the week of november 24 - december 2, 2022

the 2023-24 season announcement cycle begins

You’re reading Nothing for the Group, a newsletter where one dramaturg rounds up one week in theatre news, reviews, and takes. If you like this sort of thing:

The Friday weekly round-up is always free — no gods, no masters, no paywalls — but if you’d like to sustain this project (and get access to occasional bonus content), you can upgrade to a paid tier.

If you want to say hi (or send me a press release), you can email me, tweet @halvorsen, or just reply to this email.

Graphic Design: Elizabeth Haley Morton | Editorial Support: Rebecca Adelsheim

in-person theatre

• The Goodman New Stages Festival runs December 1 - 18. The annual new works festival features developmental productions of Gina Femia’s This Happened Once at the Romance Depot off the I-87 in Westchester (directed by Kimberly Senior) and Nancy García Loza’s Rust (directed by Laura Alcalá Baker) as well as one-day readings of Charlie Oh’s White Monkey (directed by Eric Ting), Jeffrey Lieber’s Fever Dreams (of Animals on the Verge of Extinction) (directed by new AD Susan V. Booth), Omer Abbas Salem’s Modern Women (directed by Lavina Jadhwani), and Donja R. Love’s What Will Happen to All That Beauty? (directed by Malika Oyetimein).

• Stephen Adly Guirgis’ Between Riverside and Crazy is now in previews on Broadway. The Pulitzer Prize-winning dark comedy originally premiered Off Broadway in 2015, where it was also directed by Austin Pendleton. (The production will be available to simulcast in January/February 2023.)

• Ana Nogueira’s Which Way to the Stage starts performances December 6th at Signature Theatre in Virginia. Ethan Heard directs the “playful yet profound comedy about the roles we perform and transcending one’s ‘type.’”

• Ken Davenport and AnnMarie Milazzo’s new musical Joy runs December 7 - 30 at George Street Playhouse. The world premiere biographical musical based on the life of Miracle Mop inventor/entrepreneur Joy Mangano is directed by Casey Hushion.

• La Jolla Playhouse’s 2022 DNA New Works Series continues through December 12th. The final two readings of the annual festival are Noelle Viñas’s Derecho (directed by Delicia Turner Sonnenberg) and Lia Romeo’s The Agency (directed by Pesha Rudnick).

• Mister & Mischief’s immersive experience 40 Watts From Nowhere is now playing through December 18th at a secret location in Los Angeles. Part memoir and part playable theatre, the “experiential documentary puts you at the controls of the totally rad and totally illegal radio station KLBT.”

---

2023-24 season updates

• La Jolla Playhouse announced its 2023-24 season. The line-up features six world premieres: Anna Deavere Smith's Love All (directed by Marc Bruni), Jenn Freeman and Sonya Tayeh’s inventive dance/original home footage work Is It Thursday Yet?,  Joe Iconis and Gregory S. Moss' The Untitled Unauthorized Hunter S. Thompson Musical (directed by Christopher Ashley), Lisa Sanaye Dring's SUMO (directed by Ralph B. Peña, co-pro with Ma-Yi), Joe DiPietro's adaptation of Sinclar Lewis’ novel Babbitt (directed by Ashley), and one musical TBA.

---

an update

This week, New York Times’ Health reporter Ellen Barry published a feature on Christopher Massimine, the former managing director of Utah’s Pioneer Theatre Company. (This is a gift link, so you shouldn’t hit a paywall.) You may recall Massimine resigned last year after journalist Adam Herbets uncovered multiple résumé exaggerations. (Rebecca Ritzel found more untrue claims in her subsequent NYT reporting.)

Massimine is now going on the record to reassert that “these were not the lies of a calculating con artist, but of a mentally ill person who could not help himself.” (In the article, he reveals he was diagnosed with cluster B personality disorder shortly before his career embellishments were exposed; his resignation statement last summer attributed his actions to an “untreated and at times an incorrectly treated mental health condition.”)

In addition to examining the full extent of Massmine’s personal and professional fabrications — and what his life away from theater looks like now, Barry also explores the psychological research and common misgivings on pathological lying. There is also a notable, palpable tension between Massimine and his former Pioneer staff throughout the article:

In his first month on the job, [Massimine] asked colleagues to secure him a last-minute observer pass to a U.N. conference, then claimed that he had been a keynote presenter, said Kirsten Park, then the theater’s director of marketing. It seemed like an “enormous exaggeration,” but then again, it was theater, she said: “Everybody expects a little bit of fluff.”

She watched him giving interviews to reporters and describing a career of dazzling breadth and achievement. When he brought Ms. Park a news release announcing his Humanitarian Award, she searched for the organization, then the award, online, and found nothing.

“I absolutely thought it was a lie,” she said, but hesitated to report her doubts to superiors. When he flew to Washington to collect the award at the university’s expense, she doubted herself. “Maybe the only worse thing than lying is accusing someone of lying who hasn’t.”

In a painful conversation with university officials, Mr. Massimine learned that a group of staff members from the theater had filed a grievance about him, alleging mismanagement and absenteeism, and that a reporter from the local FOX affiliate was preparing an exposé on his fabrications.

Looking back at this period, Mr. Massimine did not sound particularly remorseful, but instead indignant toward his co-workers: “The audacity that, you know, these employees who have just been fighting me and fighting and fighting and fighting and fighting. And I have been trying to work with them because I had no other choices.” That realization, he said, “sent me into a complete breakdown spiral.”

Ms. Park was one of the few former co-workers willing to comment on the record.

“I have no doubt that Chris struggles with mental health,” she said. “Nearly everyone did in 2020. But lying is still a choice. The urge to lie doesn’t mean you have to. Moreover, knowing this about yourself, continuing to lie and then not disclosing it is also a choice.”

She noted that he had secured a competitive, well-paid position in Salt Lake City with a résumé that falsely claimed that he had a master’s degree and that he was a two-time Tony Award nominee, among other things.

“If this is a characteristic of his illness as he has said, he has clearly been able to use it to his advantage to gain prestige, position and pay,” she said.

---

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.)

• Education Programs Coordinator at Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey: $40,000

  • Living Wage for Morris County, NJ: $50,301

  • Revenue (2020): $2.07 million / Net Income: -$45,533

  • Executive Compensation: $185,000 (Artistic Director)