the week of may 23-27, 2022

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Note: I wrote the bulk of this week’s newsletter on Monday and Tuesday before the news broke about the elementary school shooting in Uvalde, TX. I don’t know how Americans are expected to soldier on when we live inside so many overlapping structures of mass misery. I don’t know how anyone parents in a country that fetishizes birth more than the safety and health of actual children. I don’t believe we can effectively shame morally bankrupt legislators whose power is built on and sustained by gratuitous suffering. At this point, the only hope I have is that we can somehow channel our collective rage to combat this gross inertia — to fuel something more radical and transformative than hollow calls to “go vote!” — but the gravitational pull of nihilism is hard to resist this week.

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in-person theatre

*not to slight other weeks, but as I was compiling this round-up I thought, “Yeah, I’d leave my house to see that” for every single one of these projects and I famously do not like venturing into summer’s unholy humidity because I have the disposition of a frail Victorian heiress

• Common Ground Revisited starts performances tonight at the Huntington in Boston. The world premiere is co-conceived by director Melia Bensussen and playwright Kirsten Greenidge and based on J. Anthony Lukas’ Pulitzer-winning book Common Ground, which follows three Boston families through the 1970s as they experience Boston’s attempt at school desegregation through court-mandated busing. (The production is also available to stream.)

• The world premiere of R. Eric Thomas’ Crying on Television starts performances May 31st at Everyman Theatre in Baltimore. Reginald L. Douglas directs the “ platonic rom-com about four strangers in an apartment building, the notion of loving TV characters as much as your real friends, and trying to form genuine friendship connections as adults.”

• Jackie Sibblies Drury’s Fairview runs May 31 - June 18 at the Wilma Theater in Philadelphia. The 2019 Pulitzer Prize-winning drama is directed by this year’s Pulitzer winner James Ijames.

• Bakkhai, a new version of The Bacchae by Anne Carson and featuring original music by Diana Oh, runs June 1 - 19 at Baltimore Center Stage. Mike Donahue directs the “immersive explosion” of the Euripides classic.

• The Global Forms Theater Festival at Rattlestick will run June 1-12. The annual festival will feature workshops, readings, cross-cultural conversations, and showcase works by immigrant theatre artists.

• Camilo Quiroz-Vázquez’s Quince runs June 2 - 19 at the Bushwick Starr. The vibrant immersive experience is directed and co-created by Ellpetha Tsivicos and tells the story of “a 15 year-old Chicana confronting her queer identity, family and religion on the eve of her quinceañera.”

• Duncan Sheik and Kyle Jarrow’s new musical Noir starts previews June 2nd at the Alley Theatre in Houston. Darko Tresnjak directs the world premiere about a recently heartbroken man’s obsession with his new neighbors.

• Qui Nguyen’s Revenge Song starts performances June 2nd at Oregon Shakespeare Festival. The irreverent musical story, centering on Julie d’Aubigny, a “queer 17th-century rule-breaking, sword fighting, opera-singing transgressor of boundaries”, is a Vampire Cowboys creation and directed by Robert Ross Parker.

• Will Arbery’s Corsicana runs June 2 - July 10 at Playwrights Horizons. Sam Gold directs the Texas-set world premiere, which follows a woman with Down syndrome and her half-brother forging new relationships after their mother’s death.

digital theatre

• Michael Patrick Thornton’s ten-episode 1940s-set radio drama Mud City will be available for download June 1st from The Gift. The project is the largest collaboration in the Chicago storefront theatre’s history.

• Ars Nova’s ANT Fest runs in-person June 2 - 16 and each show is also available to stream on their Supra platform. The festival line-up includes its usual array of delightfully unhinged project titles: Jenny Larson’s Catalina La O Presenta: Now With Me; Mars Wolfe’s Bill, Bill, Billz (Directed by Jess Maynard & Wolfe); Scottie Harvey’s Something’s in the Water at Abortion Beach!; Reynaldo Piniella’s Black and Blue (directed by Kevin R. Free); Alexa Derman’s I'll be in my Hanukkah palace (directed by Molly Houlahan); Marissa Joyce Stamps’ deadbodydeadbodydeadbody; William Sydney’s The Apostle Peter and His Lover John, Also an Apostle (directed by Molly Rose Heller); evan ray suzuki’s my saturday night did NOT go as planned :); Isabelle Barbier’s Rip Her To Shreds (directed by Mariana Catalina); Char Nakashima-Conway’s untitled Waifu play. (directed by Jonathan Chang); Connor Rohr Driscoll, Noah K Mease, and Ryan Courtney’s *keysmash*; Diana Lobontiu’s My Cousin Nelu Is Not Gay (directed by Elissa Goetschius); Evan Silver aka Tiresias’ Tiresias Presents HYPERFANTASIA; Amelia Bethel & Karen Loewy Movilla’s Tía Talk; and, of course, Showgasm.

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2022-23 seasons

• Berkeley Rep announced its 2022-23 season. Projects include Wise Children’s Wuthering Heights (adapted and directed by Emma Rice), Lynn Nottage’s Clyde’s (directed by Taylor Reynolds, co-pro with Huntington), Signature Theatre’s production of Lauren Yee’s Cambodian Rock Band (directed by Chay Yew, in association with the Alley), Sanaz Toossi’s English, National Theatre of Scotland’s production of Jack Thorne’s Let the Right One In (directed by John Tiffany), Ari’el Stachel’s solo show Out of Character (directed by Tony Taccone).
  
