#2amt

[arianwen]

“We lay down on the bed of my truck and stared out at new the night. Legs was exploring the desert and I had to call her back. She hopped on the truck and made a space for herself between me and Dante. “I love Legs," Dante said. "She loves you back”.”  

2 AM texts ➝ Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

[pwcenter]

Your own personal artistic statement (or: Articles of faith)

Ryan Campbell on how writing artistic statements can help playwrights keep the faith during rejection season

[bridgetwoodbury]

Buckle up, DC Theatre

Alright. Some of you may have been following the chaos erupting on twitter after "The Summit" that some major players put together to talk about the issues in DC Theatre. Not ready to comment, but curating for my/your reference as this unfolds. 

I actually had a very hard time finding coverage about this, so if you have anything to add, let me know.

Relatively sanitized background information from DC Theatre Scene

An opinion piece and a follow up from The Stranger.

The full hashtag story. 

More information about the controversy and "the question." If you only read one story, I would read this one. 

What do you think? What do you know?

[agrrlcalledlize]

“I’m encouraged to see a growing number of artistic directors in the community publicly address the lack of parity for women writers on our stages – most notably through the Women’s Voices Festival. I hope this effort continues and extends to directors, designers, and other artists as well. However, several statistics give me pause.

At Signature, since the 2005 season, only 10 of 90 credited writers have been women, with women directing 2 of 54 productions.

Since Ford’s reopened after renovations, 2 out of 29 productions have been directed by women – the same woman.

At the Shakespeare Theatre, since opening the Harman in 2007, they have produced 51 shows – none of which have been written by a woman. 3 were adapted by women, and 9 were directed by women.

At Arena, since the 1998 season, 44% of productions have been directed by women. However, three women account for over half of those woman-directed productions, while 49 different men have directed here. The plays and lyrics that have appeared on Arena’s stages reflect the work of 110 men, but only 35 women.

I’m hoping you can speak on two points. First: How do you plan to use the Women’s Voices Festival as a platform for improving the parity of female artists in your regular programming? Second: Similarly, how will you address the lack of racial equity for writers and directors of color, who are frequently less represented than women? For example, Ford’s has hired three writers of color out of 40 credited writers since 2008, and the last time the Shakespeare Theatre hired a director of color was 1991.

Thank you.

I am not able to speak to the response while I was reading the question as my eyes were glued to my computer screen and focused on keeping my voice loud, calm, and clear, so I can really only speak to the response once I finished reading the question. However, we had the forethought to record the response which we have transcribed. This followed the question with nothing in between.

[Applause]

Paul Tetreault: [inaudible] …get a few minutes to write a response? [laughter]… [inaudible]

Peter Marks: Um I don’t want to—I don’t want to–

Paul: (overlapping) Send it to us, we’d love to see those stats.

Elissa Goetschius: Absolutely.

Peter: I’m sure everybody wants to and—[inaudible] Let me just ask the question, is it–[inaudible]

Molly Smith: (overlapping) I want to know how many women we’ve produced, because we’ve produced a lot of women. So you don’t have all those percentages.

Elissa: Uh… there have been, since 1998… a total of 35 female creators have worked at Arena.

Molly: That’s pretty good, actually.

Elissa: As opposed to 110 men.

[inaudible murmuring]

Molly: I mean it’s, it’s–

[Paul or Ryan or Eric]: We, I mean, I think that that’s the whole reason when we sat around and talked about this idea and it was like you know what? We need to do this. And so, again, I think we all want to do better.

[overlapping, inaudible talking]

Elissa: Absolutely… Yeah, and I’d love to hear about how the Festival will be a springboard–

Paul: There’s a LORT conference, which is a sort of league of resident theaters, which is sort of 80 major theaters from around the country, that for 30 years has been talking about diversity. Diversity in, um, artistic positions, in administrative positions, and there’s a conference that’s being held in May in New Orleans, and it’s only going to be discussed, diversity. Now, some of us up here have been around for 30 years listening to this conversation. I actually think there’s a movement now—and maybe it takes 30 years—to actually move this needle. And maybe it’s because of diminishing numbers as Peter talked about, maybe it’s because as we look out in our audiences, they are not being made up of the, the um, the makeup of the people of this country. So I think there is a movement. And I guess if someone wants to just throw stones, they can look at our track record and look back on the last 15 years. We’re actually trying to look forward, and I think that’s where we’re putting our optimism and we’re putting our energy looking forward, not looking backwards. [applause]

[Peter adjourns the meeting]

[applause]”

Many thanks to Elissa Goetschius for her reporting.

[ctams]

"There is nothing sacred about our institutions. If they are meant to serve as a vessel and a backbone for making theatrical work that reflects the society we live in, they do not deserve to be sustained for their own sake. Continuing to produce work within their models is akin to attaching muscles, organs, and skin to a skeleton and hoping life will emerge."

Resonance between Annah Feinberg's thesis and Thomas Oberender's arguments about the structure of funding in Germany; between the American regional theater movement and the German state theater system.

[northerngospel]

Reindeer Sausage by northerngospel.tumblr.com

Synopsis: Mabel survives another Christmas but her children don’t make it easy.

CHARACTERS:

MABEL hasn’t died yet.

BILL if Bill hadn’t been so lazy he might’ve been a better son & gotten a wife.

STEVE doesn’t call home enough & he got a wife but Mabel’s still waiting on kids.

MINDY married Steve & not his family.

[northerngospel]

"I last saw The Flu Season in 2005, produced by Portland Oregon’s Theatre Vertigo. That production implacable, heart-rending, overwhelming. Director Michelle Seaton pulled bloody, precious truths from fragile, real souls. Will Eno’s script captured my helpless happy life and the self-obsessed, cruel, unjust society surrounding it.

Since 2005 I’ve found other societies. Now Eno’s careful words ignore our real world where most people can’t afford to send their mentally-ill children to safe places. Where crazy Man and Woman live houseless, self-medicate with alcohol, get beat up or raped . . . "

from "The Flu Season @ UAF," review for The Fairbanks Aurora 2012.  This is still true for The Flu Season but one reason I'm liking N2N is how it manages to be earnest rather than self-important. 

[theheavylifting]

Here we go, yo.

New #freescenes video from the amazing Allison Moy and her equally amazing man British Mike. With puppets. And a city.

Since I know these guys, their prize will be a beer next time I see them, which we'll have to make sooner than later.

EDIT: I forgot to mention the assist from Taylor Bridges!

b  b  vvc ccbcbbbbbvbbbn -- (A note from my son.)