Fellows; and producer Tom Kirdahy. Playwright and outgoing artist director of the McCarter Theatre Emily Mann received the Lifetime Achievement Award.
reopening watch: 2020-21 season
Woolly Mammoth announced their 2020-21 season of virtual and in-person programming with no set dates. The season includes Ryan J. Haddad’s Hi, Are You Single?; Kareem M. Lucas’ Black Is Beautiful, But It Ain’t Always Pretty; the Bushwick Starr’s production of Heather Christian’s Animal Wisdom; Mike Lew’s Teenage Dick; Madeline Sayet’s Where We Belong; Toshi Reagon and Bernice Johnson Reagon’s Octavia E. Butler’s Parable of the Sower; and Michael R. Jackson’s A Strange Loop.
For Woolly On Demand, the theatre will present art that can be experienced at home by Amir Nizar Zuabi, Telephonic Literary Union (Brittany K. Allen, Christopher Chen, Hansol Jung, Sarah Lunnie, Stowe Nelson, Zeniba Now, and Yuvika Tolani), and Makers Lab.
American Conservatory Theatre announced their 2020/21/22 virtual and live programming, with no in-person performances until June 2021. The five in-person performances are Christopher Chen’s The Headlands; Lin-Manuel Miranda, Thomas Kail, and Anthony Veneziale’s Freestyle Love Supreme; the world premiere of Dominique Morisseau’s Soul Train; A Christmas Carol; Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale; and Stefano Massini's The Lehman Trilogy.
Virtual programming include Madhuri Shekar’s In Love and Warcraft; the Bushwick Starr’s production of Heather Christian’s Animal Wisdom; Virtually Speaking, a new series of in-depth conversations with theatre industry professionals; the radio play A Christmas Carol: On Air; and ACT Out Loud, a new series of play readings.
Hartford Stage is also postponing any in-person performances until June 2021. The company will will focus on its online artistic and education programming, including its digital conversation series, new works festival, a presentation from Reduced Shakespeare Company, and “virtual collaboration in the spirit of A Christmas Carol”.
The Alliance Theatre announced its 2020-21 season, featuring a mix of drive-in theater, socially distanced shows, and a new streaming platform, with no set dates but a tentative late fall 2020 start. The season includes The New Black Play Fest’s Hands Up: 7 Playwrights, 7 Testaments from playwrights Nathan James, Nathan Yungerberg, Idris Goodwin, Nambi E. Kelley, Nsangou Njikam, Eric Micha Holmes, and Dennis A. Allen II; Kendeda winner Matthew Libby’s Data; Marshall Brickman and T-Bone Burnett’s musical Accidental Heroes—The Real Life Adventures of Roy Rogers and Dale Evans; and Lydia R. Diamond’s Toni Stone.
Seattle Rep has postponed their entire 2020-21 season. The company will invest in expanding its arts engagement, new works, and Public Works initiatives in the digital realm.
People’s Light announced “a reimagined 2020-21 season”, focusing on filmed theatrical productions; they hope to resume in-person productions in March 2021. The season include the world premiere of Amy Berryman’s Walden, B. Jeffrey Madoff’s Personality: The Lloyd Price Musical, Robert Harling’s Steel Magnolias. There will also be a series of free play readings, including Eisa Davis’ Mushroom, Steve H. Broadnax III’s Bayard Rustin: Inside Ashland, and Laura Schellhardt’s The Game & The Change.
I’ve been writing this newsletter for three short weeks and it’s fascinating how rapidly the goalposts have moved for reopening dates in that time. The pipe dream of January launches has given way to flexible, non-committal starts with no in-person performances until next summer. It’s devastating that theatres are planning to be dark for over a year, but at least it feels responsive to the reality we’re living in.
institutional anti-racism announcements
Creating a whole new header in the hope that other predominantly white theaters follow suit! In response to We See You W.A.T. demands, Baltimore Center Stage announced its first round of anti-racist artistic practices, prioritizing changes in working conditions and compensation. The measures include a weekly salary of $1,000 for playwrights during rehearsals, instituting a five-day rehearsal week and eliminating 10 out of 12s, and closing the artist pay gap between its two performance spaces.
the (everyone is losing their) jobs report
The Kennedy Center laid off 30% of its staff, eliminating 64 employees and 47 currently vacant positions. Despite receiving a $25 million bailout from the federal government in March, the organization projects a $23 million shortfall for next season. The president is taking a 75% pay cut, “earning just enough to cover her healthcare costs.” (That means she now makes $300,000, which is six times my last annual salary.)
Hartford Stage is reducing their pre-pandemic staff of 200 employees and guest artists to just 21. (These are the most drastic staffing cuts I’ve seen yet.)
The Boston Globe published a bleak round-up of layoffs, furloughs, pay cuts, and operating losses at Boston area theaters. Theaters affiliated with universities, like A.R.T. and Arts Emerson, haven’t had to reduce their staffs.
an update on public advocacy for arts relief
An hour after I sent out last week’s newsletter about arts & culture relief, Helen Shaw slid into my DMs to tell me that she was currently writing about this very thing and the resulting article is excellent. (If you hit a paywall, a New York digital subscription is only $5 a month and it’s worth it for Helen’s commentary and criticism alone.)
