the week of november 29 - december 3, 2021
only cups of tea and history
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this week in debacles: paradise blue at the geffen
Last week, Dominique Morisseau announced in a Facebook post that she had pulled her play Paradise Blue from the Geffen Playhouse one week after its opening, citing multiple reports of harm against Black women artists involved with the production.
Morisseau did not describe the alleged incidents in detail, but wrote: “Harm was allowed to fester. Grow. And go un-checked. I caught wind of it, as I was not involved in the process. I then investigated it personally. And ultimately, refused to stand for it…When Black womxn are verbally abused and diminished, and this is brought to the attention of the theatre by myself and other creatives, and the theatre applauds the Black womxn for how they “take” the abuse…I say no more. We are not to be applauded for suffering.”
The Geffen confirmed the cancellation and issued a statement in response, acknowledging their culpability in the matter:
An incident between members of the production was brought to our attention and we did not respond decisively in addressing it. As a result of these missteps, some members of the production felt unsafe and not fully supported….We continually examine our best practices so artists and staff feel safe and can achieve their best work. In this case, we acknowledge having fallen short of this commitment.
I await the LA Times’ follow-up reporting — because they’re on it.
in-person theatre
The Goodman Theatre’s New Stages Festival is now running through December 19th. The festival features developmental productions of Max Yu’s Nightwatch (directed by Chay Yew) and Martin Yousif Zebari’s Layalina (directed by Sivan Battat), with staged readings of Beth Hyland’s Fires, Ohio (directed by Marti Lyons); José Rivera’s Your Name Means Dream (directed by Audrey Francis); and Dael Orlandersmith’s Watching the Watcher (directed by Neel Keller). The line-up also includes Jo Cattell’s Hummingbird, a “a live, immersive adventure that transforms theatrical storytelling utilizing cutting-edge, virtual reality technology.”
Tanya Ronder, Jim Fortune, Rufus Norris’ Hex starts performances December 4th at The National. Directed by Norris, the musical is a retelling of Sleeping Beauty.
James Graham’s new political drama Best of Enemies runs December 4 - January 22 at the Young Vic. The Headlong co-production, directed by Jeremy Herrin, is about the 1968 nightly televised debates between William F. Buckley Jr. and Gore Vidal.
digital theatre
The Broadway production of Lynn Nottage’s Clyde’s will be available to livestream. The last sixteen productions of the run will be broadcast live to a limited virtual audience for $59 — which is also the lowest ticket price available to in-person audiences.
america’s next top artistic development model
Baltimore Center Stage, Woolly Mammoth, Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, and Long Wharf announced the formation of the Artistic Caucus, a new initiative to support season planning and artistic development at all four institutions. The joint effort employs a group of freelance artists who will “read new plays and proposals, scout projects, and facilitate relationships with artists on behalf of all four theatres…the theatres are venturing to open up the frequently competitive and opaque artistic development process by working with artists to help identify projects, paying them for their expertise, and positioning the different artistic priorities for each organization as a place of strength and cooperation.” The four inaugural Caucus members are Marie Cisco, Nailah Harper-Malveaux, Adil Mansoor, and Regina Victor.
2022 season updates
The Under the Radar Festival announced its 2022 line-up. Projects include Jasmine Lee-Jones’s Seven Methods of Killing Kylie Jenner (the production will subsequently transfer to Woolly Mammoth), Annie Saunders and Becca Wolff’s Our Country, Inua Ellams’ An Evening with an Immigrant (the solo show will then tour at Oklahoma City Rep and Stanford University), Roger Guenveur Smith’s Otto Frank, and the return of María Irene Fornés MUD and Philip Glass’ Drowning at Mabou Mines.
The Almeida announced its spring 2022 season. The London company will present the previously announced, COVID-delayed productions Jeremy O. Harris' “Daddy” (directed by Danya Taymor) and Beth Steel's The House of Shades (directed by Blanche McIntyre), as well as Omar Elerian’s new version of Eugène Ionesco’s The Chairs, and the nine-part short play collection The Key Workers Cycle.
NYU Skirball announced its winter/spring season. Projects include Classical Theatre of Harlem’s production of Will Power’s Seize the King (directed by Carl Cofield), the world premiere of Elevator Repair Service’s Seagull, and the world premiere of The Builders Association’s virtual performance I Agree to the Terms.
National Black Theatre announced its 2021-22 season. The line-up includes James Ijames’ Fat Ham (directed by Saheem Ali, Public Theater co-pro), Jonathan McCrory’s chamber musical The Gathering: A Collective Sonic Ring Shout, Somi Kakoma’s modern jazz play Dreaming Zenzile (directed by Liliana Blain-Cruz, NYTW co-pro). The company will also present two digital commissions: Ngozi Anyanwu and Lelund Thompson’s The First Twenty and Jonathan McCrory’s visual sonic opera The Roll Call: The Roots to Strange Fruit.
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.)
Development Assistant, A.C.T. (full-time non-exempt): $19.23/hour for an annual base salary of $39,999
Living Wage for San Francisco: $69,072
General Management Associate, Lucille Lortel Theatre: $45,000
Living Wage for NYC: $51,323Assistant to the VP & Executive Producer of Theater, The Kennedy Center: $40,000 - $45,000
Living Wage for DC: $51,245
Stephen Sondheim died last Friday at age 91. Grief takes many forms and mine has been a week-long YouTube k-hole, balancing my sadness with my Raúl Esparza thirst and watching Mandy Patinkin and Bernadette Peters gaze at each other with love and finality at the end of the first act of Sunday in the Park with George approximately four thousand times like a true masochist. There are countless obituaries and moving tributes, but if I can recommend one that perfectly expresses how Sondheim’s work stirred up that bone-deep sense of feeling known, it’s this gorgeous essay by Helena Fitzgerald:
Genius is a rotten, filthy-handed word, culpable and useless, and also Sondheim is one of about three people to whom I would sincerely apply it. Starting in the 1950s, he revolutionized musical theater, recreating the art form whole-cloth in his image. His influence on multiple generations cannot be quantified; there are few corners it does not reach, a ripple from a stone that spreads all the way to edges of the lake. Sondheim as much as anyone is the story of art in the twentieth century, and how it gets from there into the present day. I know all of this; I know the form and size of his legacy, where it lives and what it did and how wide it reaches. But, like everyone else who loves Sondheim, on some level I still believe that I’m the only person who knows about Sondheim…
Understandings of Sondheim’s work changed in my lifetime. When I was young and his music belonged to my parents’s generation, liking Sondheim was considered sort of elitist, the New Yorker cartoon of musical theater. Reviews talked about how cerebral his work was, a crossword puzzle and not a love story, cleverness over feeling. When I listen to the music now, it is hard to believe that this was ever how people thought of it. His songs are certainly full of playful rhymes and super-speed patter and self-satisfied verbal twists and turns. But the meat and the meaning of them is in the collision of that dexterity with overwhelming emotion. Technical prowess becomes a container for feeling. All of those sharp corners and flourishes exist to aim the targeted weapons that make one or many of us in the audience feel like this song is about us and nobody else.
