Just Wrought

Recovering playwright, once won a STRANGER Genius Award for theater. Now writing a bloated novel about… G-d help me! Theatre.

Tag: Arena Stage

  • Seattle Week at HowlRound

    Seattle Week at HowlRound

    Keep your eyes on HowlRound.  According to Seattle Playwright Vincent Delaney, “The national journal based at Arena Stage, is featuring Seattle for the entire week.  We’ve got blog posts by playwright Stephanie Timm, Allen Fitzpatrick of Icicle Creek Theatre Festival, Kathy Hsieh of Sex In Seattle, dramaturg Liz Engelman, and a culminating interview with our own Yussef El Guindi.”

    Vince has already posted his kick-off essay and it’s a clarion call.   

    Local actors rule the Equity stages here, and no one expects that to change. They’re just too good, and everyone knows it.

    So, Playwrights?

    Raising the profile of Seattle writing is really a matter of changing our own self-image. Yes it’s frustrating to see season selections that reflect some other city’s priorities (curse you, Wichita)—but what are we going to do about it? Sit and complain? Threaten to leave? Spend all our energies on angry blog posts?

    (Uh-oh.  I think I know who that last shot might be aimed at.)

    Go read Vince’s essay and give him feedback in the comments section.  Then keep your eye on HowlRound and weigh in when Stephanie, Allen, Kathy, Liz and Yussef step to the plate.  This is a great opportunity for Seattle to continue its discussion about mapping its way to World Class as a theatre town, and an even greater way for the whole nation to see how sexy smart and committed we are.

    Go get ‘em, Seattle!

    Posted at 9:29 AM in Seattle, Theatre, Theatre News, Towards a World Class Theatre | Comments (0)

    Tags: Allen Fitzpatrick, Arena Stage, HowlRound, Icicle Creek Theatre Festival, Kathy Hsieh, Liz Engelman, Seattle as World Class Theatre Town, Seattle Playwrights, Seattle Theatre, Sex In Seattle, Stephanie Timm, Vincent Delaney, Yussef El Guindi

  • D.C.’s Arena Ups the Ante, What will Seattle’s Big Houses Do?

    Arena Stage in Washington, D.C. just made being a playwright a full-time job for five lucky (and worthy) writers.  What a concept!  An institution with the sole purpose of putting on plays finally making the role of wrighting them a full-time position on their staff.  From the Washington Post article:

    It might sound as if bringing playwrights aboard would be the most routine of customs for an industry in the business of putting on plays. Playwrights, after all, supply the basic building blocks of theatrical life. In reality, though, American theaters rarely effectively put dramatists on the payroll.

    As a result, few writers ever become integral parts of a performing arts institution. And this, in turn, may help to explain why many in the business think the deterioration in the process of getting new plays to the stage has reached a crisis level.

    Will any Seattle Big House do it here?  My prediction is that you will hear lots of public admiration for Arena’s move in the “other Washington”; but God will hear lots of private prayer that Northwest theatre artists and audiences quickly forget about this revolutionary change so that the artistic administrators calling the shots can go back to stolidly propping up the status quo.

    Then again, I could be wrong.  (God, how I’d love to be wrong.)

    Read all about it here.

    (Thanks S. P. Miskowski for pointing this out to me.)

    Posted at 9:29 AM in Seattle, Theatre, Theatre News, Towards a World Class Theatre | Comments (0)

    Tags: Allen Fitzpatrick, Arena Stage, HowlRound, Icicle Creek Theatre Festival, Kathy Hsieh, Liz Engelman, Seattle as World Class Theatre Town, Seattle Playwrights, Seattle Theatre, Sex In Seattle, Stephanie Timm, Vincent Delaney, Yussef El Guindi