Category: Interview
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Uncurated, Unmediated: Why Fringe Festivals Are Perfect for Solo Shows
The Hollywood Fringe Festival, like most Fringes, is all about freedom of expression. Taking after it’s mother-ship The Edinburgh Festival Fringe, The Hollywood Fringe mission states that it “is completely open and uncensored. This free-for-all approach underlines the festival’s mission to be a platform for artists without the barrier of a curative body.” Perhaps that’s…
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The Girl’s Guide to the Hollywood Fringe
Originally posted at Ms. It’s summer, which means elite theater professionals all over America are headed to the country for summer stock. If you can’t make it up into the mountains this summer (or if you can’t afford the expensive tickets to these high-society productions), fear not: Our cities are full of all variety of…
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Dispatches from LALA Land: The Road to New Plays
Originally posted at HowlRound It was a sunny day in May and LA Stage Alliance was hosting LA Stage Day, a gathering of Los Angeles theater folk centered around inspirational presentations, workshops, and breakout sessions. So I ventured down the 5 to University Hills, just off the 10, where participants in small group discussions like…
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The Little-Told Story of Elizabeth Keckley and Mary Todd Lincoln
Cross posted at Ms. As the DVD of Spielberg’s latest epic, Lincoln, hit shelves last week, the Arena Stage in Washington, D.C. was telling a different Lincoln story: that of Mary Todd Lincoln and her dressmaker, former slave Elizabeth Keckley. Keckley, author of Behind the Scenes, or, Thirty years a Slave, and Four Years in…
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Race on Stage and in the Rehearsal Room: Tazewell Thompson’s Mary T. and Lizzy K.
What made you want to write a play about Elizabeth Keckly and Mary Todd Lincoln? Thompson: I was actually commissioned to write play in 2001 and the only stipulation was that it be set in Washington. When Molly Smith, artistic director of Arena, said “Washington” I immediately thought political and I thought Lincoln. The idea…
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Trains, Pullman Porters and a Woman’s Blues
Cross posted at Ms. What do you get when you combine passionate individuals determined to survive with multi-generational family drama and two key moments in African American history? A pretty great new play, that’s what. Opening November 23 at Arena Stage in Washington, DC, Pullman Porter Blues, by Cheryl L. West (Jar the Floor, Before…
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Cheryl L. West, Lisa Peterson, E. Faye Butler, and Christine Sumption on Pullman Porter Blues
A conversation about the new play Pullman Porter Blues with playwright Cheryl L. West, director Lisa Peterson, actor E. Faye Butler, and dramaturg Christine Sumption. Read the full article at Ms. The Ms. Magazine Blog: What would you say Pullman Porter Blues is about? West: The entire play really is about how do you survive:…
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Lynn Nottage Brings 80 Years of Women, Race and Hollywood to the Stage
Cross posted at Ms. Looking for an evening of entertainment that’s humorous, thought provoking, and possibly paradigm changing? The West Coast premiere of African American Pulitzer Prize-winner Lynn Nottage‘s new play By the Way, Meet Vera Stark is your ticket. But it’s not your typical evening of theater. Directed by Jo Bonney and featuring Sanaa…
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The Women of By the Way, Meet Vera Stark Talk Hollywood, Race and Gender
The women behind Lynn Nottage’s new play By the Way, Meet Vera Stark (see here for more) talk about the issues raised in the play and it’s relationship to their lives: How have race and gender functioned for you in your careers? How do you see them guiding casting in Hollywood today? Kimberly Hébert Gregory…
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A Look Inside the Mind of a Suffragist
Cross-posted at Ms. Picture it: 1917. Susan B. Anthony has been dead for 11 years, Elizabeth Cady Stanton for 15. Carrie Chapman Catt has been agitating with the National American Woman Suffrage Association since 1900. But women in America still do not have the right to vote. Fed up, a group of militant suffragists called the National…
Holly L. Derr 