Terry Morgan – Stage Raw The word “hir” is a gender-neutral, third-person pronoun that replaces “him” or “her.” It’s an appropriate title for Taylor Mac’s play, which examines gender definitions in the context of an American family drama. Read more… Erin Conley – On Stage & Screen What happens when you return home after time away … Read more
Terry Morgan – Stage Raw One of the hallowed maxims of writing teachers everywhere is: “Show, don’t tell.” Simply put, the actual experience of a thing is much more effective than simply hearing about it. There are, of course, exceptions to this rule (Swimming to Cambodia comes to mind), but it’s a solid one to follow … Read more
Terry Morgan – Stage Raw Plays taken out of the context of their own times can be troublesome. For instance, modern theatres have struggled to deal with the racist portrayal of Shylock in The Merchant of Venice, to the extent that a recent production, Everything That Never Happened, revised the play’s events to relay them from Shylock’s daughter’s … Read more
Terry Morgan – Talkin’ Broadway The cost of integrity is never cheap, but it varies. Sometimes one can lose relationships with family or friends, lose a job or, in the direst circumstance, lose one’s life. In the early 1950s, the House Un-American Activities Committee wielded Cold War communist paranoia to attack people whose views they … Read more
Erin Conley – On Stage & Screen Sometimes, family can bring out the worst in us—especially if your relatives would do anything to get to the top.Read more… Terry Morgan – Talkin’ Broadway Sometimes a play simply works within its own era, and exists later simply as an accurate representation of that time. But other … Read more
Terry Morgan – Stage Raw Translating personal experiences or family history into theatre can be a tricky proposition. On the one hand, simply recounting events as they happened doesn’t necessarily create fascinating drama. On the other hand, fictionalizing things too much may betray the truth of the story.Read more… Now running through November 18
Terry Morgan – Stage Raw It could be said that Sam Shepard perfected the strain of poetic realism that runs in American playwriting, particularly in works such as True West and Buried Child. Symbols abound, from characters representing civilization and wilderness to bushels of corn growing from a dead field.Read more… Now running through November 9
Terry Morgan – Stage Raw Although Rogue Machine is a small theatre company, it’s always punching above its weight class and generally achieving whatever artistic challenges it sets for itself. This year the group had a particularly difficult task — it had to find a new home, a misfortune that sometimes sinks otherwise stable organizations. … Read more
Terry Morgan – Stage Raw Not every work of art is designed with the mass audience in mind. Some are experiments or explorations, or maybe just a diverting goof. All these terms might apply to John O’Keefe’s All Night Long, a kaleidoscopic fever dream of a play that revels in erudition and silly humor but doesn’t … Read more
Terry Morgan – Stage Raw There’s a reason that Shakespeare’s Cymbeline doesn’t get produced very often. It’s not that it’s bad per se, but that it’s familiar without being extraordinary.Read more… Now running through October 14