Holly L. Derr

March 11, 2014

So You Have a Theater Degree

Originally posted at Ms. in the Biz Got your B or MFA from a theater program? Congratulations! Looking at 30 years of consolidated loan payments even as you get further and further away from the training you’re still paying for? Take heart! Your training matters, even in Hollywood. Just ask Winona Ryder, Felicity Huffman, Alison…

March 10, 2014

Binders Full of Women and People-of-Color Playwrights

Originally posted at Ms. Magazine At a recent panel on diversity in Southern California theater, several of the artistic directors on the panel trotted out familiar platitudes about their commitment to diversity, their willingness to challenge their audiences with plays about people that don’t look like them and their desire to build a more diverse…

March 7, 2014

A Feminist Light in the Piazza

Originally posted at Ms. Magazine The great Southern writer Elizabeth Spencer wrote her most famous story, “The Light in the Piazza, ” while living abroad. She had left the small town in which she grew up, Carollton, Miss., on a Guggenheim Fellowship for Italy. There she also wrote The Voice at the Back Door, about race…

March 6, 2014

Dispatches from LALA Land: Double Casting and The Antaeus Company

Originally posted at HowlRound When The Antaeus Company began in 1991, under the auspices of Center Theater Group, the idea was to find a way to maintain a classical theater company within the specific environment of Los Angeles where, for most actors, a living is made through a series of one-day jobs as costars, guest…

March 5, 2014

Dispatches from LALA Land: Latino Theater in Los Angeles es Muy Bueno

Originally posted at HowlRound I can’t believe I don’t speak Spanish. I grew up in Texas, but I took German in high school. I lived in Washington Heights for three years, yet I never learned much more than huevos y queso sándwich (though I did like being called mami). Now I live in Southern California, but…

February 14, 2014

Women’s Bodies in Oscar Nominated Films

Originally posted at Ms. Magazine Jake Flanagin at Pacific Standard and Victoria Dawson Hoff at Elle recently floated an interesting idea: The Oscars should be entirely segregated by gender. Their proposal would create categories such as Best Female Director and Best Female Writer in addition to the already segregated acting awards. Though this would lead…

February 6, 2014

7 Ways Stars Can Challenge Hollywood This Award Season

Tina Fey, Cate Blanchett, and Meryl Streep have already given the proverbial finger to Hollywood’s sexism this award season. Here are a few ways other stars can follow in their footsteps. As a fitting end to a year during which one Hollywood star after another proclaimed her devotion to feminism (see here, here, here, and…

January 24, 2014

Famous, Fearless, and Feminist

Originally published by Ms. in the Biz When Beyoncé’s latest album dropped, feminists went nuts. This is not the first time they’ve gone nuts over Beyoncé: When Ms. Magazine put her on its cover earlier this year, its readers erupted in outrage that a woman who “writhes around,” scantily clad “for the benefit of men”…

January 15, 2014

Dispatches from LALA Land: Diversity and Its Discontents in Southern Californian Theater

Originally published by HowlRound The Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation recently hosted a panel discussion on diversity in Southern Californian theater at the Pasadena Playhouse. “Diversity: Through a Director’s Eye” featured Tim Dang, Artistic Director of East West Players; Seema Sueko, Associate Artistic Director of Pasadena Playhouse; Christopher Ashley, Artistic Director of La…

December 17, 2013

Platonov and Anton Chekov’s Proto-Grunge Philosophy

Originally posted at HowlRound Before he shot himself in the head, Kurt Cobain wrote a suicide note in which he said, “I still can’t get over the frustration, the guilt and empathy I have for everyone. There’s good in all of us and I think I simply love people too much, so much that it…