the week of october 5 - 9, 2020
a quick one, while she's away
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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*rubs temples down the bone*
Broadway producer Jeffrey Richards announced a second edition of a weekly series of celebrity-led Zoom readings to benefit The Actor’s Fund. Here are the plays:
Gore Vidal’s THE BEST MAN
Kenneth Lonergan’s THIS IS OUR YOUTH
David Mamet’s RACE
David Mamet’s BOSTON MARRIAGE
Anton Chekhov’s UNCLE VANYA (adapted by Neil LaBute)
Donald Margulies’ TIME STANDS STILL
Robert O’Hara’s BARBECUE
Everyone is rightly dunking on the all-male, nearly-all-white line-up of writers, which feels like a time capsule — it’s more reflective of the syllabus from the “Contemporary American Playwrights” class I took in 2005 than the current moment. One Mamet play wasn’t enough…so you program two? So many contemporary Chekhov adaptations out there…and you’re going with Neil LaBute? Come on, man. I’m so tired!
shutdowns & bailouts
In not surprising but still devastating news, The Broadway League officially extended the shutdown; theatres will remain closed through May 30, 2021.
Remember that big $2 billion UK arts bailout back in July? None of the funds have been distributed yet, leaving many theatres in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland on the brink of collapse. The Arts Council blames “the volume and complexity of the applications”, but the money won’t help the still out-of-work freelancers and artists: funds are to be used solely “to keep their operations and buildings going. No money must go towards making new work, or to pay technicians and performers.”
assorted news
Larissa FastHorse won a MacArthur Fellowship! The 21 ‘Genius Grant’ recipients each receive $625,000, distributed over five years. The foundation wrote: ““Larissa FastHorse is a playwright and performing arts advocate illuminating Indigenous processes of artmaking and storytelling as well as Native American perspectives on contemporary life. A member of the Sicangu Lakota Nation, FastHorse combines a keen sense of satire and facility with dramatic forms in plays that are funny, incisive, and, at times, deeply unsettling for audiences faced with the realities of Native Americans’ experience in the United States.”
SITI Company announced their final season. The 30th and final season will run through the fall of 2022, but the company’s teaching and training programs will continue. Co-artistic director Anne Bogart said that the transition had been in process since 2017 and was not due to the pandemic.
staffing news
Stori Ayers is the new Associate Artistic Director of Chautauqua Theater Company. Ayers, a long-time actor, director, and educator with the company, will work on “planning future seasons; inclusion, diversity, equity and accessibility (IDEA) work; and conservatory growth.”
Ruben Santiago-Hudson was named an artistic advisor by Manhattan Theatre Club. Santiago-Hudson received a Tony nomination for directing MTC’s Broadway production of Jitney and will help the organization “with artistic planning and programming.”
Natasha Sinha is the new Associate Artistic Director of Playwrights Horizons. She is currently the director of artistic programs at Signature Theatre and will start her new position in January 2021.
Nicole A. Watson is the new Associate Artistic Director of McCarter Theatre. She is currently the associate artistic director at Round House Theatre, and her position is supported by a major grant from the BOLD Theater Women’s Leadership Circle, which is “focused on advancing the leadership of women artistic directors in professional theaters across the United States.”
2020-21 season updates
Shakespeare Theatre Company announced a revised season, with online, immersive, and eventual live productions. The line-up includes Patrick Page’s All the Devils Are Here: How Shakespeare Invented the Villain, the immersive sound installation Blindness, Eugene Ionesco’s The Chairs, Whitney White directing The Crucible, Lolita Chakrabarti’s Red Velvet, and As You Like It.
The Wilma Theater announced updates to their 2020-21 season. New offerings include a digital capture of a site-specific production of Will Arbery’s Heroes of the Fourth Turning, and productions (digital or in-person TBD) of James Ijames’ Fat Ham and New Saloon’s Minor Character.
Marin Theatre Company announced a mix of virtual and live productions, with three world premieres. The 2021 season includes Leila Buck’s interactive game show American Dreams, the digital world premieres of Lauren Gunderson’s The Catastrophist and Denmo Ibrahim’s The Brilliant Mind of Yusef El Musri, and live productions of Adam Rapp’s The Sound Inside and Lauren Gunderson and Margot Melcon’s Georgiana and Kitty: Christmas at Pemberley
Company One announced their 22nd season, with hopes to resume in-person performances in summer 2021. The season includes the digital world premiere of David Valdes’ Downtown Crossing, a new cinematic recording of Idris Goodwin‘s Hype Man: a break beat play, and Inda Craig-Galván’s Black Super Hero Magic Mama.
Philadelphia Theatre Company announced an all-virtual 2020-21 season. The line-up includes a virtual production of Sarah DeLappe’s The Wolves, a radio play of Tony Taccone and Bennett S. Cohen’s It Can’t Happen Here (presented by Berkeley Rep), and a virtual reading of The Tattooed Lady by Max Vernon and Erin Courtney.
things I read this week
Celia Wren on the creation and development of Telephonic Literary Union's interactive audio drama Human Resources at Woolly Mammoth
Vinson Cunningham on how audiences are adapting to the age of virtual theatre
That’s all for this week! I think I wrote and deleted about a dozen half-formed takes, but maybe next week my burned-out sludge brain will return home from the war. (Why does every day feel like it lasts seventeen years?)