Since 2020, the BIPOC Critics Lab has trained dozens of emerging critics in craft of criticism. In this reflection on the joy, labor, and creativity that goes into running the program, José Solis surfaces lessons from the lab’s path thus far.
How can voice work enable actors to access their widest range of expression? What happens when vocal training is not about “fixing,” but play and connection? Madeline Sayet sits down with voice practitioner Sayda Trujillo to explore these questions in a conversation about liberatory vocal practice.
Ash Marinaccio speaks with the Creative Pathways team at the Genesis Center in Providence, RI, about how documentary theatre is used alongside drama therapy to support newly arrived immigrants and refugees in sharing their stories, building community, and learning English.
Playwright Tomi Endter imagines a future fifty years from now when American theatre has finally centered Native voices. She looks back at how the industry transformed from exclusion to the celebration of Native stories and artists.
Madeline Easley details an experience working with the Wyandots of Kansas while writing a new play for Kansas City Repertory Theatre that touched on deep, nuanced, multi-governmental politics—and how that experience contrasts with her other experiences in the American theatre.
Chingwe Padraig Sullivan shares findings and impacts of the recent Native Theatre Community Town Hall on representation, erasure, and accountability in the American theatre, which was hosted by HERE Arts Center.
Ash talks with Peter Hussey of Crooked House Theatre about the ways interviews and personal stories shape their youth and documentary theatre, and how intergenerational projects connect people across age and experience.
Native theatremakers have been combatting harmful representations of Native people in theatre for many years. Quita Sullivan, Mary Kathryn Nagle, and Betsy Richards discuss their work to push back from within institutions.
Tara Moses introduces the series The Unspoken Treaty: The Pattern, Impact, and Disruption of Silencing Native Voices, outlines how the “American theatre” got here, details key takeaways from the series, and offers an invitation to institutional leaders to move from being unsettled to galvanized.
Ash Marinaccio talks with Scott Illingworth, founder of the Verbatim Salon, where actors perform real stories from those navigating the US immigration system. They explore the creative process and how verbatim theatre sheds light on today’s urgent social issues.
This is a call for diversity, equity, and inclusion in pit orchestra hiring. Joe LaRocca surfaces inequities embedded in the current contractor system of pit musician hiring, as well as some steps companies can take to remedy these issues.
Junior Programs, Inc brought the values of democracy and racial and ethnic diversity to children across the United States through an innovative, decentralized model that featured comprehensive educational partnerships. Joan Lancourt offers their approach as a potential inspiration for the contemporary moment.
Is New York theatre backsliding into a less equitable industry? Emily Chackerian writes about the very real worry triggered by recent season announcements that seemed to elide female playwrights—and the solution-minded responses the community offered at a recent town hall.
Through culturally responsive pedagogy, Bryan Stanton opened up their design classrooms to center student voices and value knowledge from many distinct cultures. They reflect on the practices they used to usher in this transformation and the profound impact it has had on students.
The potential for photosensitive reactions—like seizures or migraines—keeps some audiences out of theatres. Nicole Hughes discusses the work of EpiArts and the FlashCue Project to make theatre more accessible to these audience members by educating theatremakers about photosensitivity and providing clear standards for communicating about flashing light cues.
How can researchers design processes that center communities? How can a national research team center local partner communities, make data collection valuable and enjoyable, and then return findings quickly in useful ways? For the National Research and Impact Team for One Nation/One Project, the answer lays in values-based, creative research strategies.
Through non-narrative rock numbers, Dan Fishback is Alive, Unwell, and Living in His Apartment targets contemporary societal betrayals, from COVID denialism to the genocide in Palestine. Taylor Leigh Lamb writes about the show’s genesis and its multi-pronged commitment to safety and access for audience and artists alike.
In September 2024, HowlRound and Company One convened leaders from the theatres in the Mellon Foundation’s Future of American Theatre Cohort. Dramaturg and Company One new work manager afrikah selah reflects on the experience and shares some of the group’s discoveries.
Learn About the Artistry, Camaraderie, and Joy That Can Be Unlocked When Actor Training Takes Place in an Affinity Space
Monday 7 April 2025
New York City
This evening gives artists, teachers, and audience members a chance to learn more about the role of affinity space actor training, what it can achieve, and why it is critical against the backdrop of widespread efforts to end—even punish—initiatives for diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Using Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company as a case study, Michael DeWhatley discussed leadership transition as an opportunity for boards to become more involved and connected to theatre organizations. Through collaborative and relational governance strategies, these organizations can evolve and sustain themselves.
Equity specialist Quodesia D. Johnson shares about her experiences facilitating racial healing circles in performing arts spaces. She argues that theatres should be spaces of truth-telling, connection, and racial healing for everyone.
In their individual and collective artistic practices, Annalisa Dias and Applied Mechanics model more just and accessible futures for theatre. Their MicroCosmos encounter explores immersive theatremaking, collaborative leadership, and a desire to end the obsession with artistic “vision.”
Host Tjaša Ferme and media artist Ellen Pearlman discuss Ellen’s projects Language is Leaving Me and Noor: A Brain Opera. They go on a deep, granular dive into the loab: the psychic, unconscious, dark side of artificial intelligence rendering; the future of language depositories; and why all this matters seismically!
Appalachia is an often overlooked region within theatrical storytelling. Heather Brooke Eisenhart shares about the many new play development initiatives of Barter Theatre in Abingdon, Virginia and how they address this gap.
Theatre Advocay Project (TAP) offers a wealth of tools to create safer and more equitable working conditions for all theatre professionals. Amelia Parenteau discusses the organization with co-founders Caylin Waller and Colette Gregory, who are now TAP’s executive director and director of programs, respectively.
