Tag Archives: television

Link Roundup! – 2/12/16

Link Roundups feature articles and bits of internet goodness that our dramaturgy team digs up. If you find something you want to send our way, drop us a line on Facebook or Twitter!

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Erin Pike in "That'swhatshesaid." (Photo by Tim Summers)

Erin Pike in “That’swhatshesaid.” (Photo by Tim Summers)

American Theatre has a feature on the ongoing copyright dispute surrounding the performance piece That’swhatshesaid in Seattle:

That’swhatshesaid, performed for a four-night run last week in a 50-seat venue at Gay City Arts in Seattle, is a new work inspired by a growing frustration with the role of women in theatre, and constructed from the words of leading playwrights. Three young queer artists—director Hatlo, playwright Courtney Meaker, and creator/performer Erin Pike—worked for two years to make it. In setting out to draw attention to the ways in which women’s voices are rendered and their bodies presented onstage, they took pieces of dialogue and stage directions from the 11 plays listed by American Theatre as the most-produced plays of the 2014-2015 season. The Whipping Man was on the list, as were David Ives’s Venus in Fur, Christopher Durang’s Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, Nina Raine’s Tribes, and Joshua Harmon’s Bad Jews. Of the 11 plays, only 2 were by women (the other was Amy Herzog’s 4000 Miles).

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An essay on Vox explores the inequalities faced by artists of color in the acting industry:

I write a note to my Facebook friends condemning a theater culture that would let this happen. I explain that these sorts of racially charged interactions happen regularly and that they have, multiple times, almost made me quit the business. I juxtapose the difficulty of getting cast in theater due to my color, since the canon historically ignores minorities, with the knowledge that when we do get cast, these are the types of situations we find ourselves in. I finish by remarking that my career will probably be hurt more for speaking out against this culture than that white actor’s career will be hurt for calling me “nigger” on stage.

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Link Roundup! – 1/29/16

Link Roundups feature articles and bits of internet goodness that our dramaturgy team digs up. If you find something you want to send our way, drop us a line on Facebook or Twitter!

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The 2011 edition of Boston's annual Santa Speedo Run. (REUTERS/Brian Snyder)

The 2011 edition of Boston’s annual Santa Speedo Run. (REUTERS/Brian Snyder)

Boston has plans to make the city more fun via the Late Night Task Force, as reported by The Atlantic’s CityLab:

Good times are good for good’s sake, but there’s a powerful economic argument behind the mayor’s push, too. An example: a report from the San Francisco Office of the Controller found that nightlife generated $4.2 billion in spending in 2010. Though most of the people who enjoy that city’s restaurants, bars, and music venues are local, more than half of that $4.2 billion comes from visitors’ wallets. A 2004 report commissioned by the New York Nightlife Association found that clubs and bars alone generate $9.7 billion annually for the city. The research data firm IBISWorld estimates that American bars and nightclubs took in $26 billion in 2015. Good times are also big business.

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American Theatre has a story about playwrights working for TV and film:

For the bulk of my life, “TV writer” has been a gentle euphemism for “failed playwright.” A serious theatre person would barely admit to having a television, much less watching one. Those days are long gone. Now if you tell people that you haven’t seen “Breaking Bad” or “Mad Men,” it’s a kind of moral failing, an indication of poor character. Not watching the right television has become the mark of the philistine. And TV has largely claimed the center of popular culture, supplanting even film. If you go out on the street right now and ask people what movie they think should win the Oscar, you’re likely to get shrugs and vacant stares. Ask them what happened to Jon Snow on “Game of Thrones” or what the ending of “Mad Men” meant, and you’ll get a discourse on Internet conspiracy theories, spoilers, and deceptive camera angles. Ask them what will win the Tony and—well, they’ll probably say Hamilton. It’s the only Broadway show everyone knows about.

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