the week of october 19-23, 2020
dispatch from the suburbs
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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If you’re an artist or administrator in financial need, or if you’d like to directly support theatremakers in your community, here’s a great round-up of local and national grants and resources from Creative Capital.
virtual theatre
WP Theatre and Aye Defy will broadcast a virtual production of Obehi Janice’s Ole White Sugah Daddy on October 23. The performance will be rebroadcast October 24-27.
Elevator Repair Service’s latest work-in-progress Baldwin and Buckley at Cambridge is streaming until October 25th, as part of the 2020 Prelude Festival.
Manhattan Theatre Club launched a virtual theatre channel with a new weekly reading series. The line-up includes Long by Charlie Oh (November 10), (An Audio Guide For) Unsung Snails and Heroes by Julia Izumi (November 17), Ball Change by Brittany K. Allen (December 1), As Is: Conversations with Big Black Women in Confined Spaces by Stacey Rose (December 8), and FriendlyMonsters by Penelope Skinner (December 15).
2021 season updates
WP Theater announced an all-virtual 2020-21 season. The season includes live broadcast readings of Obehi Janice’s Ole White Sugah Daddy, Stefani Kuo’s Final Boarding Call, Cori Thomas’ Lockdown, Rebecca Martínez’s immersive live event The Nourish Project, MJ Kaufman’s Galatea, and The Kilbanes’ new rock opera Weightless.
Arizona Theatre Company announced an updated 2021 season, with six in-person shows. Audiences will be limited to 25% capacity and and the theatre will release an exclusive limited-time broadcast for at-home ticketholders. The line-up includes the musical My 80-Year-Old Boyfriend, Lauren Gunderson’s Justice A Musical, Christina Ham’s Nina Simone: Four Women, Wendy MacLeod’s Women in Jeopardy!, Christopher Oscar Peña’s how to make an American son, and Matthew Lopez’s The Legend of Georgia McBride.
Cleveland’s Dobama Theatre announced alternative programming for its 2020-21 season. The theatre will present a virtual immersive theatre festival this month, a filmed production of Greg Vovos’ How to Be a Respectable Junkie (March 2021), and development opportunities for B.J. Tindal’s What We Look Like and George Brant and Nathan Motta’s musical The Land of Oz.
Cara Mía Theatre announced their 2021 season. The line-up includes Dael Orlandersmith’s My Red Hand, My Black Hand; the contemplative visual arts journey Remember. Breathe. Dream.; TBD (no…that’s actually the name of the show); and Latinidades, a festival of indoor, outdoor, and virtual arts and community experiences.
Working Theatre announced its fall digital programming. The line-up includes Leila Buck’s American Dreams; Michael Premo, Rachel Falcone, and Rebecca Martinez’s sound walk Sanctuary (with music direction by Broken Chord); and a benefit reading of Lisa Ramirez’s To the Bone.
About Face Theatre announced its 2020-21 season. The season includes a virtual festival of original plays and performances around the intersection of queerness and Blackness, the video series Power in Pride at Home, and Samantha Mueller’s Laced.
Writers Theatre announced updates their previously revealed all-white season. The theatre will now produce a new original blues revue, Pearl’s Rollin' With the Blues, created by Kimberly Dixon-Mays, Felicia P. Fields and Ron OJ Parson and a digital production of Reginald Edmund’s Ride Share.
things I read this week
Joshua Barone interviewing Anne Washburn on the extended life of Shipwreck
Diep Tran’s explainer on the SAG-AFTRA/Equity feud over streaming rights for theater productions
Helen Shaw’s review of Fake Friends’ Circle Jerk, a “true, non-sterile hybrid of theater and film…born for the online environment, suckled on the dankest basement memes.”
That’s all for this week! Some personal news: I got a job. It’s lowkey accounting/admin work (not in theatre) and it’s exactly what I need right now. Looking forward to having a full-time gig that isn’t the foundation of my identity and eager to figure out what my artistic practice as a dramaturg looks like outside of an institution. (Don’t worry, it definitely includes this newsletter.)
A massive thank you to everyone who supported me after my layoff, and continued to do so over these last few months of unemployment. My new health benefits won’t kick in until January and the Venmo/Paypal donations from all of you will have totally covered my four months of exorbitant COBRA payments. It’s been a sad, lonely, physically and emotionally exhausting time and I’m grateful for all of your kind emails, freelance offers, and contributions.
In other news, I had to unexpectedly move out of my apartment last night (surprise emergency bathroom renovation!) but temporarily relocating to the suburbs means that my favorite dynamic duo Atticus and Belle got to give their notes on this week’s newsletter. Here they are in their Halloween costumes:
