Sometimes the best shows are the ones you didn’t plan to see. I was all set to check out Shit-faced Shakespeare, when I learned it happened to have a hiccup in its usual schedule and wasn’t playing after all. More or less at random, I ended up seeing Ride the Cyclone, a musical I knew […]
Dad’s Garage is a comedy theater that does a mix of scripted and improvised shows. I caught a preview performance of a new, scripted show called Ad Nauseum, written and directed by Megan Leahy. I almost didn’t go to this show because the premise sounded a bit tired and reductive: It takes place in a […]
You may remember Bridget McCarthy from my (depressingly popular–I wish this didn’t resonate with everyone) post about Juliet being played by somebody whose body type is not… sylphish? She’s developing a one-woman show, called Fat Juliet, which she says was catalyzed by our work together on her Juliet audition monologue. That story isn’t in the […]
Bridget is playing Laertes at “the other ASC,” so I decided to find a time to come see it, meet people in Atlanta, and check out the theater. Inspired by Shakespeareances, I have been trying to see more theater outside of universities. So much Shakespeare is happening all over the country, and I want to […]
Most images by Seraphina Zorn, taken at the Dog Story Theater in Grand Rapids, March 5, 2019.
I have been noodling over a mystery for the past couple of weeks, and I’m curious to hear other theater makers weigh in on it. The audience response to Richard III at Pigeon Creek Shakespeare has been incredible. People are hissing and booing at Richard when he’s messing with Queen Elizabeth. High school kids at […]
I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to do a play about wickedness with such fundamentally kind people. Richard, after all, isn’t the only mean-spirited or ambitious person in this play. A number of people are out for revenge. At least three are willing to take a life in exchange for a few […]
The process for Richard III at Pigeon Creek was unusual because I spent the first three weeks (of a four-week process) directing via Skype. Now that the show is up and I’m done with my bit of it, I wanted to take some time to reflect on how it went, overall, and what I might […]
I knew, going into Richard, that I would have a huge personal connection with the women in this play. “It’s a play about motherhood,” I kept telling people who raised a skeptical eyebrow when they heard the title. I didn’t expect to be so moved by Richard’s sociopathy. I’m completely the opposite of a sociopath, […]
Now that Richard III is rolling around Michigan and I’m home, I’m finding myself explaining to people more or less daily that the show goes on without me. Most people who haven’t done much theater don’t realize that a director is very different from an orchestra conductor. I set the show up and then it […]