I was careful in last week’s newsletter to criticize the absence of public advocacy efforts — I’m a dramaturg, so I’m well-versed in the concept of invisible labor and assumed there was work happening under the radar. But I’m also an Extremely Online news consumer, and in the past five months, local and national media outlets have devoted far more coverage to theatre layoffs than arts relief advocacy.
Helen’s article highlights several existing and ongoing efforts: Be An Arts Hero, IATSE’s phone call campaign, TCG and Performing Arts Alliance’s lobbying on the Hill for various reforms and aid, the work of the PPP Coalition to expand and improve existing legislation. She articulates how this isn’t a failure of action, it’s a failure of PR:
[Executive Director of New Yorkers for Arts & Culture Lucy] Sexton is politic when I ask her why word about these advocacy efforts hasn’t gotten out, but she also insists that the media are complicit. “One mistake we make is thinking that because we’re not seeing [public advocacy], it’s not happening,” she says. She, like other activists I spoke to, is fighting the same fight as the Be An Arts Hero folks: beating the bushes for celebrity names to link to the advocacy work. As I spoke to her, my fury that no multi-hyphenate superstar has stepped forward to be the face of the movement flagged. What is this, a game? Both advocates and editors are trying to find a [Sam] Mendes to fight for the $877 billion that arts add to the American economy, to stand up for the incalculable well-being that the arts promote, to help the unemployed survive. The celebrity dependence on both sides of the equation is incredibly depressing. Are we really not capable of paying attention without a boldface name attached?
Our collective attention span and celebrity endorsement thirst aside, it’s a valid question: where are the influencers, famous “life-long New Yorker” actors, megastars with humble regional theatre origins rallying to the cause? It’s especially frustrating when British celebrities have already successfully mobilized. (My personal lords and saviors Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Olivia Colman launched a theatre community fund yesterday to support UK artists and professionals, joining the pre-existing Theatre Artists Fund, spearheaded by Sam Mendes and supported by Michaela Coel and Emma Thompson.)
I don’t want to see one more press release about a celebrity-led Broadway revival for spring 2021 unless it also announces that the producers and star are donating to theater worker relief funds. This isn’t that hard.
no one is coming to save us, so we have to save ourselves
On that note: here are some organizations providing direct relief to artists and theatre workers (and thanks to my Twitter followers for alerting me to a few of these, this isn’t meant to be comprehensive and I know there are many more):
Artist Relief Fund: An emergency initiative created by a coalition of national arts grantmakers to offer financial and informational resources to artists across the United States
New Black Mutual Aid Fund: A fund dedicated to creating a safety net and providing financial support for Black theatre professionals
See Lighting Foundation: A fundraiser to provide immediate relief for low-income immigrant theater artists
Trickle Up: An artists-helping-artists grassroots network that provides monthly grants to artists, and provides original content from NYC artists via subscription video platform.
Taking Care COVID-19 Emergency Relief Fund: An initiative of theatreWashington, this fund provides emergency monetary assistance to DC-area theatre professionals
Chicago Theatre Workers Relief Fund: Emergency grants for Chicago theatre professionals, including contract, part-time, and those working on stipends.
Theatre Bay Area Performing Arts Workers Relief Fund: Emergency grants for Bay Area theatre workers who have experienced a loss of income due to the pandemic
Wichita Creatives Emergency Relief Fund: $500 rapid response, need-based grants for independent artists, musicians, and performers in the Wichita creative community
Adithya Pratama and Phillip Howze also compiled this fantastic document of relief funds, grants, and resources for mental health, food assistance, and immigration information for artists of color.
If there are similar funds for theater workers in your community, or comprehensive spreadsheets of resources, let me know and I’ll keep a running list.
things i read & found compelling this week
A roundtable with DC-area BIPOC theatre artists Regina Aquino, Thembi Duncan, Deidra LaWan Starnes, Lady Dane Figueroa Edidi, and Paige Hernandez on how the pandemic and the Black Lives Matter movement have shaped their creative processes, and the still unfolding industry reckoning with white supremacy and institutional racism.
Exeunt Magazine on the most exciting artists and discoveries of the abbreviated 2020 New York theater season, and who they want to see more from in a post-pandemic theater world order.
Erika Dickerson-Despenza and Katori Hall in conversation about COVID inequalities and losses and a future in which Black stories are the default, not the exception.
Ira Madison III and Louis Virtel interviewing Katori Hall on Keep It! about adapting her play Pussy Valley into the new Starz series P-Valley and depicting Black Southern culture outside of the white Hollywood gaze. (I love Keep It! because it’s the only culture podcast that effortlessly weaves theatre into a greater conversation about popular entertainment. Highly recommend listening to their past interviews with Tanya Saracho, Tarell Alvin McCraney, Betty Gilpin, Billy Porter, and Jeremy O. Harris.)
That’s all for this week! Thanks to Rebecca Adelsheim for editorial support and being the friend I text all of my pettiest thoughts to instead of tweeting them.
Also: thanks to everyone who weighed in on my next television binge. Pleased to report that I opted for Deadwood, finished the first brilliant season last night, and am a full-on hooplehead now.