the week of september 21-25, 2020
it's* so deep in my daydreams (*a 2020-21 in-person season)
Welcome to Nothing for the Group, the newsletter where one dramaturg rounds up one week in theatre news, reviews, and takes.
This newsletter is free — no gods, no masters, no paywalls — but if you’d like to sustain this project, you can support me on Venmo (@halvorsen) or Paypal.
If you want to say hello, you can email me, tweet @halvorsen, or just reply to this email.
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.
if you think you’re still producing in-person shows in March, you’re living in a sweet, sweet fantasy, baby
According to the New York Times, approximately 1,000 employees have been furloughed without pay since April, and the Met’s GM Peter Gelb is already negotiating post-pandemic cost-cutting concessions with labor unions. (The Times also reported this week that the Met paid James Levine a $3.5 million settlement after he was fired for sexual misconduct in 2018. I hope those unions fight like hell.)
It feels like the entire arts and culture sector has been dancing around the bleak reality of an 18-month shutdown since the spring. It’s been sad, frustrating, yet somewhat understandable to watch theatres cling to hope, exacerbated by the government’s criminal negligence and utter failure to provide concrete information or financial relief.
Things are bad and they’re going to get worse. Most theatres have already furloughed or laid off a majority of their workers. (By the way: if you’re in a leadership role and you’re still making six figures this year while most of your staff navigates the byzantine unemployment system, you should be embarrassed and ashamed.) Over the last four months, I’ve seen theatres re-issue season announcements multiple times, each one becoming less rigid and more flexible with increased virtual offerings. It’s clear that some organizations used the summer to radically rethink their producing and artist support models for the next year (there are several in this edition!), but it seems others are still operating in the realm of magical thinking and half-measures. The time for all of that is over, and frankly it’s been over for a long time.
virtual theatre
Hedgepig Ensemble Theatre is presenting virtual readings of underproduced classical plays by women from their recently launched Expand the Canon list. Upcoming readings include Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz’s House of Desires, Fumiko Enchi’s one-acts Restless Night in Late Spring and A Hell of Her Own, and Zora Neale Hurston’s Spunk.
Mile Square Theatre’s reading series Given Circumstances: New Plays in the Virtual World is presenting seven new Zoom works through October 11th. Participating playwrights include Lia Romeo, Kevin R. Free, Nandita Shenoy, Audley Puglisi, Carry Gitter, Dustin Chinn, and Chris O'Connor.
assorted news
Mona Mansour is the winner of the 2020 Kesselring Prize for Playwriting. The award includes $25,000 cash prize, a two-week residency, and a one-year membership at The National Arts Club in Gramercy Park. Mona was nominated by Seattle Rep for The Hour of Feeling (from The Vagrant Trilogy).
John J. Caswell Jr. is the winner of the 2021-21 Paula Vogel Playwriting Award. The Vineyard Theatre’s residency-based award is given annually to an emerging writer of exceptional promise and comes with a cash prize and artistic development support.
Page 73 announced their new virtual residency playwrights: Peter Gil-Sheridan, Sanaz Toossi, Bleu Beckford Burrell, and Emma Goidel. Each playwright will complete an eleven-day online development process with a director and actors, culminating in a free, hour-long virtual event where the cast will read approximately 10 minutes of a play.
Soho Rep. announced Project Number One, a job creation initiative where eight artists will join the full-time staff. Each artist will create a work in any format, including socially distant theatre, digital recording, or written piece, that will be presented for an audience throughout the season. The artists — Becca Blackwell, Shayok Misha Chowdhury, Stacey Derosier, David Mendizábal, Ife Olujobi, David Ryan Smith, Carmelita Tropicana, and Jillian Walker — will receive a $10,000 creation budget, plus a salary of $1,250 a week and healthcare until July 2021. (I think this whole initiative rules, both as a creative solution for right now and as a map for the future. More artists on staff payroll!)
WP Theater announced the 15 artists selected for their 2020-22 Lab. The new cohort includes playwrights Gethsemane Herron-Coward, Nambi E. Kelley, Haruna Lee, Zizi Majid, and Daaimah Mubashshir; directors Miranda Haymon, Chika Ike, Sophiyaa Nayar, Machel Ross, and Katherine Wilkinson; and producers Iyvon Edebiri, B.J. Evans, Kristin Leahey, Ayana Parker Morrison, and Cynthia J. Tong.
Roundabout Theatre Company announced their second annual Roundabout Directors Group. The group was formed last year to “offer resources and provide career assistance to early career directors for the American Theatre who have traditionally been denied equitable opportunities in the theatre industry.” This year’s cohort is Galia Backal, Abigail Jean-Baptiste, Sivan Battat, é Boylan, Miranda Cornell, Ryan Dobrin, Danilo Gambini, Raz Golden, Cara Hinh, Carsen Joenk, Lamar Perry, Jenna Rossman, and Julia Rufo.
(I just want to give a personal +1 to Sivan, Studio Theatre’s brilliant former directing apprentice, and Cara, who assistant directed Vietgone at Studio: I’m so thrilled for both of them!)
