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Ethics

Content in this section engages with questions and ideas around moral principles and standards of behavior when making theatre. Start with Adam R. Burnett’s essay “Before Resilience: The Ethics of Theatre Production” or the videos from the convening “Build from Here: The Future of Ensemble Theater with FoolsFURY Theater Company,” which includes conversations about labor ethics, project finance reform, and more.

The Latest

Finding the Individual in Your Digital Choreography Library
Podcast
Finding the Individual in Your Digital Choreography Library
by Tjaša Ferme, LaJune McMillian
15 February 2024
Using Technology to Heal Trauma
Podcast
Using Technology to Heal Trauma
by Tjaša Ferme, Heidi Boisvert
11 January 2024
Resisting “Yes, And” Culture and Learning to Say No
Essay
Resisting “Yes, And” Culture and Learning to Say No
by Sara Božin
8 January 2024
A promotional graphic for Theatre Tech Talks.
Finding the Individual in Your Digital Choreography Library
Podcast

Finding the Individual in Your Digital Choreography Library

15 February 2024

LaJuné shares about the inception of Black Movement Library: a database of motion capture data from Black folks they created, while seeking to avoid the paradigms of erasure, extraction, and exploitation of Black bodies. In their work, they encourage freedom and personal expression over correct data capture. They believe none of us are just numbers, and to treat our movements in our bodies as just data sets is very harmful.

Theatre Tech Talks teaser image with guest Heidi Boisvert's headshot.
Using Technology to Heal Trauma
Podcast

Using Technology to Heal Trauma

11 January 2024

Guest Heidi Bosivert believes that our bodies are archives of stories and if we can't get those stories out, the whole fabric of society will break down. When she worked in tech, addressing social issues, she had a crisis of faith and figured that bringing people into physical spaces and working with the body might be one way of mitigating deleterious effects of technology. Now, she’s creating a media biogenome.

A performer with a glum facial expression sits on the floor during a show.
Resisting “Yes, And” Culture and Learning to Say No
Essay

Resisting “Yes, And” Culture and Learning to Say No

8 January 2024

Sara Bozin explores the advice for performers within the theatre industry of saying “yes” to everything, how it infringes on the autonomy of theatremakers, and why and how one must learn to say no.

A woman wearing a lacey crown stands alone on a carpeted floor with a hand extended in a "halt" gesture.
Anti-Terror Feminist Director Is in Russian Jail for “Justifying Terrorism”
Essay

Anti-Terror Feminist Director Is in Russian Jail for “Justifying Terrorism”

2 August 2023

After Russian courts found that Svetlana Petriychuk’s documentary theatre piece Finist the Brave Falcon “justified terrorism” due to its feminist aims, Petriychuk and director Zhenya Berkovich were jailed. Viktor Vilisov discusses the production, clarifying the production’s aims to amplify the experiences of Russian women whose attempts to flea Russian patriarchy has landed them in oppressive marriages to Syrian ISIS fighters.

Gender Euphoria teaser image featuring guest profile image.
Queer Intimacies in Too-Near Dystopian Futures
Podcast

Queer Intimacies in Too-Near Dystopian Futures

With Guest Leanna Keyes

28 June 2023

Host Nicolas Shannon Savard and playwright Leanna Keyes discuss her play Doctor Voynich and Her Children. What does it mean to stage trans stories about queer motherhood, abortion, intimacy, choice, and power in the wake of the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade and the ongoing legislative attacks on reproductive rights and the trans community?

Gender Euphoria teaser image.
Queer-Trans Intimacy Work: Cracking Gender Open
Podcast

Queer-Trans Intimacy Work: Cracking Gender Open

With Guests Dr. Joy Brooke Fairfield and Raja Benz

21 June 2023

In the first part of a two-part conversation on queer-trans intimacy direction and choreography, Nicolas talks with Theatrical Intimacy Education faculty members Dr. Joy Brooke Fairfield and Raja Benz about their courses Working with Trans & Non-Binary Artists and Staging Intimacy Beyond the Binary. They discuss crafting courses that are less Trans-101 and more cracking gender open, resisting patriarchal and colonialist scripts, and bringing queer culture into the rehearsal room.

