The Theater(s)We Need Now
Okay. I wrote a really long discursive essay about The Theater(s) We Need Now – and I didn’t even dive too deep into the arts admin weeds – but I know how things are, I know what life is like, I know everybody’s busy so
Category Archives: Essays
Under the Radar Festival Gets Shown the Door By the Public
On the ambivalent legacy of January’s premier festival
Lorraine Hansberry’s “The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window” Offers Up Complex Women and Self-Criticism in a Quasi-Solipsistic Depiction of the 60s
There are those cultural events that feel too good to be true – many stars align to create a perfectly satisfying contribution, almost all-encompassing in its thoughtoutness.
Sure, Critique Ballet and Balanchine, but Erika Lantz Does it Wrong
Pain has been felt in the halls of Balanchine’s house, but joy and beauty exist too. Neither outweighs the other.
the single most remarkable work of 2022
600 Highwaymen’s “A Thousand Ways, Part 3: An Assembly” is one of 2022’s most remarkable works of theater.
Learning With and From Baltic artists in the Shadow of the War on Ukraine
I hope Putin understands “Fuck War” in not only Russian, but Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian as well.
On Permission
I feel tension between practice and permission. I relish in the freedom and the challenge to make what I can make with the time and resources that I already have at my disposal.
Staying Alive, or Live Art in Odd Places
Live art is still here, and as Shelley understood two centuries ago, it will remain alive for as long as we do.
This Box Tickles Fascists: On Brandon Woolf’s THE CONSOLE
Along with the liveness of unmediated human presence, THE CONSOLE manages to be zeitgeisty, equal parts response to Covid isolation and election anxiety, in a way that isn’t instructive. It feels vital, earnest, and all the more critically alive for its irreverence.
Ann Liv Young’s Home Theater
Want to take out your phone and text? Please, I dare you, and I hope I’m there to see what happens. Maybe Young will want to take a selfie, or share your photos, or throw your phone out the window. Anything could happen.
Ellen Cornfield and Brian McCormick in Conversation
They saw, “formalism with flair, and flights of fancy. Quirky, rhythmic, gestural phrases woven into broadly abstract works with exciting choreography. Cute moments that hint at a story.”
Terrence O’Brien in the studio
“I’ll just put my bias on the table.” What is the impact of the work? “Let’s turn over the rock and see what’s under there.” Terry says.