Innholdsfortegnelse for September 2017 i American Theatre

WHAT’S IN A NAME? OF THE SEVEN CONTEMPORARY theatremakers I spoke to for this piece, not one was happy with the term “documentary theatre” to describe their work. All had reasons for rejecting it: it felt too clinical, or they didn’t know what it meant, or they felt that other people were pursuing it more seriously and didn’t want to falsely lay claim to it. Marianne Weems, artistic director of the Builders Association, spoke for several artists when she confessed, “I don’t relate to the scholarly aspect of the field.” And yet each of these artists is undeniably engaged in creating some kind of documentary theatre, meaning that they draw from factual source material to craft their work and tell engaging stories in direct conversation with our present reality. Above…

IN THE SPRING OF 1978, SANFORD ROBBINS, then head of a new actor-training program at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM), went to Japan on a fellowship to study Kabuki, Noh, and Bunraku. As Robbins tells it, he had to ply his Japanese host with sake in order to get an introduction to any contemporary theatre artists. One of them was an avant-garde director making waves at a warehouse in Waseda. His name was Tadashi Suzuki. Robbins’s response to what he saw in Waseda— “Sometimes you find something that you didn’t know you were searching for,” he declared this past June—triggered a chain of events that led to American actors traveling to Japan, Suzuki touring his visually impressive productions to the United States, the creation of what became the renowned SITI…

NATIONWIDE: In June the Kilroys released the fourth edition of their annual list of new plays by women and transgender writers. In the top two positions on the 2017 list is Lauren Yee, with the plays Cambodian Rock Band and The Great Leap. These are two of 37 on this year’s Kilroys List, selected based on nominations from 273 industry professionals. This installment is different from past years in that nominators were asked to choose three to five plays by female and trans playwrights of color; the works had to be either unproduced or have had only one production. The Kilroys, formed in 2013, are a group of Los Angeles-based theatre women. They release the curated list every year to promote gender parity among writers in the theatre. Other playwrights…

TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT THE PRACTICE AND IMPLICATIONS OF documentary theatre, I gathered some of the field’s veterans for a frank conversation about their craft, how it’s changed—and how it’s changed them. I found, of course, that they were aware of each other’s work. How could they not be? With the Civilians, Steve Cosson directed and helped create This Beautiful City and The Great Immensity; Leigh Fondakowski served as head writer on Tectonic Theater Project’s The Laramie Project, and most recently unveiled Spill at New York City’s Ensemble Studio Theatre; KJ Sanchez, who with American Records created such shows as ReEntry and X’s and O’s (A Football Love Story), is working on a commission from the Guthrie Theater about recent immigrants to the Twin Cities; and Ping Chong continues…

A version of the following piece was presented on June 23, 2016, as the opening plenary of Theatre Communications Group’s national conference in Washington, D.C., almost 20 years to the day after playwright August Wilson delivered his influential “The Ground on Which I Stand” speech on June 26, 1996, at TCG’s conference in Princeton, N.J. See AmericanTheatre.org for coverage of both events. Portions of this text formed part of Notes From the Field, which Smith has performed at California’s Berkeley Repertory Theatre, American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Mass., and Second Stage Theater in New York END OF SUMMER, 1996. I had stepped off the campaign trail—which was where I spent a lot of the summer and fall of 1996, doing research for my play, House Arrest: The American Press and Its…

CHARACTERS HADEEL/ANDREA YOUSSIF/DANIEL AHMED/MARTIN BANA/LAURA WOMAN/AMEERA’S SISTER INTERPRETER The living room and kitchen of an apartment. Two doors: one to the hallway of the apartment building, one to a bathroom upstage. Table, chairs. Two big sofas. A projection on the wall says: Damascus 2014. Hadeel walks in from the bathroom and turns on the TV. Someone knocks on the door. Hadeel opens the door. It’s Youssif. HADEEL: Oh… YOUSSIF: Hello. HADEEL: Hello. YOUSSIF: Hello. HADEEL: Sit down. YOUSSIF: Thank you…And the others? HADEEL: They’re not here yet. Pause. YOUSSIF: Oh. What time is it? HADEEL: There’s plenty of time. YOUSSIF: Yes. I know. I came a little bit early. HADEEL: Yeah. Pause. HADEEL: Good. Did you see yesterday’s episode? YOUSSIF: Yes I did. Of course. You? HADEEL:…