On stage, a performer dressed as an angel holds another performer's limp body.
Examining White Gay Responsibility in Our Theatres
Essay

Examining White Gay Responsibility in Our Theatres

8 June 2023

Munroe Shearer discusses the problem of white queer men’s positionality excusing them from anti-racism and anti-misogyny practices in theatre leadership.

Illustration of several different hands all holding needles and working on a sewing project together.
Intentional, Relational, Consensual: A New Framework for Performing Arts Contracts
Essay

Intentional, Relational, Consensual: A New Framework for Performing Arts Contracts

30 March 2023

This dynamic summary of a panel co-curated by Rachel Penny and Nikki Shaffeeullah as part of Parallel Tracks 2.0 brings together several artists, producers, and lawyers in a discussion about contracting, how it has been impacted by COVID-19, and interrogating power dynamics within the contracting process.

Building Our Own Tables Season 3 teaser image with guest headshot.
Transform Yourself with Tierra Allen
Podcast

Transform Yourself with Tierra Allen

8 March 2023

This week, Yura Sapi is join by Tierra Allen who shares about creating The Real Work, a podcast about theatre culture and transformative justice that is co-produced with We Rise Production. This episode’s topics include learning from non-humans, sharing poems and songs, and being the change.

Two actors sit across from each other at a small square table during a show.
Civic Imagination: The Urgency of Possibility
Essay

Civic Imagination: The Urgency of Possibility

27 February 2023

Theatre artist Michael Rohd shares a lyrical call for more civic imagination, community care, and care-centric processes in the theatre field.

Two performers in extravagant costumes stand on either side of a performer with both arms extended at their side.
An Artist’s Take on Disability Creativity with David Salsbery Fry
Essay

An Artist’s Take on Disability Creativity with David Salsbery Fry

22 February 2023

David Salsbery Fry’s career in opera shifted dramatically when he publicly disclosed his disability in 2015. In this candid discussion with Marianna Mott Newirth and Gregory Moomjy, co-founders of New York City’s first disability-affirmative opera company, he details his experiences navigating an industry that has not made itself fully accessible or welcoming to artists with disabilities.

A woman in a dress lying on a bench covering her face with a book.
I Don’t Think It’s Just Me Anymore: The Shift Towards Healthier Theatre Education
Essay

I Don’t Think It’s Just Me Anymore: The Shift Towards Healthier Theatre Education

12 December 2022

Theatremaker Sara Bozin reflects on her college theatre experience and shares changes she’d like to see in theatre education that prioritize students’ physical and mental health.

The cover of a book called The Wildcard Workbook: A Practical Guide for Jokering Forum Theatre. It is purple and yellow.
The Wildcard Workbook: Why Forum Theatre and Why Now?
Essay

The Wildcard Workbook: Why Forum Theatre and Why Now?

15 November 2022

Theatremakers Sulu LeoNimm, Liz Morgan, and Katy Rubin discuss the process of co-authoring The Wildcard Workbook, a guide designed to help others in the field delve into Theatre of the Oppressed practices and devised theatre processes.

Concept art for a mostly red stage with a starry sky backdrop.
Practical Artificial Intelligence for Stage Design
Essay

Practical Artificial Intelligence for Stage Design

6 October 2022

Projection designer David Forsee, who brings artificial intelligence into his own design workflow, creates a toolkit for other designers interested in effectively and ethically integrating text-to-image models into their design processes.

sculpture floating above a theatrical stage.
Intimacy and Equity: A Balancing Act
Essay

Intimacy and Equity: A Balancing Act

23 August 2022

Ann James introduces the Rebuilding for the Future: A Convergence of Thought Leaders in Intimacy Practice series with this call for intimacy professionals to build a foundation of equity in the industry by interrogating available mentorship and training structures. This essay begins that work by highlighting the need for a diverse pool of training ideologies and methods; and the interview-based series that follows takes up that need by highlighting the perspectives of eight practitioners who navigate the intimacy industry in a variety of ways.

