IRAN REPORT | Foreign shows teem at annual Fajr International Theater Festival
Iran’s 32nd Fajr International Theater Festival runs from January 16 to February 1. Thirty-three troupes from Iran and other countries will be competing in the international section.
VIDEO | Monsieur Space on building theatre today
JEAN-GUY LECAT ON BUILDING THEATRE TODAY: “The difference between a true space and one that is not lies in the criteria that favours or disfavours life. That which favours this concentration is thus legitimate while that which shies away from it is not.
VIDEO | In Provincetown, a site-specific workshop re-imagining of “In the Summer House” by Jane Bowles
This post offers two videos. First, a video excerpt of the Provincetown Tennessee Williams Theater Festival’s workshop production of In the Summer House (Act 2). At the end of this post is a video recording of the post-performance conversation I moderated with the show’s director David Kaplan.
SOUTH KOREA | Seeking proposals for Center Stage Korea from presenters, performing arts centers and networks
The Korea Arts Management Service is considering project proposals submitted by international festivals, arts centers, and networks who will implement a project involving Korean performing groups/artists as part of their performance program.
THEATER COMMENTARY | Viewing Jane Bowles and her “In the Summer House” through the prism of Tennessee Williams
You’ve likely not heard of Jane Bowles, but she wrote a cock-eyed, mesmerizing play that was one of the signal achievements of postwar American drama. It’s right up there with the classic works of Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, Gertrude Stein, late Eugene O’Neill, Lillian Hellman, and Sam Shepard. This post is about Jane Bowles’s unjustly neglected play: “In the Summer House.”
ART & POLITICS | Hope lingers in Sarajevo’s Festival MESS, one of the Balkan region’s most important festivals
Dino Mustafic, director of Festival MESS, describes this year’s Festival as conquest for happiness and hope. Mustafic, one of the most important theater directors in the region, adds that the theater in the Balkans is “struggling to survive.” Over the last five years, Festival MESS’s budget was slashed by 73 percent.
FESTIVAL WATCH | Documentary theater seeks social change via international “Theater of the Voiceless”
To track this creative upswing, the Austrian Cultural Forum, Goethe-Institut Washington, Embassy of Switzerland and Georgetown University’s Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics have launched “Theater of the Voiceless,” an international symposium and festival on documentary theater that runs June 16 to June 19 at various venues in Washington, D.C.
CAUSES | Boston’s storied “Downtown Crossing” theater history revealed in hands-on talk/tour
BOSTON | You’ve heard of “Downton Abbey.” Do you know about Downtown Crossing? If the Englishness of the PBS series “Downton Abbey” fascinates most of us, Boston theater historian Susan Roberts … Continue reading
Performance review | Diverse City Theater’s nervy revival of Lee Blessing’s “Two Rooms” gives voice to voiceless
Diverse City Theater’s nervy production argues that Two Rooms has not lost an inch of topical relevance. The play has not lost its eloquence. It is a muted cry of rage.
Deadlines | New York’s “hotINK at the Lark” seeks foreign scripts for 2013 festival by Oct. 15
“hotINK at the Lark 2013” is seeking to present new work by six playwrights from outside the United States in public readings at the Lark Play Development Center, April 17-22, 2013.
Native American News | Native Voices at the Autry gives “First Look” to suspenseful play by Native American actor, Oct. 25
If you are in the Los Angeles area, you might want to check out this reading, part of Native Voices’ signature FIRST LOOK SERIES: Plays in Progress.
Currently in production | Play excerpt, models, design sketches for Pacific Beat Collective’s “Tala” at HERE Arts Center, July 28 to 31
“Tala” will perform in a workshop production July 28th to 31st at HERE Arts Center in downtown SoHo in New York City. The play, a work-in-progress, is a critique on the nature of political revolutions. Click here to read a play excerpt and see the work of the designers and actors as they prepare for the production.
Play excerpt | Saviana Stanescu’s “4 Alice,” part 2 of “The Window” at Romanian Cultural Institute in New York
And you thought these actors were just making things up as they went along. Didn’t you? Admit it. You did. This is an exclusive excerpt from Saviana Stanescu’s play “4 Alice” for THE WINDOW installation/performance project
From Havana, Teatro El Público re-casts “Caligula” as gay tyrant
This Cuban take on “Caligula” “consciously uses Albert Camus’s play to subvert cultural norms and our concept of masculinity. Why can’t a homosexual be portrayed as possessing as much violence and cruelty as a stereotypical heterosexual male chauvinist character? What does it mean to be gay and masculine? And why are these two terms still thought of as mutually exclusive?
Performance review (NSFW) | Italy’s Ricci/Forte serves up queer fantasia in “Macadamia Nut Brittle”
Macadamia Nut Brittle is excoriating, sexy, hallucinatory, viciously funny. The plot steals from the mode of a reality-TV show, but its stance is subversive and punk. As the noisy evening unfolds, Ricci/Forte detonates, again and again and again, the illusory logic of this TV genre
Performance review | Seeing the Romanian Cultural Institute’s “Window” through Alice’s looking glass
The Window is a unique theatrical experience, because enigma is a principal aspect of its charms. An inspiring two-part site-specific performance-design project created and directed by Ana Mărgineanu for the Romanian Cultural Institute in New York (RCINY), The Window asks you to pay close attention if you happen to stroll by RCINY’s storefront spaces.
Play excerpt: Jeton Neziraj’s “Yue Madeleine Yue,” a tragicomedy about anti-Roma discrimination
The play tells the story of a Roma family that was forcedly expelled from Germany to Kosovo. In their new reality, this family confronts the challenges of living in a recently newborn state. One day, a Roma girl named Madeleine falls in a hole that was created by a construction company. The girl falls in a coma. As she fights for her life, her father strives to pursue justice. He faces bureaucratic officers, businessmen, policemen and embassy workers.
Plays from Scotland, Canada, Cyprus, Israel, Bulgaria, Latvia dip hotINK at the Lark, March 22-26, in NYC
NEW YORK CITY: I first met the Montreal-based playwright Suzie Bastien in Limoges, France, in 2005. At the time, she was developing a new work, Après. Her second play, LukaLila … Continue reading
Kabuki actor Tamasaburo Bando V at San Diego’s Kyoto Symposium, March 20-22
SAN DIEGO, CALIF.: Tamasaburo Bando V is one of Japan’s most celebrated performers of Kabuki, the traditional dance/drama form whose roots date back some 500 years. On Thursday, March 22, 10:30 … Continue reading