Dr. Berkley, I am at your door.You’ve been gone a long time. I’m awake in the middle of the night. Hear your voice like a call. You taught me to listen to calls.
As a poly-disciplinary artist manager, transition acompañamiente (doula), intimacy coach and ordained oracle, I have seen that the fear of death is a well-documented phenomenon that has shaped or, at minimum, influenced everyone's civic, private, and spiritual life alike. Theatre, like most rituals, is often a deliberate reflection of culture. I consider many of the storylines on American stages as proof positive that decomposition, when feared, turns life into an act of meaningless consumption.
I'm writing to share my deepest gratitude for your recent article in response to the challenges we're facing as a theatre community. I'm grateful for your invitation to adopt new "lenses" that allow us to think about this time in our history as one of new beginnings, new discoveries, and new sunrises.
Divinia: Pearl Cleage’s Something Moving: A Meditation on Maynard is a communal retelling of the moments surrounding Maynard Jackson’s political career in Atlanta, Georgia as the first black mayor in the Deep South. Led by The Witness (Billie Krishawn), a community artist and organizer in Atlanta, nine actors (both in life and the play) volunteered to join this 50th-anniversary story of Maynard Jackson. While the room has a script, it increasingly falls away as these actors become Citizens telling the story of Maynard’s time with Atlanta and the impact it’s left on us now.
3Views is thrilled to continue our partnership with ArtsConnection's Teen Reviewers and Critics Program (TRAC), publishing real reviews written by NYC teenagers. In this mini-issue, we are excited to share two reviews by Angela and Zelda, two alums of the program.
In the summer of 2020—when I was still a danger to myself, when every day I went to a hospital for intensive outpatient care—I was told that writing would help me calm my suicidal thoughts. Art could be healing, even.
As a playwright who focuses on giving space and voice to marginalized communities, one of the most challenging, though intriguing, parts of my job is to also write for characters whom I fundamentally, as a human being, disagree with.
If everything is in transition, then isn’t nothing really in transition?
We all know it has been a challenge coming back after the pandemic—not because the artists aren’t eager and just as creative—if not more so—but because there have been seismic shifts around all of us.
At no point in my early theater life did I dream of being a producer, but once I finally accepted in my 20s that that would be my professional identity (after MUCH grieving at the knowledge that this would mean my writing/acting/directing self would be put to sleep indefinitely), I set my sights at climbing the theatrical artistic leadership ladder. Like many, many others: I wanted to become an artistic director.
