What Can Be Taught, What Must Be Learned
As the walls among mediums begin to tumble, so too the boundaries separating training programs.
Category Archives: January/February 2020
Watch This Space: Playwrights Train for All Media
As dramatists begin to write for all media, the nation’s playwriting programs are starting to teach beyond the stage.
MFA or the Highway?
7 playwrights who’ve honed their craft without the coveted degree tell how their roads diverged.
A B-Boy at Yale
Rudi Goblen, break-dancing champ turned playwright, enters a school that has done its own share of learning.
What Is the Question?
Watching and helping John Guare build his plays inspired his erstwhile assistant to do the same.
A Door Closes, a Window Opens
What our departing senior editor’s education and writing career has to say about the value of training and experience.
Julia Jarcho Appointed Head of MFA Playwriting at Brown
The downtown playwright and theatremaker talks about her aesthetic and DIY work ethic, and how much of each she’ll bring to her new post.
Theatrical Seekers and True Believers
New books document the processes and productions of 2 major New York companies.
Don’t Blame It on Their Youth
The problem with young adult shows on Broadway isn’t that they focus on teens—it’s which teens they focus on.
Letters for January/February 2020
As a former Chicago theatre person (artistic and then executive director of Free Street Theater, from 1991 to 2003), I was glad to see American Theatre devote an article to the wonderful ensemble scene in Chicago (“Stronger Together,” AT, Nov. ’19). But I found it “curious” that the writer neglected to mention perhaps Chicago’s oldest functioning theatre ensemble, Curious Theatre Branch. Curious has been devoted to new work for more than 30 years, having produced Rhinofest long before the first “Fringe” for most of that…
