Everywhere you look this time of year, there are reminders of love. Whether you find the heart-shaped designs in store windows and pink and red everything amusing or not, the topic of love is impossible to escape. We as editors of a theatre-oriented publication have been thinking about our primary love: theatre, arts that are living and breathing on stage. Theatre is the turbulent partner that can be difficult to ignore (especially when you devote your world to it at a theatre conservatory), but is always eager to please. What is it about this on-again, off-again relationship that keeps us coming back for more?
Quite a few things, actually, 101 to be exact. We present to you: our love letter to theatre.
A chance to encounter people that you don’t see everyday. That person you worked with two years ago that you have not seen since? Surprise! They are sitting in the row just in front of you. Theatre provides the rare opportunity for fortunate connections (and reconnections).
Show-themed concession items. Was it a dramaturg who decided that the Cincinnati Shakespeare Company should serve specialty French 75s for their 2019 production of A Flea in Her Ear? Because even four years later I must commend their insight on that one.
Photos from past productions hanging up around a theatre. Or, what I also like to call “Arthur Miller bingo.”
Reading the program note, if there is in fact a program note. I tend to see most plays as a completely blank slate–I’m not one to research beforehand–so I appreciate seeing what specific information the program wants me to understand before the show starts.
Listening to other audience members discuss the program note. As a writer of program notes myself, I feel very seen (read?) by this.
The programs that they give you at the opera. Free coffee table book with the price of admission!
The comically large paper tickets that people print at home. When I was an usher in high school, audience members sometimes fumbled with these ridiculous tickets that were essentially just screenshots of the online order page–I mean these things had the URL, Google Maps directions, restaurant advertisements, parking prices, pretty much everything short of the script to the play. E-tickets could never be so charming.
The Delaware Theatre Company. I really cut my teeth here in the summer of 2009 with my starring role as President of the United States in a devised piece about a dystopian mime society.
Looking at the set before the show starts. Broadway shows get cheeky and usually hide everything behind a massive curtain, but I like seeing how much I can infer about the play just from the set design. There are penguins? They have names?!
Lobby displays. I’m a big proponent of being at the theatre far earlier than what is reasonable or expected, so I love having a justification to linger.
Pre-show ambient music.
Whenever people cheer for the “turn off your phone” announcement.
Puppets. In all circumstances.
Plays where the characters are trying to make a play. I think TTS shares my sentiment on this one.
The eccentric approaches companies take trying to revamp Shakespeare. There were three different steampunk stagings of Titus Andronicus in my hometown when I was growing up.
Plays that are an acute commentary on the current state of our culture.
Plays that outwardly resist being about anything.
That muffin scene in The Importance of Being Earnest.
Any time a production uses scent in its design. I’m forever haunted by the story of a performance of Thyestes that utilized beef stew.
Intermissions. Please let me enjoy the final thirty minutes of this play without thinking about how badly I have to pee.
The children’s theatre version of Kafka’s Metamorphoses that came to my elementary school when I was in the third grade. The impact it had on both my aesthetic and character is immeasurable.
Pierrot, the sad clown character that the French inserted into commedia dell’arte. You know what this routine needs? Crying!
Boats on stage. It feels so beautifully anachronistic.
Federico García Lorca.
“Can we try something?”
Those brief moments (intentional or not) when an actor makes eye contact with you.
When you find an opening to casually slide your research into a rehearsal room discussion.
Immediately finding the file you’re looking for in Backstage.
Spike tape. I think the theatre should embrace more visual elements from laser tag arenas.
Yukio Ninagawa’s 1983 production of Medea. And most variations of Medea, really. It’s a cool play.
Martin McDonagh. More on this later.
Mess on stage. I saw Red Bull’s Mac Beth spring of 2019. The whole set was covered in moss, dirt, grass, and water. Rain just poured from the ceiling in the ten minutes leading up to Macbeth’s death. All the water created actual mud onstage. It looked like actors were running around after a storm, their bodies streaked with filth. Everything on stage was ruined. It was epic.
HowlRound. We have frequently been compared to this revelatory website (thanks P. Carl!), and we are better for it. HowlRound has opened up new routes of how I think about theatre, and shown me that performance looks vastly different across the city, across the country, and across the world.
Three-hour productions that you leave thinking: “that was three hours long?! That felt like 30 minutes!” When it is that good, minutes feel like seconds.
A live band. Most recently, see Vinegar Tom (and prepare to have your mind blown).
Shockingly good body horror on stage. Told you Martin McDonough would come back!
Design elements that genuinely leave me wondering how they did it. Enormous dementors with no visible strings or projections flying over the audience in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child on the West End still haunt me to this day.
Literary managers. They secretly make the world go round.
Diane Claussen.
The electric kettle stage managers set out at rehearsals. A special lifeline for late nights.
Calling anything “Brechtian.”
“I want to pull on that thread a little more.”
Immediate standing ovation. When the performance was so good that you cannot help but get on your feet.
Exuberant vocal warm-ups.“Follow the yellow brick road,” “hey, that’s my bike,” among others. How do these word soups turn into brilliant performances?
A sweet, well-meaning narrator surveying the action on stage.
“We like money that jingles, we love money that folds!” At this point, tradition is enough to enjoy it.
