78 stories from Theatre Ideas
Fifteen years ago, Tony Kushner delivered the keynote address to the assembled college theatre professors of the US at the Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE) convention. His …
Congratulations, Giants fans!
"You've Cott Mail" today is all about "the need to fail." I'm with Adam Thurman on this one: "I've had to learn (the hard way) that the only failures that move us forward are the ones where …
"It would be better if art were nameless, and that those of us who write about art in books and the reviews and newspapers, always clacking about art, or Art, or ART, were constrained someho…
In a fascinating interview on Huffington Post, Natalie Merchant discusses motherhood, her album Leave Your Sleep, and her development as an artist. Among the many thoughtful things she has t…
As many of you have probably recognized over the years, one of my favorite things to write about are analogues to the arts I have found, i.e., other fields that are exploring similar issues …
While there will be many tributes today to the vision and determination of Martin Luther King, from artists and non-artists alike, I think the best thing the arts as a field could do would b…
The arrival of a new year often leads to reflection on what has passed, and as a result points to new directions for what is to come in the future. For a theatre blogger who has been writing…
IN A COUPLE POSTS on Parabasis, Isaac Butler has contributed two commentaries concerning the increasingly blurred lines between the profit theatre and the nonprofit theatre. This is an issue…
Arlene Goldbard's outstanding book
I was tempted to call this "Occupy Wall Street (part 5)," but arts consultant and thinker Arlene Goldbard, author of the powerful book The New Creative Com…
The first three parts of this series each pointed at different aspects of the problem of the concentration of funding in the nonprofit arts sector. First, the overview of the situation…
On October 26th, one of the great pioneers of the regional theatre movement, Zelda Fichlander, addressed the assembled Stage Directors and Choreographers Society in celebration of the 3rd an…
"Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?" -- Matthew 7: 3 (English Standard Version)Yesterday, in the first part of this se…
Occupy Wall Street encampment
(First in a series)
As I write these lines, the Occupy Wall Street movement has been protesting for two months that the top 1% of Americans take home roughly …
Margo Jones
"What our country needs today, theatrically speaking, is a resident professional theatre in every city with a population of over one hundred thousand. According to the 1940 censu…
Charles Olson
You must speak to your community.
The poet Vincent Ferrini, talking about poet Charles Olson, said "Everybody has to find his or her place. You find a place and you operate f…
As some of you know, I am a big fan of StageNorth in Washburn, WI (pop 2,280). I am on their mailing list, and received the following this morning. For those of you who think that "culture" …
On September 20th, a wonderful American playwright passed away: Jo Carson. Perhaps you've heard of her, perhaps you haven't -- most likely you haven't, because Jo Carson wrote plays about sp…
Back in May, I made a trip to Chicago to deliver a TEDx talk organized by David Zoltan. I was only able to stay briefly, because my stepson Jake was graduating that same day from Illinois St…
As we get ready to commemorate the attacks of September 11, 2001, I'd like to remind everybody about a video message that Osama bin Laden released just before the 2004 presidential election.…
My stepson, Jake Olbert, who now lives in Chicago, has started a blog called Something Less Pretentious, and I think he is a helluva a writer. His latest post, discussing the film L. A. Conf…
A colleague of mine from my Illinois State University days, Dennis Mays, passed away a few days ago at the age of 68. He didn't design sets, he wasn't the technical director, but he supervis…
Let's start with the legislation that brought the NEA into existence, which I mentioned at the end of my previous post -- that the NEA should dedicate itself "to supporting excellence …
When I published my post "Analyzing the NEA 'Our Town' Grants," several people wanted to know about whether the awards reflected the applicant pool, and I said I didn't know. Last week, I wa…
In 1989, Wendell Berry delivered a Commencement Address at the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine that included not Ten Commandments but ten hopes. They are as follows (I highlight…
