I recently had the pleasure of connecting with several AAPI MFA theater grads across generations. But also the displeasure of noting how little has changed when it comes to the difficulties we face navigating PWIs. This is a thread specifically addressed to ACTING faculty: 1/
*There's A LOT of decolonizing to be done in your devotion to classics. The focus on canon feels at odds with US inside-out acting training that asks actors to place themselves inside the world of the play in a direct psychological context. 2/
Sep 29, 2020 • 11 tweets • 2 min read
I’m doing a play reading and reading my own stage directions (I HAVE CONTROLLL) and it’s taking me back to all the times I read stage directions for other people and was clueless and failed VERY PUBLICLY. Which leads me to this very niche theater thread on How to Be a Reader
This is a classic “foot in the door” job that cuts across disciplines (you may end up doing it as an intern/actor/SM/ASM/Asst director). Unfortunately it’s also a job where you stick out really quickly if you’re doing it funny.
Sep 4, 2020 • 11 tweets • 2 min read
When I think on the happiest I've ever been making theater it's probably "Moustache Guys." Lloyd Suh was putting together an evening of shorts for 2g. (Are they still kickin?) He says whaddya wanna write a short play about, I'll produce it
I said what about a guy who can't grow a moustache so he wears a fake one so he can join the Secret Order of the Moustache Guys. And then his girlfriend dons a fake moustache to find him? And it's all an excuse to have as many actors wearing as many fake moustaches as possible?
Dec 25, 2019 • 12 tweets • 2 min read
Emerging Writer PSA on when/if you should get an MFA:
*don’t go into debt for an MFA. Theater pay is too low to be saddled by debt. When you’re worried about money you aren’t making the smartest/most interesting artistic decisions
*know WHY you’re getting an MFA. If it’s a vague sense of “my career will move forward” STOP. Have a plan for your time there and a plan for your time beyond there. Get to know each program you apply for inside and out in terms of strengths and weaknesses
Dec 24, 2019 • 11 tweets • 2 min read
There's something about the framing of this article that troubles me. I don't blame the writer, I just think the nexus of theater/TV/MFAs is complicated and unless you're inside this particular grindstone it's hard to characterize. But the focus on money alone feels off.
I would hazard to say that most playwrights who go do TV and don't ever come back to theater - it's not because TV money's so good so much as theater's HEARTBREAKING.
Mar 7, 2019 • 14 tweets • 4 min read
Play Formatting PSA:
In undergrad one of the 1st things Donald Margulies did was teach us proper play formatting. Which felt like a huge bummer. Shouldn't it be story first? Who cares about formatting?! Don't you see that l WILL CHANGE THE FORM, WITH THE POWER OF ART? 1/
But now that I've done a ton of reading committees, I can see he was right. In the same way you wouldn't show up to a job interview dressed wrong for the job, when I'm reading a ton of plays my first cut rejections boil down to, "Does this manuscript LOOK like a play or not?" 2/
Sep 20, 2018 • 10 tweets • 2 min read
Thinking back on my "emerging" phase, I remember how CRUCIAL it seemed to land these landmark early-career opportunities: NYTW fellows, Princess Grace or Van Lier, or Public EWG, or P73 Fellows, Ars Nova Group, Soho Rep Lab...
And I landed none of those. I felt like my peers were chaining together these opportunities and that I had to do that too or I'd fall behind.
