HowlRound Theatre Commons' Podcasts

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

By David Dower. Today I'm talking to Tony Graham, a UK Theater for Young Audiences director who was also recently a Fellow here . I have to admit that I have had very little direct experience with the front edge of this sector and I am just so impressed by the depth of thinking, the complexity of the issues involved, the range of aesthetic and thematic approaches, and frankly the many different ways I am wrong about what I presume the issues to be. Not that I ever thought that the thinking wasn't deep or the issues complex but hearing the ways in which they are diving into the issues, and the trails the thinking is going down is a rush of inspiration for me. I am moved by his discussion of censorship; it's more complex than you think it is if this is not your field. I am inspired by the specifics...

By David Dower. Today I talk with Ilana Brownstein, known to #newplay followers as @bostonturgy . She's the founder of the Playwrights' Commons in Boston and we're going to be very involved with each other as we move forward in the transition to the Center for the Theater Commons in her city. We talk about her work with the Playwrights' Commons, in particular about her recent work analyzing the breakdown of the upcoming season as currently announced. It leads us to the murky waters of "representation" and "emerging artists" and "responsiveness versus responsibility" and what are we measuring when we measure things like this. We do go on, as you can imagine, once you get into this particular discussion it is hard to find an organic end to it. I hope you can make the time to listen in, and to jump off from the things we're groping for here to help move...

By David Dower, Ilana Brownstein. Listen to weekly podcasts hosted by David Dower as he interviews theater artists from around the country to highlight #newplay bright spots.

By David Dower. Today I talk with Ilana Brownstein, known to #newplay followers as @bostonturgy . She's the founder of the Playwrights' Commons in Boston and we're going to be very involved with each other as we move forward in the transition to the Center for the Theater Commons in her city. We talk about her work with the Playwrights' Commons, in particular about her recent work analyzing the breakdown of the upcoming season as currently announced. It leads us to the murky waters of "representation" and "emerging artists" and "responsiveness versus responsibility" and what are we measuring when we measure things like this. We do go on, as you can imagine, once you get into this particular discussion it is hard to find an organic end to it. I hope you can make the time to listen in, and to jump off from the things we're groping for here to help move...

By David Dower. I somehow had the good fortune to spend time on the phone with Cheryl Ikemiya, Senior Program Officer for the Arts at the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, in the middle of a very busy season for the Foundation. They've just announced this roster of artists as the inaugural class of Doris Duke Artists—a huge investment in individual artists in this country. And they're gearing up for the submission deadline on the inaugural round of still another big initiative designed to test and develop a totally different concept in Artists' Residency , a program focused on what the guidelines say is the "demand side" of the equation. This program will create residencies for artists that focus on audience and community, rather than on the "supply side" of artistic creation. It's a really interesting innovation in the growing area of residency support and Cheryl unpacks it a bit with me. If you...

By David Dower, Cheryl Ikemiya.

By David Dower. I somehow had the good fortune to spend time on the phone with Cheryl Ikemiya, Senior Program Officer for the Arts at the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, in the middle of a very busy season for the Foundation. They've just announced this roster of artists as the inaugural class of Doris Duke Artists—a huge investment in individual artists in this country. And they're gearing up for the submission deadline on the inaugural round of still another big initiative designed to test and develop a totally different concept in Artists' Residency , a program focused on what the guidelines say is the "demand side" of the equation. This program will create residencies for artists that focus on audience and community, rather than on the "supply side" of artistic creation. It's a really interesting innovation in the growing area of residency support and Cheryl unpacks it a bit with me. If you...

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

By David Dower. Braden Abraham, Associate Artistic Director of Seattle Repertory talks to me as part of the Seattle City Series this week. Contributors have been talking about the Writers' Group there and here Braden breaks it down a bit for us—why they are doing it, how it works, what they are learning, what they are planning. We also take a look around both the HowlRound contributions thus far and the infrastructure of the city itself to see what we can see. Listen to weekly podcasts hosted by David Dower as he interviews theater artists from around the country to highlight #newplay bright spots. You can subscribe to the series via iTunes or this RSS Feed (for Android phones).

By David Dower. Braden Abraham, Associate Artistic Director of Seattle Repertory talks to me as part of the Seattle City Series this week. Contributors have been talking about the Writers' Group there and here Braden breaks it down a bit for us—why they are doing it, how it works, what they are learning, what they are planning. We also take a look around both the HowlRound contributions thus far and the infrastructure of the city itself to see what we can see. Listen to weekly podcasts hosted by David Dower as he interviews theater artists from around the country to highlight #newplay bright spots. You can subscribe to the series via iTunes or this RSS Feed (for Android phones).

By David Dower, Pam Mackinnon. Listen to weekly podcasts hosted by David Dower as he interviews theater artists from around the country to highlight #newplay bright spots. This week: director Pam MacKinnon.

By David Dower. This week I talk with director Pam MacKinnon. She's just been nominated for a Tony for her work on Clybourne Park and I am really grateful she made the time to talk to me anyway. We spend some time on her journey with that play—from Playwrights Horizons in NYC to Center Theater Group in LA and on to Broadway—wind our way into her relationship with Edward Albee—including her work on the Steppenwolf production of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf that went on to Arena Stage , and poke at the notion of "new play development" from the perspective of this prolific director of new work. At the end of the call comes a list of the projects she's working on between this whirlwind of the Tony Nomination and her return to Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf for its Broadway production later this year. It's a delightful and surprising list of...

By David Dower. This week I talk with director Pam MacKinnon. She's just been nominated for a Tony for her work on Clybourne Park and I am really grateful she made the time to talk to me anyway. We spend some time on her journey with that play—from Playwrights Horizons in NYC to Center Theater Group in LA and on to Broadway—wind our way into her relationship with Edward Albee—including her work on the Steppenwolf production of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf that went on to Arena Stage , and poke at the notion of "new play development" from the perspective of this prolific director of new work. At the end of the call comes a list of the projects she's working on between this whirlwind of the Tony Nomination and her return to Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf for its Broadway production later this year. It's a delightful and surprising list of...

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