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Paula Vogel, Tina Landau, and the Room That Made ‘Mother Play’
Originally published by American Theatre Magazine on June 5, 2024 Once begun, the play took just two weeks to write. But in many ways it had been decades in the making. So had the collaboration. Paula Vogel and Tina Landau have known one another since the 1990s, the same decade Vogel’s late brother Carl and a version of herself…
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Larissa FastHorse on Indigenizing Theatre
Originally published by HowlRound on June 6, 2023. This year, Larissa FastHorse (Sicangu Lakota) became the first Indigenous woman writer with a play on Broadway with her “comedy within a satire,” The Thanksgiving Play. In it, a group of mostly well-meaning white educators and actors attempt to devise a Thanksgiving production to be performed for students.…
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Shared Leadership
Theatres Find an Inclusive Model Spurs More Diversity and Innovation Published by Southern Theatre Magazine Winter 2023 Theatres across the country are rethinking their organizational structures in light of the forced changes brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, calls for change from We See You White American Theatre (WSYWAT), and a recognition of the lack…
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Recognition and Reversal in the Plays of Lauren Gunderson
A dialogue originally published by the Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism Spring 2022 In this introduction to a dialogue with Lauren Gunderson, the author argues that the disparity between critical responses and audience responses to some of Gunderson’s plays can be understood as the product of a devaluation of her use of surprise to…
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Performing the Peace
Police and Former Prisoners Use Playback Theatre to Build Trust in their Community. Originally published by Southern Theatre Magazine Fall 2021. At a time when George Floyd has become a household name and police-community relations are strained across the country, a program in Memphis called Performing the Peace – which uses theatre to bridge the…
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Forget the Times: Stream This Feminist Playwright’s New Work Now
Originally published by Ms. Magazine on March 22, 2021 Editor’s note: Lauren Gunderson’s new play The Catatrophist (now streaming) is a one-person show about her husband, a virologist. A major publication recently ran a scathing review of the play. The review was perceived to be sexist by many in the theater industry. While this piece intentionally does not link…
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Using Critical Fabulation in History-Based Playwriting
Originally published by HowlRound on March 3, 2021 When the pandemic hit last March, the University of Memphis, as with most theatres and universities, went online for the rest of the semester, and our spring musical—one week into rehearsal—was canceled. Our chair, feeling deeply the loss to our students, wanted to provide them with a…
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Dismantling Anti-Black Language
originally published by HowlRound on August 27, 2020 Calling all Shakespeare lovers! Have you seen this document: Dismantling Anti-Black Linguistic Racism in Shakespeare? Chicago-based director Lavina Jadhwani, an Asian American theatre artist and educator, created it for other non-Black theatre artists and educators to help us understand how anti-Black language can do harm to Black people.…
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The Art and Craft of Intimacy Direction
Originally published on HowlRound on January 30, 2020. In case you haven’t noticed, we are experiencing a revolution in the way artists and entertainers rehearse and perform intimacy. The seeds were planted at least ten years ago, when a few highly trained movement specialists started noticing that they were often called upon to handle scenes…
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Holly L. Derr 