2021 season updates
Ars Nova announced their 2020-21 season, including development projects and residences, a series of “off-screen, tactile works”, and the creation of a new digital streaming platform, Ars Nova Supra. The first round of digital shows include Showgasm. (October 8), with guest host Sonia Denis, featuring Odinaka Ezeokoli, Rebecca O'Neal, and Jonathan Teklai; Laura Galindo in Concert! (October 16), featuring Henry Trinder, Isaiah Hazzard, Greg Tock, and Sam Revaz; Find Him (October 23), written and performed by Dylan Guerra; The Other Other (October 27), created by Shayok Misha Chowdhury and Kameron Neal; and A Blue Moon Study by O-die (October 31), created by lim with puppetry created by Marte Ekhougen.
Ars Nova will also present P.S., created by director-developer Teddy Bergman and playwrights Sam Chanse and Amina Henry, with materials designed by Kimie Nishikawa. The work “brings storytelling to audiences as they receive letters at home sent between two characters isolated from each other. The eventual final act culminates in a live, in-person performance that reunites these characters.”NYTW announced their fall slate of Artistic Instigator projects. The line-up includes Denis O’Hare and Lisa Peterson’s What the Hell Is a Republic, Anyway?; Martha Redbone and Aaron Whitby’s in-progress song cycle The Talking Circles; Celine Song’s The Seagull on Sims 4, where Song will attempt to reenact the Chekhov play on the game via Twitch (hell yes); Ayad Akhtar’s solo piece Trump Is Just the Name of His Story; Victor I. Cazares’ Pinching Pennies with Penny Marshall; Dominican Artists Collective’s The Cooking Project; and </remnant>, conceived and created by Theater Mitu.
Soho Rep. announced their 2021-2022 season. The company will eventually present Hansol Jung’s Wolf Play, directed by Dustin Wills, produced in association with Ma-Yi Theater Company; while you were partying, by Peter Mills Weiss and Julia Mounsey with Brian Fiddyment; Omar Vélez Meléndez’s Notes on Killing Seven Oversight, Management and Economic Stability Board Members directed by David Mendizábal; Kate Tarker’s Montag, directed by Dustin Wills; and Jillian Walker’s Untitled Work(ing) for Whitney, directed by Jenny Koons.
St. Ann’s Warehouse announced their fall programming, including streaming productions, in-person rooftop concerts, and art installations. The company will present streams of Emma Rice’s Romantics Anonymous, Phyllida Lloyd’s all-female Shakespeare trilogy (Julius Caesar, Henry IV, and The Tempest), John Cale and Lou Reed's Songs for ‘Drella - A Fiction, and Lou Reed’s Berlin, Live at St. Ann’s Warehouse. Upcoming concert performers include Bobby Previte, Stew, and Baba Bibi.
Playwrights’ Center in Minneapolis announced their 2020-21 season. The PlayLabs festival will be online and expand to include four projects, plus the fellows showcase: Daaimah Mubashshir’s Room Enough (For Us All), Harrison David Rivers’ we are continuous, Jessica Huang’s Mother of Exiles, and Erin Courtney’s Begin, Begin, Begin Again. The Ruth Easton New Play Series will present Jake Jeppson’s No Cure, Dipika Guha’s Getting There, Jonathan Spector’s This Much I Know, Crystal Skillman’s Pulp Vérité, and Rhiana Yazzie’s Nancy. The Center will also launch a brand new online play development project series, In Lab, featuring Heather Raffo’s Tomorrow Will Be Sunday, Dominic Taylor’s Cell Surface, and Ken Urban’s Vapor Trail.
Colt Coeur announced their fall digital 2020 season. The line-up includes virtual readings of Steven Levenson’s Seven Minutes in Heaven; Rehana Lew Mirza’s Hatefuck; Stacey Rose’s America V. 2.1, or the Sad Demise and Eventual Extinction of the American Negro; and Sidikha Ashraf and Adam Harrington’s Holiday Craptacular: A Variety Show to Close Out 2020.
Miami New Drama will present 7 Deadly Sins—Temptations in the Magic City, a site-specific event of seven new commissioned short plays by Hilary Bettis, Nilo Cruz, Moisés Kaufman, Rogelio Martinez, Dael Orlandersmith, Carmen Pelaez, and Aurin Squire. Each play will be focused on a deadly sin (Leslye Headland déjà vu!) and groups of 10 theatregoers will maintain social distance, listening through headphones while actors perform behind the windows of vacant storefronts.
things I read this week
Allison McCann on British-Nigerian playwright/screenwriter Theresa Ikoko and the importance of creating works of Black joy and resilience.
Diep Tran interviewing Hedgepig Ensemble Theatre on their Expand the Canon initiatives, including a list of notable plays by women written before 1960.
That’s all for this week! Thank you to Rebecca Adelsheim and her new kitten Zelda for copy editing this noise, even though Rebecca didn’t understand the references to Mariah Carey’s “Fantasy”. I’ve never felt more like an old millennial.