In the Culture of One World Randy Gener

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

RECOMMENDATION | See film screening of American version of German “Trust” at Goethe Institut-Washington

WASHINGTON, D.C. |  Tonight, July 8, a young D.C. troupe will screen a film that documents that making of its new dance/theatre project Trust by the German writer/director Falk Richter. The … Continue reading

July 8, 2023 · Leave a comment

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.

August 17, 2023 · Leave a comment

Performance review | Is “Pâquerette” penetrating, or merely a dance with penetrating elements?

Pâquerette is a duet between a man and a woman who re-discover their childlike innocence through the intensities of penetration.

June 15, 2023 · 2 Comments

Not a performance review | French choreographer David Wampach spoofs John Waters film, dances with shaving foam

“Auto + Batterie” matches up two enticing signature works, in which French choreographer David Wampach conspicuously foregrounds the theatrical relationship between dance and music.

June 10, 2023 · 3 Comments

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

June 8, 2023 · 3 Comments

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.

May 30, 2023 · 2 Comments

Performance review: Watch a storefront story from a New York sidewalk in this Romanian-American collaboration

“The Window” succeeds in its creative transformation of an otherwise nondescript building space that is normally used as a bookstore, a reception area or a meeting place. If you did know that there is a Romanian consulate and cultural services in that corner of the neighborhood, you definitely will remember that piece of information the next time you pass by.

April 5, 2023 · 6 Comments

Transvestite cabaret blossoms in “Gardenia,” a dance-theater work from Belgium

MONCLAIR, N.J.: Think of it as a Follies for the third gender. Or La Cage aux Folles as re-dressed by Pina Bausch. A dance-theater piece from Belgium, Gardenia conjures the closing night of … Continue reading

March 23, 2023 · 2 Comments

My picks for the world’s best theater of 2011

My picks for the world’s top-10 best theater reflects my travels in 2011 and is therefore deeply personal.

December 18, 2022 · 12 Comments

“Macbeth After Shakespeare” (Slovenia/Croatia) muscles its way into brilliance

A collaboration between Mini Teater Ljubljana (Slovenia) and Novokazalište Zagreb (Croatia), director Ivica Buljan’s Macbeth After Shakespeare forces us to viscerally come face to face with the naked and overbearing fact that the pornography of power is both beautiful and disturbing to look at. It seduces and repels and provokes.

December 11, 2022 · 4 Comments

Report from Sarajevo: An inspiring international festival rises above a “catastrophic state of culture” in Bosnia and Herzegovina

As confusion over arts funding drags on in Bosnia and Herzegovina, how inspiring it is to discover in Sarajevo an artistically rich international theater festival that serves as another point of light shining over that country’s darkened horizon

December 2, 2022 · 3 Comments

Theater Review: In “Ghost Light,” a son confronts historical ghosts, family myths and dark dreams

In Ghost Light, San Francisco history itself is a ghost machine, and every performance is a nightly haunting that serves to re-construct the recent past through the memories of an American witness who is still living among us.

September 17, 2023 · Leave a comment

Theater Review: “Unnatural Acts” by the Plastic Theater at Classic Stage Company in NYC

NEW YORK CITY:  On Sunday, July 31, Unnatural Acts will complete an incredible run at Classic Stage Company (CSC) where this exemplary show has been extended three times. Most Off-Broadway shows in … Continue reading

July 30, 2023 · 1 Comment

Movie Review: Theatre Svoboda, a documentary film by Jakub Hejna

THEATRE SVOBODA (DIVADLO SVOBODA) Czech Republic, 2011 98 Min, Color DIRECTOR: Jakub Hejna PRODUCER: Jiří Konečný SCREENPLAY: Jakub Hejna, Barbora Příhodová DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Jiří Chod CAST Josef Svoboda EDITOR Jakub Hejna … Continue reading

July 7, 2023 · 3 Comments

“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."
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    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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    by randy gener

    randy gener pictured at columbus circle in manhattan

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