In the Culture of One World Randy Gener

A Global Media Project | Arts Economy, Cultural Diplomacy and Critical Thinking

Biography

Randy Gener is a writer, drama critic, editor, playwright and visual artist in New York City.

He is the author of the plays Love Seats for Virginia Woolf, Wait for Me at the Bottom of the Pool, A Parliament of the Streets, and other theatre works.

His installation piece, in the garden of One World (designed by Nic Ularu), debuted at La MaMa La Galleria in New York in 2008. He created and curated two versions of a photography/oral-history exhibition, entitled “Positively No Filipinos Allowed”: The Lives and Loves of Filipino Migrant Workers in the U.S., (designed by Eric Ting) for the Culture Project in New York City and Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, Connecticut.

Gener has written numerous scholarly essays (in the encyclopedia Cambridge Guide to the American Theater; the anthologies Theater and Humanism in a World of Violence; roMANIA After 2000; and The American Theatre Reader: Essays and Conversations from American Theatre Magazine, edited by the staff of American Theatre magazine), as well as contributed articles, criticism, reviews and essays for The New York Times, New York Magazine, The Star Ledger, Time Out New York, The International Herald Tribune, Disney’s FamilyFun Magazine, The New York Daily NewsGay City News, the Swedish national newspaper Expressen, The Korean Theater Journal; and other publications in the  U.S., Europe and Asia.

Gener was a staff contributor and theatre critic at The Village Voice from 1991 – 2001; was the senior journalist of BroadwayOnline.com and Theatre.com, both online news services; was an art critic for HX Magazine; was a pop-culture and entertainment writer for The New York Daily News; and a freelance features writer for The Star Ledger from 1996 to 2008.  The Nathan Award–winning senior editor of American Theatre magazine, published monthly by Theatre Communications Group, he is the magazine’s contributing writer.

He is a founding critic of The New York Theatre Wire (www.nytheatre-wire.com); is a founding editorial board member and section editor of Critical Stages  (www.criticalstages.org), the web journal of the International Association of Theatre Critics; and has twice been an editor-in-chief of Prague Quadrennial Daily, the broadsheet newspaper of the Arts Institute/Theatre Institute of the Czech Republic.

As a freelance dramaturg, Gener has worked for the Joseph Papp Public Theater/New York Shakespeare Festival, Roundabout Theatre Company, Pan Asian Repertory Company and Denver Center Theatre Company.

A renowned lecturer and speaker in the arts, culture and technology, Gener has given talks and multimedia lectures at such schools as the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center-Graduate Center, City University of New York, Montclair State University, University of South Carolina, Brooklyn College; U.S. and European festivals as Sibiu International Theatre Festival, Prague Quadrennial for World Scenography, William Inge Theatre Festival, Humana Festival of New American Plays; as well as such institutions as Nuyorican Poets Cafe, Hallmark Inc., Dramatists Guild of America, Odeon Theatre of Bucharest, Romanian Cultural Institute-New York, Long Wharf Theater Company, Pan Asian Repertory Theatre and La MaMa E.T.C.

Awards and Fellowships:
2000 Distinguished Service and Contribution from the National Federation of Filipino American Association; 2003 New York Times critic fellow at Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center’s Critics Institute; 2007 Filipinas Magazine Arts and Culture Prize; Instinct magazine Leading Man of 2007; 2008 induction to the Filipino American Hall of Fame by Via Times of Chicago and Chicago Philippine Reports; and four prizes for travel-writing excellence from the 2006, 2008 and 2009 North American Travel Journalists Association Awards competitions.

Gener is the 2009 recipient of the George Jean Nathan Award (for the theater year 2007-08), the highest accolade for dramatic criticism in the U.S. and one of the most distinguished awards in the American theater.  He won for his critical essays in American Theatre magazine and other U.S. publications.

He is the 2010 recipient of a Deadline Club Award for Best Arts Reporting from the New York chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists for “shedding light on government censorship and repression of the arts.”

He has been named Journalist of the Year 2010 by National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association.

