New Beginnings in the Year of the Rabbit Do you need a fresh start to wipe the slate clean and set sights on new goals? Beginning with the Gregorian calendar’s New Year on Jan 1, to the Lunar New Year just ushered in with the first new moon of the lunar calendar, January has provided …
by Dara O’Brien PART ONE I once served as the General Manager of the Italian branch of a multinational financial services firm. I held the job for about five hours. The brevity of my tenure had nothing to do with my performance. It also had everything to do with it. Because I wasn’t a manager …
Theater as activism is not a modern invention, nor is the need for pro-active civic engagement to sustain it. In 425 B.C. when Athenian playwright, Aristophanes, called out the bumbling power plays of magistrates and war mongers in his play, Archarians, he was essentially the (documented) founder of activist theater. The first documented public poet, …
The Return of In-Person Oral History The League of Professional Theatre Women’s first Oral History Project of the season celebrated a return to in-person events on Monday October 17, as producer Pat Addiss shared wisdom and humor with two-time Emmy Award-winning journalist, television anchor and theatre critic Roma Torre at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. …
By Alexis Greene The twentieth century in America was the women’s century. The century opened with the ascendance of what the media at that time called the New Woman. The New Woman didn’t yet have the right to vote, but she was out there: getting jobs, so she could support herself; organizing unions; establishing settlement …
CELEBRATE! 2022-2023 marks the League of Professional Theatre Women’s 40th Anniversary Season: Dedicated to celebrating its diverse and accomplished membership, its rich history and its vision for a future in which women play an ever more central role in American theatre. At this year’s season launch, we were thrilled to see so many next generation …
“From the time I was about twelve, I never stopped acting. Acting is my business.” “If you’re going to play a character other than yourself, it’s better that you bring that character to the first rehearsal…You have to leave yourself at home… When I’m immersed in a scene, I leave Angela at home.” “I’d like …
“A great actor at the height of her powers.”
On February 12th, Ms. Lee was the subject of the League of Professional Theatre Women’s Oral History at the Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center. Robert Viagas conducted the interview. Baayork Lee has performed in over a dozen Broadway shows. For the original production of A Chorus Line, she created the role of Connie, while serving as …
The purpose of theatre is to wound our memory. — Paula Vogel Paula Vogel, Tony-nominated playwright for Indecent, was interviewed by Linda Winer, in an Oral History presented to League members and their guests at the NY Library for the …
Tamara Tunie was center stage May 17 at the Lincoln Center Library for the Performing Arts for the League of Professional Theatre Women’s Oral History Project. She answered interviewer David Gordon’s thoughtful questions with honesty and reflection, heart and humor. “What I think a lot of people don’t understand about directing is it’s not just about … Continue reading
Role Play Simulations in Corporate Training By Dara O’Brien Final Part of a Three-Part Series Most actors balance efforts to find work on stage or screen and refine their professional skills with the challenge of earning a living. In any given year, estimates reveal that between 90% to 98% of actors do not earn money … Continue reading
Does one even have to make an argument for the rewards of working internationally? The merits are easily grasped. It broadens horizons, changes perspective, helps you leave your comfort zone and stretch yourself. It introduces you to new people, builds friendships and creative interactions that may last for years, and, besides, traveling is really fun. … Continue reading
By Heather O’Donovan Nestled unassumingly on a Chelsea side street sits New York’s Irish Repertory Theatre, or, as most call it, Irish Rep. It’s an inconspicuous space: no Broadway-style marquees, only a suitably green banner poking out from the facade alerting in-the-know theatre-goers to its presence. It was in the basement blackbox studio of this … Continue reading
by Martine Sainvil In the last complete Broadway Season before the global COVID pandemic, Broadway was breaking attendance records with the highest numbers in its history. But the nearly 18 month shut down changed everything and the subsequent return has been slow going. Industry insiders always knew that getting back to business would be a … Continue reading
Series Part Two: Actor Simulations Help Train Future Doctors and More By Dara O’Brien How do you tell a parent that their five-year-old’s cancer is inoperable? Or a mother of five that she has early-onset Alzheimer’s Disease? All doctors, whatever their specialty, will have to communicate traumatic news to some of their patients. In order … Continue reading
I see a bright future for Native Theater in this country. A future where theater telling Native stories is a regular occurrence in communities around the country. Where communities can come together to experience each other’s stories to gain empathy about each other’s struggles and encounter each other’s joys onstage. Sharing lived experiences is a … Continue reading
American audiences don’t get access to many contemporary plays originally written in another language despite the burgeoning number of talented playwrights in the US and around the world who are creating work for the stage in languages other than English. Traditionally, classic European plays such as those written by Moliere, Henrik Ibsen and Anton Chekhov … Continue reading
by Alexis Greene Hrotsvitha and Alice Childress; Rachilde and Zora Neale Hurston; Ana Caro and Mrs. Harlow Phibbs. They lived centuries and continents apart, but they shared two enticing characteristics: they were women and they were playwrights. And now they are among the 250 dramatists who constitute “ON HER SHOULDERS: Celebrating 1,000 Years of … Continue reading
A woman of the Theater takes on the patriachs and carves out her place. By Kate McLeod and Martine Sainvil Playwright, Stage Director, Producer, Artist are just a few titles that Tony®, Drama Desk, and Obie Award-winning Emily Mann has earned over her long career. The creator of Annulla Allen: The Autobiography of a Survivor, … Continue reading
WIT journal 