  (Berkeley Rep out here supporting my Season Planning Futures prediction in January about an increase of co-pros and enhanced productions.)

• Studio Theatre announced its 2022-23 season. The DC theatre will produce the world premiere of James Ijames’ Good Bones (directed by Psalmayene 24); Will Arbery’s Heroes of the Fourth Turning (directed by Sivan Battat); Lynn Nottage’s Clyde’s; Duncan Macmillan’s People, Places & Things (directed by David Muse); Sanaz Toossi’s English; and Jeanine Tesori and Lisa Kron’s Fun Home (directed by Muse).

• Signature Theatre in Virginia announced its 2022-23 season. The line-up includes three Sondheim revivals — Into the Woods (directed by Matthew Gardiner), Pacific Overtures (directed by Ethan Heard), and Sweeney Todd (directed by Sarna Lapine) — plus Ethan Lipton's No Place to Go (directed by Gardiner), Ana Nogueira's Which Way to the Stage (directed by Heard), Sylvia Khoury's Selling Kabul (directed by Shadi Ghaheri), and Stew and Heidi Rodewald’s Passing Strange (directed by Raymond O. Caldwell).

• Primary Stages announced two new additions to its 2022 season. The resident company at 59E59 will present Clarence Coo’s On That Day in Amsterdam (directed by Zi Alikhan) and Jiehae Park’s peerless (directed by Margot Bordelon).

• The Cape Cod Theatre Project announced its 2022 season. The selected plays are Gina Femia’s The Violet Sisters (directed by Taylor Reynolds), Anna Ziegler’s The Janeiad (directed by Lisa Peterson), Brittany K. Allen’s Ball Change, and Lameece Issaq's Good Day to Me Not to You.

Since we’re nearing the end of season announcement roll-outs, I have some notes:

• I do not need a livestreamed event or flashy video or Instagram reel with bad royalty-free music announcing your line-up. Give me one page on your website — clearly linked from your homepage — with the season titles, artists, slushy dates, and short descriptive blurbs that don’t feature the phrase “now, more than ever”. This is the one time when a marketing department can feel free to do less! I’m so tired of having to embark on a magical mystery tour of clicks and scrolls through a poorly site-mapped website to find basic information like the playwright’s name.

• Why does every theatre’s website look the same? Enormous images that are totally out of proportion, annoying pop-ups about joining the mailing list, whatever the Pantone color of the year was 2-3 years ago. If I’m greeted with one more oversized, rotating carousel of events, I’m gonna lose it. When did it become on trend to list writers and directors in miniscule font at the bottom of show pages? I’m not going to publicly shame the theatres that do this, but you can’t espouse that you value artists when trying to deduce who wrote the plays in your season is harder than solving a Where’s Waldo puzzle.

  
  I think the issue here is a flawed institutional website design process. I was integrally involved in both of Studio Theatre’s rebrands/site revamps during my nine years there. When I’m looking at other newly launched sites now, it’s obvious to me when an artistic/literary department isn’t consulted. There are so many stakeholders in a design process: Marketing is focused on hawking subscriptions and creating a pain-free ticket-buying process for people who rely on their children for tech support. Development is trying to slap a big-ass Donate button on every page. Everyone is stressed about Tessitura integration. It was my job to say, “Uh, why isn’t the playwright’s name under the play title?”, “What’s the point of generating all this show content if you’re not going to archive it in the production history?”, and “If our homepage has an oversized, rotating carousel of events, I’m gonna lose it.” Ticket sales and donations are obviously crucial, but a theatre’s website shouldn’t prioritize them to an extent that ultimately decenters the artists behind the work.

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the regional theatre game of thrones

• Patricia McGregor is the new artistic director of New York Theatre Workshop. The director succeeds James C. Nicola, who has led the company for 34 years.

• Adam Immerwahr is leaving Theater J in DC after six seasons as artistic director. He has accepted a soon-to-be-announced leadership position at a theatre in another city.

• Jada Suzanne Dixon is the new artistic director of Curious Theatre Company. The long-time company member succeeds the Denver theatre’s founders Chip Walton and Dee Covington.

• Brian Vaughn, the artistic director of Utah Shakespeare Festival, abruptly resigned. The company’s 2022 season starts next month; Vaughn has been artistic director since 2011, but his involvement as a director and actor dates back three decades. No details on the reason for his resignation were provided, except “the Festival cannot comment on the specifics of individual personnel matters.” That is some curt PR language that you know was reviewed by multiple lawyers.

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things I read this week when I wasn’t listening to normal gossip

• Nicole Hertvik’s thorough reporting on the toxic work conditions and leadership failures at DC’s Spooky Action Theater (DC Theatre Arts)

• Shakespeare Theatre Company’s production department is now unionized with IATSE Local 22.

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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 and the most recently available 990 data. (You can read more about the methodology here.)

• Academy for Classical Acting Program Coordinator, Shakespeare Theatre Company: $42,640

  • Living Wage for DC: $52,549

  • Expenses (2020): $19.7 million / Revenue Less Expenses: $-6.39 million

  • Executive Compensation: $280,005 (Executive Director)

• Community Engagement Manager, South Orange Performing Arts Center: $30-$40K

  • Living Wage for Mercer County, NJ: $41,332

  • Expenses (2020): $2.35 million / Revenue Less Expenses: $-145K

  • Executive Compensation: $107,477 (Acting Executive Director) (The full-time executive director made $154,500 the previous year.)