July 2014

(This post is part of the 2014 TCG National Conference: Crossing Borders {Art | People} blog salon, curated by Caridad Svich.)  Can a show exist without an audience? I think most would say that an audience is needed to complete a live theatrical experience. If you’re performing Hamlet alone in your room – is that theatre? Or if [...]

(This post is part of the 2014 TCG National Conference: Crossing Borders {Survive| Thrive} blog salon curated by Caridad Svich.) a) The theater as we know it is on life support. It lays on a hospital bed with an I.V. in its wrinkled arm, barely trickling blood from its empty veins – its eyes have already been closed for years, [...]

(This post is part of the 2014 TCG National Conference: Crossing Borders {Art | People} blog salon curated by Caridad Svich.) I arrived – after a day and a half of travel – at the airport in Ulan Bator (known as UB), Mongolia and was met by my translator, Boloroo. Somehow throughout all our e-mail correspondence over the previous [...]

(This post is part of the 2014 TCG National Conference: Crossing Borders {Art | People} blog salon curated by Caridad Svich.) (Photo: credit to Sophie Kandaouroff) Because I spent too many years in a Communist system, I’m overly wary of rhetorical manifestos, so on Caridad Svich’s kind invitation I’m submitting a gentle exhortation on behalf of a more globally-minded theater—reflections [...]

(This post is part of the 2014 TCG National Conference: Crossing Borders {Art | People} blog salon curated by Caridad Svich.) The following includes excerpts from a presentation delivered at the Flying High With Autism Conference in Pensacola, FL, organized by Anita Lesko. For three years now my wife Anushka Paris–Carter and I have been writing a play about living on the [...]

((This post is part of the 2014 TCG National Conference: Crossing Borders {Art | People} blog salon curated by Caridad Svich. Pictured on Skype, Deborah Asiimwe; seated, Emily Mendelsohn, Ruth Wikler-Luker. Photo credit: Win Goodbody, PortlandTheatreScene.com) A recent residency at Boom Arts in Portland, Oregon has left me pondering borders.  Long-time collaborator Deborah Asiimwe and I were invited by producer/curator Ruth [...]

(This post is part of the 2014 TCG National Conference: Crossing Borders {Art | People} blog salon curated by Caridad Svich.) Espiritistas are important mediators of the dead for practitioners of Palo and Ocha/Santo. [. . .]  Importantly, during their masses, espiritistas help the living engage these dead through a complex theater of possession, often involving the experience of [...]

(Photo by Michal Daniel.) Day Two of the conference was deeply challenging, but ultimately meaningful and empowering. I woke up thinking about this quote from Peter Brosius’ speech: “We are all storytellers. And that’s an exciting statement to make, because stories have power. Whose story we’re telling matters. The point of view through which we tell [...]

(This post is part of the 2014 TCG National Conference: Crossing Borders {Art | People} blog salon curated by Caridad Svich.) Growing up as a young female theater artist, I was very blessed to be exposed to so many classics. I loved reading Hamlet, Othello, and King Lear. The stories were adventurous, dramatic, and full of passion. However, while [...]

(This post is part of the 2014 TCG National Conference: Crossing Borders {Art | People} blog salon curated by Caridad Svich.) As a playwright, international artist, and scholar, I am looking more than ever to connect to my numerous communities.  In connecting to a community, I can find an audience, funding, a gathering of artists with common ideals, and [...]

(This post is part of the 2014 TCG National Conference: Crossing Borders {Art | People} blog salon curated by Caridad Svich.) The tall red poppy opened its origami style bloom precisely on time the morning of my departure from Dayton, Ohio.  I looked out my mother’s kitchen window in wonder. The timing was unmistakable, impeccable.  The paper- thin petals [...]

(This post part of the 2014 TCG National Conference: Crossing Borders and the two blog salons curated by Caridad Svich,  {Art | People} and {Survive|Thrive}.) Looking at these two threads it strikes me that what is being offered up here is how we engage with, generate and find ways to transform capital: cultural capital, social capital and [...]

(This post is part of the 2014 TCG National Conference: Crossing Borders {Survive| Thrive} blog salon curated by Caridad Svich.) A couple of weeks ago, I found myself in the strange environs of a banker’s office, arranging for an international wire transfer to Moscow. This particular banker had a slight Southern drawl, and as he entered numbers from a [...]

(This post is part of the 2014 TCG National Conference: Crossing Borders {Art | People} blog salon curated by Caridad Svich.) Young Jean Lee’s The Shipment (2008), Kimber Lee’s brownsville song (b-side for tray) (2014), and Branden Jacobs-Jenkins Appropriate (2013) all constitute border crossings of a very particular kind: they are plays in which a playwright imagines and gives [...]

(This post is part of the 2014 TCG National Conference: Crossing Borders {Survive| Thrive} blog salon curated by Caridad Svich.) UNeditions is a new platform for publishing play scripts on mobile devices, using light and sound design from the live production to create a unique and immersive reading experience. The platform was created through a co-design process led by [...]

(Photo by Michal Daniel. Pictured: Naomi Iizuka delivering her “To The Mountaintop” remarks at the 2014 TCG National Conference: Crossing Borders in San Diego.) I’m not somebody who gives speeches.  That’s not what I do.  What I am is a problem-solver.  As a playwright, I have to figure out how to tell the story I’m trying to tell.  As [...]

(This post is part of the 2014 TCG National Conference: Crossing Borders {Art | People} blog salon curated by Caridad Svich.) The British playwright Simon Stephens, whose Olivier award-winning play The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time will be opening in Broadway this year (September), is the most performed contemporary British playwright in mainland Europe. Besides his [...]

(This post is part of the 2014 TCG National Conference: Crossing Borders {Art | People} blog salon curated by Caridad Svich.) In May of 2012, I was awarded the Internationalist Global Playwrighting Prize for my play, “The Hummingbirds”, which included six presentations in six different countries.   These presentations led to an ongoing tour in Romania, a full production in [...]

(This post is part of the 2014 TCG National Conference: Crossing Borders {Art | People} blog salon curated by Caridad Svich.) As my play SO THE ARROW FLIES is publishing this summer through No Passport Press, I have had the chance and challenge to reflect upon my work, its process and germination, standing at a distance.  I’d like to [...]