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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
Lue Morgan Douthit, longtime director of literary development at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF), commissioned a translation of Shakespeare’s Timon of Athens into contemporary modern English in the fall of 2015, beginning OSF’s Play On! project. With the Bard still continuously the most-produced playwright in America, one purpose of the project was to ask why …
“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 …
Photo Essay “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.” … Continue reading
This article is part of an ongoing partnership between HowlRound Theatre Commons and WIT Journal online. Michaela Goldhaber, current artistic director of Wry Crips, talks to the founding and early members of the disabled women’s theatre group about their history. For thirty-four years, Wry Crips Disabled Women’s Theatre Group in Berkeley, California, has been helping women … Continue reading
Augie, Bellow, Frankenstein and Me In 1964 I returned with my family from Kampala, Uganda, where we had lived for two years, and was hired by Saul Bellow to read, answer and categorize some of the letters he received in response to that most epistolary of novels, Herzog. It was Bellow’s second big commercial success, … Continue reading
Tovah Feldshuh met up with theater critic Linda Winer at the LPTW Oral History series, New York Library of the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center — May 6, 2019, for an intimate conversation with League members and a standing room only audience. “When I asked my mother if I could go to Julliard, she said … Continue reading
“The Game — can we continue with it?” is a question posed in The Maids, an absurdist play by Jean Genet which opened March 2019 by The Seeing Place Theater in their East 4th street theater. This question is not so remotely detached from the current complicity confronting both American and global citizens. Pretending to strangle … Continue reading
This year’s Theatre Women Awards will honor director/choreographer Graciela Daniele (Lifetime Achievement Award), director May Adrales (Josephine Abady Award), acting teacher and author Mari Lyn Henry (LPTW Special Award), the founding members of the feminist activist and advocacy group The Kilroys (LPTW Lucille Lortel Visionary Award), scenic designer Mimi Lien (Ruth Morley Award), translator/director/producer Joanne … Continue reading
Lynn Nottage kicks off the first Oral History of 2019 “I like to think of the audience as an audience of my friends, and my friends are a very diverse group.” Lynn Nottage discusses craft. Photo by Ashley Garrett “Procrastination is a form of creative exploration.” Two … Continue reading
Few thrills are comparable to watching the November wave of highly qualified women winning seats in federal and state governments. A Navy pilot, a woman who began her studies in a community college on the reservation, young mothers, and a former CIA officer – these candidates came in all shapes and sizes. Is it … Continue reading
The first known appearance of the story of Robin Hood with most of its familiar elements (stealing from the rich and giving to the poor; Sherwood Forest; evil sheriff; band of Merry Men) can be found in a mid-fifteenth-century English ballad. The origins of the myth itself date back to the 1300s. The tale transcends … Continue reading
This spring Remy Bumppo, the ensemble centered Chicago theater company with a penchant for complicated language and complex social issues mounted the U.S. premiere of UK playwright debbie tucker green’s ‘hang’ in a run from March 21 to April 29. Note, the playwright prefers the lower case both for her own name and the play’s title. … Continue reading
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