THIS MONTH SMALL MOUTH SOUNDS BY BESS WOHL begins its national tour at New Haven, Conn.’s Long Wharf Theatre (Aug. 30-Sept. 24). It will also touch down in San Francisco, Santa Monica, Dallas, Miami, and Philadelphia. The Obie-winning play, directed by Rachel Chavkin, began at Ars Nova’s 99-seat Off- Broadway space. In it, six strangers go on a silent retreat. And true to the premise, there’s almost no speaking for the entire play, save for a few key monologues by an offstage guru. So the job of sound designer Stowe Nelson was to fill that wordless space. Small Mouth Sounds opens with “a giant rainstorm,” he explains. “It’s very, very loud. It kind of, forgive the metaphor, washes away a lot of things and you land on the other side…

ON A NOVEMBER AFTERNOON IN A SKYLIGHTlit rehearsal room in Portland, Ore., the rock band Blitzen Trapper was puzzling through some chords. Frontman Eric Earley, who plays guitar, sings, and writes most of the group’s songs, turned and mumbled a few words to his four bandmates. At one point, he joined keyboardist Marty Marquis by the piano and plinked out a few notes by way of explanation. Earley started the song over. Cut it off. Mumbled some more words. Restart. Cut. Mumble. Restart. Liam Kaas-Lentz crouched at a table facing the band and shook his head in awe. “The shorthand these musicians have is just insane,” he whispered. “How do you direct a band rehearsal?” How, indeed? That was the paramount question as Blitzen Trapper—an Oregon-born band that’s peddled its…

WHEN, IN 2014, CHILDREN’S THEATRE OF Charlotte staged Jennifer Overton’s Spelling 2-5-5, a play about a boy and his brother, who is on the autism spectrum, the production brought up questions within the organization about how to authentically portray a character on the autism spectrum onstage, how to bring families with children on the spectrum to the show, and how to create the best theatregoing experience for all. That production sparked the North Carolina theatre’s initiative to present one sensoryfriendly performance for each of its mainstage productions, starting in 2016 with A Year With Frog and Toad. “We are the first big organization in Charlotte to be doing it, and so it is kind of baby steps in figuring out what we can offer,” says Sarah Diener, the company’s resident…

Here’s what’s playing this month at TCG theatres nationwide. For the most up-to-date information about performance schedules, contact the theatre or visit Theatre Profiles online: tcg.org/profiles. ALASKA Perseverance Theatre, Douglas, (907) 274-2599, perseverancetheatre.org The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity, Kristoffer Diaz; dir: Shona Osterhout. Sep 12-Oct 8. Steel Magnolias, Robert Harling; dir: Carolyn Howarth. Sep 28-Oct 15. ARIZONA Borderlands Theater, Tucson, (520) 882-7406, borderlandstheater.org Building the Wall, Robert Schenkkan; dir: Marc Pinate. Sep 27-Oct 15. Childsplay, Tempe, (480) 350-2822, childsplayaz.org The Phantom Tollbooth, Susan Nanus; dir: Dwayne Hartford. Sep 17-Oct 15. On tour: Tomás and the Library Lady, book, music, lyrics: José Cruz González; dir: David Saar. Sep 18-Dec 22. Invisible Theatre Co, Tucson, (520) 882-9721, invisibletheatre.com INDOOR/OUTDOOR, Kenny Finkle; dir: Susan Claassen. Sep 5-17. Phoenix Theatre, (602) 254-2151, phoenixtheatre.com…