HowlRound Theatre Commons' Podcasts

By David Dower. My Friday Phone Call this week is with Leah Wilks of Leah Wilks Dance in Durham, North Carolina. This is a call that gets underneath the experience of living and making work in a community that is not one of the "marketplace" cities that her NC neighbor Scott Walters has labeled NYLACHI . Leah's primary focus is dance and she's in that immediately recognizable scramble that comes from being in the middle of a burgeoning artistic community that is emerging as a big, multidisciplinary community of art makers— juggling multiple jobs and projects and forms and collaborators. And she's always in motion, developing her art, her skills for the business of her art, her vision for her work over time. And a bit trying, already, to figure out how to create space to rejuvenate and to breathe. This is a conversation that will be familiar to many regular followers here...

By David Dower. Listen to weekly podcasts hosted by David Dower as he interviews theater artists from around the country to highlight #newplay bright spots. This week: Leah Wilks of Leah Wilks Dance.

By David Dower, Edward Sobel. Listen to weekly podcasts hosted by David Dower as he interviews theatre artists from around the country to highlight #newplay bright spots. This week: Ed Sobel of the Arden Theatre Company.

By David Dower. Today I get a chance to talk to one of the people who was a consistent contributor to the early thinking behind the American Voices New Play Institute and the whole notion of the #newplay initiative. Ed Sobel is now the Associate Artistic Director of Philadelphia's Arden Theatre Company , and prior to that was at Steppenwolf . At the Arden Ed continues to experiment with play development processes and programs and he's got an important one going on right now. The Writers' Room is an experiment in rapid prototyping in new play development. He's creating residencies where the playwright starts and completes a draft of a new play, the play is designed, cast rehearsed and performed—all in the space of four months. Throughout, the writer is embedded in the institution and in the artistic community. We get into the details of this program, just now heading into the performance...

By David Dower. Listen to weekly podcasts hosted by David Dower as he interviews theater artists from around the country to highlight #newplay bright spots. This week: Ed Sobel of the Arden Theatre Company.

By David Dower, Bill O'Brien. Listen to weekly podcasts hosted by David Dower as he interviews theater artists from around the country to highlight #newplay bright spots. This week: Bill O'Brien of the NEA.

By David Dower. Today I talk with Bill O'Brien, the Senior Advisor for Program Innovation at the National Endowment for the Arts. This call is one you have to put down what you're doing and really listen to. It doesn't take you where you think it is going to go. Bill and his colleagues are involved in some incredibly big-thinking projects that involve a whole host of surprising collaborators: the military, the National Science Foundation, and schools of journalism to name a few. And the stuff they are doing, in particular, around the research into traumatic brain injury is just amazing to me. Not only the research itself, which is that, but the fact that the NEA has found a role in it and an imperative to be right in the middle of it all. Yes, the agency still has a focus on identifying and supporting excellence in artistic practice, but Bill's role,...

By David Dower. Listen to weekly podcasts hosted by David Dower as he interviews theater artists from around the country to highlight #newplay bright spots. This week: Bill O'Brien of the NEA.

By David Dower, JJ El-Far. Listen to weekly podcasts hosted by David Dower as he interviews theater artists from around the country to highlight #newplay bright spots. This week: J.J. El-Far of Harlem Arts Festival.

By David Dower. As part of Harlem Week here on HowlRound I am speaking to a number of producing artists in the neighborhood. Here's a conversation with yet another bundle of bright Harlem energy, J.J. El-Far. J.J. is the Creative Director of the Harlem Arts Festival , which jumps off for the first time this weekend in the Marcus Garvey Park amphitheater with a line-up of music, theater, visual and movement arts celebrating Harlem today. We get a bit into the nuances of producing a new arts festival in the area and the complex relationship to the pressures of gentrification. I also get her talking about her own path to becoming a producer and what is in it for her. I seem to be on a mission of late to encourage more people to jump into this role as a means of creating their own space in the world. J.J. is definitely doing...

By David Dower. As part of Harlem Week here on HowlRound I am speaking to a number of producing artists in the neighborhood. Here's a conversation with yet another bundle of bright Harlem energy, J.J. El-Far. J.J. is the Creative Director of the Harlem Arts Festival , which jumps off for the first time this weekend in the Marcus Garvey Park amphitheater with a line-up of music, theater, visual and movement arts celebrating Harlem today. We get a bit into the nuances of producing a new arts festival in the area and the complex relationship to the pressures of gentrification. I also get her talking about her own path to becoming a producer and what is in it for her. I seem to be on a mission of late to encourage more people to jump into this role as a means of creating their own space in the world. J.J. is definitely doing...

By David Dower, Sandra A. Daley-Sharif, Garlia Cornelia Jones, Bryan E. Glover.

By David Dower. Today I talked with three of the producers of Harlem9 , a collaborative producing organization working in Harlem: Sandra A. Daley-Sharif, Bryan E. Glover, and Garlia Cornelia Jones-Ly. They are in the thick of producing their second annual 48 Hours In Harlem event and I was impressed they could all take the time to hang out with me. In the call we get into the nuts and bolts of working as a producing collaborative and how each of them got started as producers, about the creative aspects of producing, and about the purpose and value of working as a group. We also do a bit of "bright spotting" around Harlem which, as you can tell from the content here this week, is jumping. One of the things about this group, which Sandra points out during the call, but is evident from the very beginning, is how this is a nice...

By David Dower. Today I talked with three of the producers of Harlem9 , a collaborative producing organization working in Harlem: Sandra A. Daley-Sharif, Bryan E. Glover, and Garlia Cornelia Jones-Ly. They are in the thick of producing their second annual 48 Hours In Harlem event and I was impressed they could all take the time to hang out with me. In the call we get into the nuts and bolts of working as a producing collaborative and how each of them got started as producers, about the creative aspects of producing, and about the purpose and value of working as a group. We also do a bit of "bright spotting" around Harlem which, as you can tell from the content here this week, is jumping. One of the things about this group, which Sandra points out during the call, but is evident from the very beginning, is how this is a nice...

By David Dower, Laurie Baskin. Listen to weekly podcasts hosted by David Dower as he interviews theater artists from around the country to highlight #newplay bright spots. This week: Laurie Baskin of TCG.