the week of october 12-16, 2020
i regret to inform you that theatres are still racist
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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Huntington Theatre *eyes emoji*
On Wednesday, Peter DuBois, the artistic director of the Huntington Theatre, resigned. The Boston Globe reported that “the resignation comes amid months of turbulence behind the scenes at the theater, as staffers expressed their dismay at the theater’s handling of a variety of grievances, including layoffs, diversity issues, and salary transparency.”
The Globe also reported that a group of employees emailed the board last month to express their concern over issues of “retaliation from supervisors and an overall lack of accountability in leadership” and requested “clarity on questions concerning the behavior of Peter DuBois and the board’s investigation…why has [DuBois] not been put on administrative leave?” (I think these employees are incredibly brave to go to the board and leak their own emails to the press and if any of you subscribe to this newsletter, please email me so I can Venmo you.)
The New York Times’ report also cited the Boston BIPOC Theatre Instagram, an anonymous account that curates and amplifies the experiences of BIPOC artists and cultural workers in Boston. In its first month, the account received over a dozen submissions from current and former staffers detailing racism, negligence, harassment, and retaliation perpetuated by Huntington leadership and senior management.
The board statement didn’t include an official reason for DuBois’ departure, but DuBois told the Times via email that “during a time when the theater is not producing, and during a time of truly hopeful cultural transformation, I am no longer the right person for the job.”
I think we’ve all seen enough vague, sketchy “leadership transitions” to know that there’s more to the story here and I suspect it’ll trickle out in the local press over the next few weeks.
the tony awards
The long-delayed Tony Award nominations for the 18 eligible shows of the abbreviated 2019-20 season were announced yesterday. Jeremy O. Harris’ Slave Play received 12 nominations, surpassing the 2018 Angels in America revival as the most nominated play of all-time.
There are a lot of people with a lot of opinions about this year’s nominations — on the eligibility pool, on Aaron Tveit memes, on the question of whether or not celebration is appropriate right now — but I’m not one of them. I think you can be delighted (or happily neutral) for the honored actors, designers, and writers, while also feeling completely devastated about the state of the industry. I’ve said it before, but my only take is that now there’s no excuse not to include acceptance speeches for designers, librettists, and choreographers on whatever weird public Zoom call the Wing throws together for the occasion. Now is not the time to make the labor of arts workers even more invisible.
virtual theatre
Jeremy O. Harris is producing a live digital production of Will Arbery’s Heroes of the Fourth Turning, to air five times over October 21-24. The livestream will be directed by Danya Taymor with the original cast and several designers returning from the Playwrights Horizons production. Tickets are free, but donations will be distributed to NYC-based theatre artists in need.
Jeremy O. Harris is also producing Fake Friends’ Circle Jerk, “a multi-camera, live-stream comedy that investigates digital life and its white supremacist discontents.” The production will stream October 18-23 and tickets are available on a sliding scale.
A hybrid workshop of Psalmayene 24’s Dear Mapel, presented by Mosaic Theater, will stream October 26-31. The autobiographical solo play centers Psalm’s relationship with his deceased father through a series of letters, both real and imagined, and asks if it is possible to alter relationships we have with those who have died. The presentation will be directed by Natsu Onoda Power and feature percussion by Jabari Exum, dramaturgy by Jocelyn Clarke, and videography by Emic Films.
I missed Anne Washburn’s Shipwreck at Woolly Mammoth this winter because I was in rehearsal, but the Public’s four-part radio production of Shipwreck!, starring Raúl Esparza and directed by Saheem Ali, drops today.
assorted news
Aziza Barnes will write the HBO adaptation of Ibi Zoboi’s novel Pride, a contemporary Afro-Latinx retelling of Pride & Prejudice set in Bushwick. (I usually don’t link to TV stuff, but this is such a spectacular, A+ pairing of a playwright and source material.)
Taylor Mac won the 2020 International Ibsen Award. Mac is the first American to win the award, commonly referred to as the “Nobel Prize for Theater.” The honor comes with a cash prize of $300,000.
The very male, mostly white Spotlight on Plays series I wrote about last week wised up/was publicly shamed into better programming: upcoming readings by Sarah Ruhl, Adrienne Kennedy, Larissa FastHorse and Pearl Cleage were announced.
things I read this week
Ashley Lee’s LA Times feature with 40 Black theater creatives reflecting on the insidious racism of the theater industry
Allison Wilmore’s review of Radha Blank’s The Forty-Year-Old Version, which I am finally going to have time to watch this weekend after one million people enthusiastically texted me about it
That’s all for this week! I have no desire to turn this newsletter into a space for my own reviews — I will leave that to actual critics — but I listened/journeyed my way through Telephonic Literary Union’s Human Resources earlier this week and it’s a funny, moving, mesmerizing, meticulously designed experience that’s worth your time and seven dollars. (Woolly Mammoth extended it to November 1st.)
FYI - Taylor Mac uses 'judy' as a pronoun, but generally is just referred to by name, which for a while was Mac's explicit preference. Definitely not he/him, though.