Daughters of Lorraine Podcast teaser.
Staging Reproductive Freedom in Black Feminist Theatre
Podcast

Staging Reproductive Freedom in Black Feminist Theatre

3 August 2022

This episode is inspired by recent and current events regarding Roe v. Wade and their potential impact on birthing people. We think about the representation of reproductive justice (things such as abortion, contraception, and anything regarding decisions to birth or plan a family) especially from Black women playwrights. We discuss plays such as They That Sit in Darkness by Mary Burrill, Rachel by Angelina Weld Grimke, Come Down Burning by Kia Corthron, In the Blood by Suzan-Lori Parks, and Abortion Road Trip by Rachel Lynett.

Full cast sit together for a picture.
Seeing Double: Double Consciousness as a Black Theatre Practitioner
Essay

Seeing Double: Double Consciousness as a Black Theatre Practitioner

14 July 2022

Ekemini Ekpo applies W.E.B. Dubois’ concept of “double consciousness” to the experience of performing Blackness for a predominantly white audience that may or may not be interested in disturbing the primacy of their own lived experience.

Screenshot of a zoom meeting.
From Awareness to Action: Facilitating Change in the American Theatre
Essay

From Awareness to Action: Facilitating Change in the American Theatre

13 June 2022

Lauren E. Turner, producing artistic director of No Dream Deferred, sits down with Amelia Parenteau to discuss their recent experiences in anti-racist facilitation work through No Dream Deferred’s service, Equity and Justice for Institutional Change.

A welcome mat lying on the ground amongst bits of paper.
Eco-Performance: Brazil
Essay

Eco-Performance: Brazil

19 April 2022

Elizabeth Doud introduces the Climate Emergency series, which looks to Brazilian artivism for reparative paths forward in the face of climate change.

Six people dressed in fake soldier uniforms protest the war with a banner.
There Was Some Contemporary Culture Left in Russia. Then Putin Started a War.
Essay

There Was Some Contemporary Culture Left in Russia. Then Putin Started a War.

4 April 2022

Russian theatremaker Viktor Vilisov details the rapidly dwindling infrastructure for free expression in Russian culture in a time of war. As theatres and theatre workers navigate the deterioration of their sector, elements of performance persist in anti-war protests and state political messaging alike.

A collage of several pictures of people's faces placed side by side.
Remembering Ways of Knowing
Essay

Remembering Ways of Knowing

A Conversation between JD Stokely and Javiera Benavente

16 March 2022

JD Stokely and Javiera Benavente discuss the ways the navigate they complexities of commoning while embracing listening, unlearning, and care in their creative practices and educational paths.

A man carrying a torch stands on top of a small stone tower.
Arts, Culture, and Commoning: A New/Old Path to Collective Transformation
Essay

Arts, Culture, and Commoning: A New/Old Path to Collective Transformation

14 March 2022

In their introduction to the Arts, Culture, and Commoning series, curators Jamie Gahlon and Matthew Glassman apply the concept of the commons to theatremaking as a practice and illuminate the potent intersection of these ideas.

A puppet booth with two puppets in the window.
The Brutalities of Mr. Punch
Essay

The Brutalities of Mr. Punch

27 January 2022

Leda Farrow considers the history, legacy, and symbolic potential of Mr. Punch, a hand puppet characterized by his violent acts.

Two people wearing costumes and holding signs that say "Bush" and "World".
Creating Puppet Solidarities
Essay

Creating Puppet Solidarities

24 January 2022

Sarah Plummer kicks off the puppet series by introducing the series contributors and exploring the way their work highlights puppetry’s capacity to form solidarities among humans and nonhumans.

A woman cutting a girl's hair.
Exit Descartes: Reimagining Theatre Training Through an Embodied Lens
Essay

Exit Descartes: Reimagining Theatre Training Through an Embodied Lens

18 October 2021

Eve Bernfeld discusses creating a culture of care in her Alexander Technique classes by paying attention to embodiment. She asks: What if we heal the false rift between mind and body in our theatre making and training?