Update Post: Still Here!
Steven Gaultney Blog
by Steven Gaultney
9M ago
Hello Readers and Friends! If you follow this blog, you may have noticed a much-longer-than-usual gap between posts. So, this is a quick note to say that I am not gone forever! Please do stay tuned (and subscribe if you haven’t already). I’m in the midst of some major life reconfigurations and hard at work on a really cool project with The Theatre of Others, so a few items in my regularly scheduled programming (blog posts included) are taking a back seat. I’ll return here with new posts near the end of the year. Until then ..read more
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Post 2.6: When Leaves are Hiding/Work with Others
Steven Gaultney Blog
by Steven Gaultney
1y ago
Keats tells us that poetry should “come as naturally as the leaves to a tree.” But sometimes trees are bare and sometimes it’s winter: whatever are those dry, shivering branches to do? Regular readers of this blog know that a few months ago I left a full-time administrative job, primarily to craft a life more centered on my writing. For the first time in a long time, I’ve not had my schedule to blame for slower-than-desired productivity. That said, of course, I’ve had slow days. Not to mention (*loosens collar*), slow weeks. Every writer will tell you that some days are more productive than ot ..read more
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Post 2.5: No Room in the Inn, but Everyone Is Welcome
Steven Gaultney Blog
by Steven Gaultney
1y ago
“We live in capitalism, its power seems inescapable - but then, so did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art.” - Ursula K. Le Guin The resources required to produce a work of theatre - both human and material - are difficult to convey to the uninitiated. Plays take years to write, additional years to develop, small fortunes to finance, and - between the playwright, director, designers, cast, producers, etc. - cumulative lifetimes of expertise to pull off. Every play you see is a miracle. Every new play ..read more
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Post 2.4: The Best of New York Theatre in 2022
Steven Gaultney Blog
by Steven Gaultney
1y ago
2022 was New York theatre’s first full year back after the pandemic shutdown, and I’d hold it up as one of the better years I’ve seen in my decade and a half of living in NYC. The pandemic gave us an opportunity to pause and ask “big questions” about what type of theatre we want to create and for whom we want to create it. On that front, 2022 perhaps proved to be two steps forward, one-and-a-half steps back.  We saw a surge of diverse voices both on stage and on creative teams, but also saw producers and institutions struggle to bring audiences to this work, lacking both the necessary str ..read more
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Post 2.4: The Best of New York Theatre in 2022
Steven Gaultney Blog
by Steven Gaultney
1y ago
2022 was New York theatre’s first full year back after the pandemic shutdown, and I’d hold it up as one of the better years I’ve seen in my decade and a half of living in NYC. The pandemic gave us an opportunity to pause and ask “big questions” about what type of theatre we want to create and for whom we want to create it. On that front, 2022 perhaps proved to be two steps forward, one-and-a-half steps back.  We saw a surge of diverse voices both on stage and on creative teams, but also saw producers and institutions struggle to bring this work with audiences, lacking both the necessary s ..read more
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Post 2.3: Five Things I Wish I Knew (Like, Really Knew…)
Steven Gaultney Blog
by Steven Gaultney
1y ago
It’s December, which means lots of time with family and (I had almost forgotten) college application season. While visiting with family over Thanksgiving weekend, I spoke with a relative who will be applying to colleges next year. When I was in high school, I was fairly confident I’d end up at a liberal arts school and thus wouldn’t have to choose a major, let alone a profession, until a couple of years in. Hearing this sixteen year-old weigh not only universities, but the schools and concentrations within those universities, brought me back to the head-splitting anxiety of choosing a pathway ..read more
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Post 2.2: Hamlet and the Stories We Share
Steven Gaultney Blog
by Steven Gaultney
1y ago
During intermission of director Thomas Ostermeier’s off-the-wall (and ceiling, and long-banquet-table, and full-stage-covered-maybe-ankle(?)-deep-in-dirt) production of Hamlet, which I recently had the great pleasure of seeing at Brooklyn Academy of Music, my friend observed that the production assumed a fairly robust prior knowledge of the play. A not insignificant amount of license had been taken with the text, which had been both rearranged and cut, and the performance at times offered ironic commentary on the way a specific character or moment is typically portrayed.  Midway through a ..read more
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Post 2.1: Shower Thoughts About Why
Steven Gaultney Blog
by Steven Gaultney
1y ago
Hello, friends. It’s been a while. Around this time last year, I started what was to be a bi-weekly blog about “the craft and politics of theatre.” That lasted five posts, each usually separated by more than two weeks. As a playwright attempting to, you know, write plays - while also, at the time, working at a full-time job - I’ll confess: I may have bit off a tad much. To those of you who joined me for those posts: thank you! To those of you who didn’t: they’re still posted!  Today, though, I’m rebooting the blog with a different focus. The posts from that first attempt each introduced a ..read more
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Post 5: Choosing Violence
Steven Gaultney Blog
by Steven Gaultney
2y ago
Theatre, as an art form, is designed to ask big questions. It’s written into the DNA. One reason for this is the necessary act of assembly: each audience member makes plans (buys a ticket, marks their calendar), leaves their house, perhaps hires a baby-sitter, perhaps dines out before the show, then sits within a crowd of others all focused on the event which, at last, takes place before them.  Why would you, the theatre-goer, go through so much effort if what you’re watching’s not important? Why would the audience you’re a part of do the same?  Humans, as a general principle, gather ..read more
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Post 4: Digital Theatre in a Post-Pandemic World
Steven Gaultney Blog
by Steven Gaultney
2y ago
At two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, it is now commonplace to state that the term “post-pandemic” is a misnomer - that there is no “after” COVID-19, there is only before and the eternal, plague-ridden now. This is, of course, not true. The future may look bleak, and there are certainly things about our lives that will never be the same, but both history and science tell us clearly that this particular pandemic’s large-scale disruptiveness will ebb and, eventually, end.  The future will always be a challenge to perceive, especially when the present is category five storm of hot sewage ..read more
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