In the News

How two veterans of New York's 1960s-'70s avant-garde theatre made edgy, alternative theatre in a conservative state, and what enduring lessons their example may hold out for others. You may not associate artists in the vanguard of American experimental theatre with Omaha, Neb., but that’s where Open Theater alums Megan Terry and Jo Ann Schmidman currently reside … Read the rest of the piece at American Theatre magazine. And check out their titles:

• Approaching Simone
• Babes in the Bighouse
• Breakfast Serial
• Goona Goona
• Mollie Bailey's Traveling Family Circus: Featuring Scenes from the Life of Mother Jones
• Objective Love
• Plays by Megan Terry
• Viet Rock

The marvelously talented Dallas playwright Jonathan Norton, whose play penny candy has just been published, talks about his city, his writing, and the busy intersection of the two in the latest issue of American Theatre. Continue reading at the source: Jonathan Norton: A Sense of Place - American Theatre

When Steven Spielberg asked Kushner, America's most important living playwright, to take on WEST SIDE STORY, he thought, "He's lost his mind." But he dared. Continue reading at the source: Tony Kushner, Oracle of the Upper West Side - The New York Times

The composer and lyricist, who died at 92, was a trailblazer in virtually every field she touched. Theater in Manhattan was bristling with Black voices in the early 1970s, but these tended to be heard in smaller spaces like the New Federal Theater, the Negro Ensemble Company and the Urban Arts Corps. Micki Grant’s “Don’t Bother Me, I Can’t Cope” spent time in such theaters before winding its way to Broadway in 1972, making it the first time a woman had written the book, music and lyrics to a Broadway musical.

The result — four Tony Award nominations, a run of more than two years — was a testament to Grant, a trailblazer in virtually every field she touched. She died on Aug. 21 at 92. But the success of the show also stemmed in part from its image of Black America, one that Grant created through a blend of conviction and calculation…

Continue reading at the source: The New York Times - Micki Grant: "I Wanted to Open Eyes" Visit Micki Grant's Author Bio page on the Broadway Play Publishing site.

"With its themes of white privilege and black rage, Kermit Frazier’s KERNEL OF SANITY resonates powerfully today. That’s why Paula Vogel is giving it a boost." A 1978 Play Plucked From the Slush Pile Gets a Timely New Reading - The New York Times

With Halloween on its way, Austin Tichenor, author of the play FRANKENSTEIN, explores parallels between Caliban from The Tempest and the Creature from Shelley's Frankenstein. for the Folger Shakespeare Library. [rule style="rule-thin" ] As the days get shorter and witching hour approaches, one’s thoughts turn away from present-day horrors and towards famous fictional ones. At least mine do. One of the enduring confusions of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is that “Frankenstein” is not the name of the Creature, brought to life on a laboratory table, but the name of his creator, the “natural philosopher” who became “capable of bestowing animation upon lifeless matter.” It’s an understandable mistake, as there’s definitely a chicken-and-egg question about the two characters: Which came first, the Creature, who’s considered a monster, or his creator, Victor Frankenstein, who treated him monstrously? Or, to ask it another way, are monsters born—or made? Continue reading: This Thing of Darkness: Caliban and the Creature from Frankenstein - Shakespeare & Beyond

María Irene Fornés is being celebrated at MoMA and the Public Theater. Her colleagues and students reflect on her enduring legacy. An Avant-Garde Theater Artist Gets Her Due - The New York Times

Marianne Elliott's London-born production of Tony Kushner's masterwork is blazingly reimagined with a cast including Nathan Lane and Andrew Garfield. Source: New York Times Review: An "Angels in America" That Soars on the Breath of Life