Whimsical musicals based on children’s favorites. See Fantastic Mr. Fox, Winnie the Pooh, My Neighbor Totoro.
Children’s reactions to theatre. Kids do not hold back with how they feel about the story.
Finding out that the script library has the play you were looking for.
Historic theatres. The grand spectacle of seeing a show in an old theatre is nothing short of extraordinary.
Ghost light. There is something comforting about knowing that the theatre will always be bright, even if just a little.
Caryl Churchill.
Plays that are aware that they are plays. Are you supposed to get lost in this play? Absolutely not. And it is a joy to be so acutely aware of it.
Immersive theatre. In all forms. Exodus may have revived this art, but it has been around for hundreds of years. The intimacy of being so close to the action only further increases its effect.
Stage managers. They equally make the world go round.
Theatres that make accessibility a priority. This goes beyond just a wheelchair ramp. There is a recent push for theatres to rethink how they approach accessibility in their shows. Including Zoom performances, audio descriptions, sensory-friendly care kits for audiences are just the beginning of how theatre can become accessible for all.
Theatre that does not fit neatly into a genre.
Unconventional casting. I will choose a Black woman as Henry IV any day.
The Two River Theatre in Red Bank, New Jersey. This is where I learned what a dramaturg is. It’s where I felt seen, maybe for the first time.
Trap doors.
Not being a musical person…except for that one musical. Fun Home is my only exception.
Theatre in the round, and other unexpected stagings. For when the proscenium gets boring.
Our high school drama teachers. For better or for worse, many of us would not be at The Theatre School without them. So thank you Alexis Kozak, Scott Taylor, and Lauren Kean.
STUDENT TICKETS! I cannot stress this enough. You have your entire life to pay full price for things, get them at a discount while you can. Here are some of our favorites: Goodman Theatre: use code 10TIX for $10 day of tickets. Steppenwolf: Use code STUDENT15 before you select your seat. Timeline Theatre Company: Join MyLine for $15 tickets to any of their shows.
The word “thespian.”
How studying theatre makes you realize that so much of life is theatrical. Baseball games? Theatrical. Reality TV? Mega theatrical. Theatre is everywhere, if you look hard enough.
Post-show discussions. Recently, I’ve realized seeing a play is only one part of going to the theatre. I love the opportunity to extend the play into an ongoing conversation (really-don’t all dramaturgs?). The people who go to post-show discussions are very dear to me as well, maybe they are just as nerdy as I am?
Civic dramaturgy. This is my favorite class I’ve taken at TTS. It completely changed the way I think about not only dramaturgy, but theatre itself. You should take it if you can.
Intimacy directors.
Dr. Martine Kei Green-Rogers. We are so lucky to have such a badass dramaturg leading TTS.
Explaining what dramaturgy is.
When you don’t have to explain what dramaturgy is.
Rachel Shteir. O Captain, my captain!
The first day of rehearsal. First rehearsals have a special kind of magic. The energy is always kinetic.There are some new faces, some old, but we’re all going to get to know each other a little bit more during the next however many weeks. We all know this is a journey we are embarking on together.
Lauren Halvorsen. You. Stop what you’re doing. Go subscribe to Nothing for the Group. Now.
My grandmother’s VHS tape of the 1998 Cats recording. If only you knew, Mom-mom.
Patti Lupone’s pool.
Luciano Pavarotti’s “Nessun Dorma”. Il migliore.
Artists on strike for better working conditions. If the theatre scene is going to change for the better, its artists need to be supported. The sacrifice striking theatremakers make is for the betterment of all theatremakers.
Fly systems. The magic of theatre in ropes and pulleys.
Suzan Lori Parks’ Elements of Style. Of all the quintessential theatre readings, this is the all-timer for me.
Quick changes.“Wait, but weren’t they just–?” “How did they–?”
Any time my mom sends me a photo of someone credited as a dramaturg in a program. I’m not sure whether this is supposed to affirm me or herself.
The decrescendo of voices when the house lights go down.
Ghost stories. Why does every theatre seem to have one?
Water on stage. (see: Boats)
Season announcements!
All the notes and highlights in my script by the end of rehearsals.
The level of passion with which people play improv games. Lives are on the line for Kitty Wants a Corner.
The Norton Anthology of Drama.
Telling stories about your first time in a theatre. Mine was Roundabout Theatre Company’s revival of The Pajama Game with Harry Conick Jr. and Kelli O’Hara. I was five years old, and somehow, even at such a young age, this experience showed me that theatre would be a very important force in my life.
Theatre criticism.
Notes sessions. Learning how to give a note may be one of the hardest parts about being a young dramaturg; however, notes sessions can be some of the most informative parts of a rehearsal process. You have the opportunity to talk to your director about the play, its shape, and what it's accomplishing. It’s a conversation you’re both coming to with ample knowledge about the play– you are able to explore together.
Opening nights!
The friends you have who aren’t theatre people, but always come to your shows just to support you. You know who you are, thank you.
The Literary Database for Equity and Inclusion. Check out the awesome work they’re doing over there.
The Script Library. Awesome work there too.
. The Theatre School!
The Grappler. Would this list be complete without our beloved platform? I think not! We especially love The Grappler for how it has allowed us to share our thoughts collectively within our little community.
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