Sunday, May 09, 2021

Worth A Look

Here are a few posts from last week's Greenpage that might be wroth your time...

A Teaching Moment for Juilliard

AMERICAN THEATRE: Marion Grey felt blessed. It was the fall of 2019 and she was finally walking the hallowed halls of the acting school she’d “worked and prayed” and auditioned twice to get into: Juilliard Drama. A 27-year-old from Roanoke, Va., who’d gotten her undergraduate theatre degree from James Madison University, Grey (she/her) threw herself into her classes at the prestigious New York City school, and even after the pandemic hit last March kept herself active and engaged: Last summer, as president of the Juilliard Black Student Union, she helped make a video anthology of music, poetry, and dialogue titled “We the Black Artist.”

 

Seattle’s theater stagehand community, still idled by COVID shutdown, fears a mental health crisis

The Seattle Times: Cole Guinn, the assistant carpenter with Pacific Northwest Ballet, was setting up for a show in March 2020 when the announcement came — all gatherings of more than 50 people were banned under coronavirus pandemic-related restrictions. “We’re done. Everyone’s going home,” the technical director announced. That was the last time many of the crew in that room would work for the next year.

 

Sacramento theater’s diversity festival canceled amid outcry

The Sacramento Bee: In the wake of the killing of George Floyd and the greater racial reckoning that ricocheted across the country last year, Sacramento Theatre Company announced a play festival last fall that would tackle issues surrounding diversity and inclusion. But the virtual stage readings of the ten plays selected by the theater company was ultimately canceled in March, after actors backed out en masse and raised concerns that the plays and the casting decisions made failed to live up to the festival’s mission.

 

Kelly Hartog: Hollywood and Broadway must stop grooming actors for abuse, or Scott Rudins will still thrive

www.nbcnews.com: When I heard that American film, television and theater producer Scott Rudin had resigned from the Broadway League over the weekend, something seismic shifted in me, hurtling me back to a time and place when I found myself in the clutches of my own Scott Rudin. Granted, it was on a different continent in a different decade, but unfortunately, the Scott Rudins of the world defy time and space.

 

Your Journalists Are Failing You

rescripted.org: On April 15th, Lowell Thomas released a statement citing his reasons for his resignation under duress at Steppenwolf and the theatre community shared it across all social media platforms. No major media outlets paid attention. Two weeks later, on Tuesday April 27th, I compiled an article that included large excerpts of artist statements that had been made individually by Lowell Thomas and Isaac Gomez. The only person who amplified it was Chris Jones, who said Rescripted, aka I, was calling for divestment and dissent, a mischaracterization of the piece as a whole. The hot take is that I am apparently, inciting a riot (I am not). We will unpack how dangerous this is to say about a group of people of color another time.

 

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