“From the Edge: Performance Design in the Divided States of America” at LaMaMa La Galleria

On Smart Power, International Cultural Exchange and Performance Design | An Interview by Amanda White Thietje

3 Interviews by AMANDA WHITE THIETJE:
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RANDY GENER and I met in Prague this summer, where we were both attending the 2011 Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space (PQ). I was wandering through the exhibits, soaking up the inspiration and the beauty of the city; he was serving as both curatorial advisor of "From the Edge" (USITT’s USA National Pavilion) and Editor-In-Chief of this year’s PQ daily newspaper.
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Randy agreed to talk with me about the PQ, and there’s so much in this interview I want to share with you that I’m going to post it in three parts. Click on the titles of each article below so you can read each part of the interview:
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  • Interview – Part 1: "From the Edge"
  • Interview – Part 2: "Active Searching & The Value of the Prague Quadrennial"
  • Interview – Part 3: "A Ripple Effect."
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    “From the Edge: Performance Design in the Divided States of America,” the USA national pavilion at Prague National Gallery

    From the Edge: Performance Design in the Divided States of America

    Reflections on curating and creating national expositions in an international art-based mega-exhibition in Prague
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  • Curatorial essay: "Exhibiting a country on the edge: a U.S. approach to performance design"
  • USA exposition returns from Prague: "American performing garage under the sign of Obama"
  • Prague diaries: "Philadelphia theater-makers talk about how performance design affected their works and processes."
  • Interview with curators: "Curators speak about the thrills, challenges and obstacles of staging national expositions of design."
  • -

    Praise and Commendations

    >> "A first-rate writer and editor. Randy Gener understands culture in the widest sense: as news, as art, as politics, as media," Margo Jefferson, Pulitzer Prize–winning writer.
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    >> "Mr. Randy Gener’s 'in the theater of One World,' a showcase of his own individual work, is taking up the slack that print journalism is leaving behind. You won’t find this in your local papers," Superfluities Redux.
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    >> "The visionary," Instinct Magazine.
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    >> "An internationalist, a champion of cultural exchange and dialogue," The New York Daily News.
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    >> "Randy Gener's command of theatrical subjects is unequalled among his contemporaries," American Theatre magazine/Theatre Communications Group.
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    >> "Randy Gener sheds light into censorship and repression of the arts," Judges of the Deadline Club Award, New York chapter of Society of Professional Journalists.
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    >> "Randy Gener is one of the most compelling voices of our era of globalization," Ioana Ieronim, author, poet and Fulbright Program Director of Fulbright Commission Romania.
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    >> "Gener draws our attention to largely ignored voices and visions on the international theatrical scene," Judges of the George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism.
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    >> "Mr. Gener holds himself to a high standard in his long-form journalism — perhaps a model for young journalists," Superfluities Redux.
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    >> "Gener’s writing on theater, especially as it interacts with LGBT lives, is beautifully done, knowledgeable and almost lyrical in its language,” Judges of NLGJA Journalist of the Year.
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    >> "Randy Gener demonstrates the ripple effect that spotlighting artistic passion can have," Judges of the Deadline Club Award, New York chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists.
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    >> "Randy Gener's 'Love Seats for Virginia Woolf' is a meditative homage. Gener has staged his play with a subtle grace that complements the art objects' sedentary ingenuity. Never has Virginia's room of one's own been so suggestively furnished,” The Village Voice
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    >> "Gener's accumulation of words in his play 'Love Seats for Virginia Woolf' are the feathery evanescence of the butterfly's wings clamped together with the bolts of iron that are the four loveseat sculptures. The actors become words personified. I was left astonished,” The Virginia Woolf Miscellany of the International Virginia Woolf Society.
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    >> "His essays wed critical intelligence with a love of the telling and unruly fact," Judges of George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism.
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    >> "Gener went above and beyond with regard to enterprise, resourcefulness and overcoming of obstacles in the pursuit of the story," Judges of Deadline Club Award, New York chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists.
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    >> "Randy Gener has been a tremendous asset to American Theatre ever since he was selected as a Jerome Foundation Affiliated Writer back in 1995-96, and especially since he joined the staff full-time in 2001," American Theatre magazine/Theatre Communications Group.
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    >> "One of the leaders of the Asian American community," The New York Daily News.
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    >> "In conferring the Pamana ng Pilipino (Legacy of the Filipino Nation) Presidential Award to Randy Gener, the President recognizes Gener's excellence in the field of theater arts and creativity, and diligence in promoting Filipino-American interests and accomplishments to mainstream audiences in Europe and the United States of America," His Excellency Benigno Simeon Aquino III, President of the Republic of the Philippines.
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    Categories

    Biography

    Randy Gener is the Nathan Award-winning editor, writer, critic, curator, playwright and visual artist in New York City.
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    His conceptual installation, "in the garden of One World," debuted at La MaMa La Galleria in New York. He is the author of "Love Seats for Virginia Woolf," and other plays.
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    For his editorial work and critical essays as the senior editor of American Theatre magazine, Gener has received the George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism, the highest accolade for excellence in dramatic criticism in the United States; the Deadline Club Award for Best Arts Reporting from the New York chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists; five media awards for excellence in travel-writing from the annual North American Travel Journalists Association Awards competition; and the NLGJA Journalist of the Year 2010.

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    randy gener pictured at columbus circle in manhattan

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