the week of november 5-11, 2022
you can leave your mask on
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Graphic Design: Elizabeth Haley Morton | Editorial Support: Rebecca Adelsheim
in-person theatre
Noah Diaz’s You Will Get Sick is now playing through December 11th at Roundabout. Sam Pinkleton directs the world premiere about the relationship between “a young man holding onto a secret and the stranger he pays to listen.”
Lynn Nottage’s Clyde's starts performances November 16th at LA’s Center Theatre Group. The “electric comedy about the formerly incarcerated staff of a truck stop diner looking to start their lives over in the kitchen under the pressure of the fiery rule of their owner” is directed by Kate Whoriskey.
As You Like It runs November 15 - December 11 at La Jolla Playhouse. The reimagined Shakespearean classic features a cast of trans, non-binary, and queer performers and is co-directed by Christopher Ashley and Will Davis.
The world premiere of Catherine Trieschmann’s The Nativity Variations debuts November 16th at Milwaukee Rep. Shelley Butler directs the small town Midwest-set comedy about “auteur theater director Jules and her experimental community theater troupe facing their biggest and most ambitious challenge yet – staging the Christmas pageant at St. Ignatius Episcopal Church.”
The US premiere of Gina Moxley’s The Patient Gloria runs November 16 - December 4 at St. Ann’s Warehouse. The “irreverent, gutsy, hilariously funny, and strangely moving mash-up of punk rock, satire and yes, therapy” is a collaboration with Dublin-based company Pan Pan.
The world premiere of Lloyd Suh’s The Far Country starts previews November 17th at the Atlantic. Eric Tings directs the “intimate epic that follows an unlikely family’s journey from rural Taishan to the wild west of California in the wake of the Chinese Exclusion Act.”
2022-23 season updates
The Goodman announced the New Stages Festival line-up. The annual new works festival will take place in December and feature 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).
Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival announced its 2023 summer season. Projects include the world premiere of Alex Bechtel, Grace Mclean, and Eva Steinmetz’s musical Penelope (directed by Steinmetz); a repertory of Love’s Labor’s Lost (directed by Amanda Dehnert) and Henry V (directed by Davis McCallum); Orlando Pabotoy’s site-specific audio drama A Listening; and developmental readings of Luis Quintero’s Medea: Re-Versed (directed by Nathan Winkelstein) and Heidi Armbruster’s The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (directed by Ryan Quinn).
pandemic’s not over, babes
Theatre Washington recently surveyed DC-area theatregoers’ opinions and attitudes toward COVID safety protocols. The 2,755 responses — representing theatregoers both pre-pandemic and since theatres reopened in fall 2021 — revealed theatre attendance is down because people are still worried about COVID. (As a DC resident, I’ll note that most businesses, restaurants, and public transit options stopped enforcing masking after the city-wide mandate lifted. It’s a choose-your-own-viral-adventure out there! Seeing a play is probably the safest social activity in town right now because of the theatres’ mask requirements.)
The results yielded valuable data about current attendance rates and masking policies:Among respondents, the average annual number of shows attended dropped from 7.38 (pre-pandemic) to 4.80 (after 2021).
58% previously attended the theatre six or more times, but only 31% did so after theatres reopened. Almost half (46%) of respondents have attended the theatre just three times or less since reopening.
In terms of age group, theatres saw the largest decline in attendance of older audience members, specifically patrons 65 years old and up.
Around two-thirds of respondents (68%) report that concern about getting Covid-19 is a very important reason why they have not attended.
Only 17% have not attended because they do not want to wear a mask at the theatre and only 11% do not want to show proof of vaccination.
48% of respondents stated a preference for mandatory mask-wearing everywhere in theatre venues while about a third (31%) prefer for them to be optional everywhere.
the regional theatre game of thrones
Sarah Slight is the new interim artistic director of Raven Theatre. The dramaturg/literary manager/producer will temporarily oversee the Chicago theatre as it searches for a replacement for Cody Estle, who recently departed to lead Next Act in Milwaukee.
end of an era
16th Street Theater announced it is suspending operations at the end of this year. The suburban Chicago company was founded in 2007 by Ann Filmer, who stepped down as artistic director last year. The board didn’t cite a specific reason for the closure.
In 2019, the Chicago Reader reported on the “mismanagement wrapped in institutional racism” experienced by Black artists during 16th Street’s run of Loy A. Webb’s His Shadow: A Parable. It’s a real clown car of failures: announcing an extension before informing the cast and creative team, hiring Black artists at lower rates, an unnamed staff member calling the cops to the theatre multiple times during closing weekend for no discernible reason. (This is even more egregious once you know that His Shadow is a play about police brutality.) In July 2020, in response to We See You W.A.T., 16th Street Theater issued a statement apologizing for its past mistakes and providing a timeline of actions and future plans for harm prevention.
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.)
Master Electrician at Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey: $42,000 - $47,000 (overtime-eligible after 40 hours/week)
Living Wage for Morris County, NJ: $50,301
Revenue (2020): $2.07 million / Net Income: -$45,533
Executive Compensation: $185,000 (Artistic Director)
