Category Archives: First Person

Responsible Stewardship: Grappling With an Artist’s Legacy

Composer Michael Friedman’s sister, and the executor of his estate, reflects on her role in preserving her brother’s work in an evolving field.

The artistic director of the Twin Cities’ Penumbra reflects on an outrageous paradox: that Black vulnerability could exculpate white violence.

Rooted as much in Michigan as Mosul, he lived to see both of his homes turn to sectarian violence and division.

Dialogue is mostly a form of behavior and personal revelation usually accidental. Therein lies a drama, and a mystery.

Dramaturg Doug Langworthy shone his light on the work of others, but it finally couldn’t lead him out of his own private darkness.

Catching a glimpse of the beloved community in a quirky, inclusive corner of the U.S.

How the queerness of fairy tales and musicals, once coded and now more open, has always spoken—and sung—directly to me.

Changing my headshot opened my eyes to the ways I’m seen—and remain unseen.

I’m reclaiming my birth name in a new musical just as the U.S. elects its first Indian American VP. Coincidence? I don’t think so.

As the trauma of George Floyd’s killing and the specter of COVID entered my home and my work, I was reminded what my country is—and still could be.