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The Idiot (I Know)
The Idiot (I know) by Holly Derr Scene One Girl A: I’m an idiot. Girl B: You’re not an idiot. Girl A: I’m an idiot. Girl B: You’re not an idiot. Girl A: I’m an idiot. Girl B: You’re not an idiot. (Pause.) Girl A: I’m an idiot. Scene Two Girl A: You’re an idiot.…
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New Fire from Cherrie Moraga
Cross Posted at Ms. It was said that during times of chaos, this female force came down to earth to put things right again. — Roadwoman, New Fire Before there was intersectionality, there was Cherríe Moraga, playwright and co-editor of the feminist classic This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color. She…
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the first in a series of posts on Theater About Then for Now
When I’m asked to describe my work as a theater director (as anyone in this field is often asked to do), I make sure I use a few keywords: Viewpoints and Composition, gender, Epic Theater, performance of identity. When talking to artists with whom I collaborate, I sometimes say post-modern, and then I explain what…
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As Long As Fear Can Turn to Wrath
It’s been a few weeks since I’ve had time to write because I’ve taken on a new project: As Long as Fear Can Turn to Wrath, an adaptation of selected chapters of a certain great American novel, will be presented as part of Son of Semele Ensemble‘s Company Creation Festival in January and February. In…
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Destabilizing Gender Through Performance
Part of a a collaboration between The Good Men Project and Role/Reboot on a special series about the End of Gender. Cross Posted at Ms. I am gendered, just not in all the ways you might think. Whatever part of my brain makes me like makeup and sparkly jewelry isn’t going away any more than…
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The Personal is Political, and it Always Has Been
Cross Posted at Ms. What happens when you take the Trojan women out of The Trojan Women? That’s what playwright Jocelyn Clarke has done in his new play Trojan Women (after Euripides), adapted from the Greek playwright Euripides’ 2,400-year-old original. East Coast-based experimental theater group SITI Company is currently performing the Clarke play, directed by…
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Alice Childress’ Trouble in Mind: An African American Classic Finds New Life
Cross-posted at Ms. When The Help premiered earlier this summer, African American feminists bemoaned the lack of civil rights narratives told by the black women who actually lived through the era. Though it probably won’t be a Hollywood blockbuster, a bulwark American theater is about to open a civil rights play written by an African…
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the overthrow of existing conditions
I have to admit, I was skeptical of Rivka Solomon and Bobbi Ausubel’s play That Takes Ovaries before I saw it. As a theater director/professor and a feminist, I am not a fan of cultural feminism (that which valorizes women because of their biology). As theater, it tends to titillate audiences without changing the status…
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a short play written on the occasion of the assassination of osama bin laden
This Mother Jones article about how much we still don’t know about what happened in the Bin Laden raid reminded me of the short play I wrote that weekend. I was frustrated at how certain the media seemed of the narrative, particularly when their version of it confirmed their preexisting biases, and wanted to write…
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“Porgy and Bess:” Without the Racism and Sexism?
Cross-posted at MsMagazine.com How should artists approach remounting the classics? Should they respect all of the author’s original intentions and stage a version of the show that reflects them perfectly? Or should they attempt to remove the historical residue often attached to pieces that, however conscious the authors may have been of trying to do…
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Holly L. Derr 