There’s a genial kind of, I don’t know, Brechtian disruption going on when you hurl that sound at people. They just lose their shit and do not know what to do with themselves. It is somehow a punk rock gesture.
I was hired to perform as a sort of Vanna White car model at an auto show in New Hampshire. I had to memorize 2 pages of facts about a new model of Subaru, which I repeated over and over into a mic in an alluring manner while walking around gesturing at the car.
This question of power comes up – who are we listening to the most? And who are we not listening to, or are somehow unable to listen to, or fall asleep while they’re talking?
Alex Borinsky & Chana Porter interview each other
The other morning, Lila woke up and her first question was “Mama, how do you start to write a musical?” which, I admit, made me feel proud.
But no: There is one, really stupid joke, and we made sure that we put it on an altar, as: This is the stupidest joke. Do you want to hear it loudly, and pronounced with such courage?
You can get close to truth but you can’t ever – in my opinion – I don’t think any story is ever true.
Yilong Liu is a Chinese-born playwright who writes plays in English. Michael Leibenluft is an Obie-winning, American-born director who directs in Chinese. Together, they’ve been working on the New York premiere of Liu’s play, June is the First Fall in a production by Yangtze Repertory
We are constantly delighting each other with things and discoveries and even in scenes where the characters are brutal and cruel beyond imagination to each other—as soon as we get out of character, everyone is so full of laughter and joy.
I once described Little Lord shows like a rollercoaster. At the end we want you to realize how far you’ve been, how far you’ve traveled, even if you were just sitting still in your seat.
So you’re a dramaturg. What inspired you to pursue dramaturgy? I discovered it while I was in undergrad as a devised theatre major. At that point, I was a bit of a generalist, as we were encouraged to be—I’d done some acting, directing, writing, stage
Being on a plane you’re just constantly being confronted with your own mortality. Or at least I am.