A great love that must defy prejudice. A secret kept hidden for years and a surprising denouement. The formidable force of memories unveils the mysteries of the past. Stach comes from a wealthy family, Chicha is a Gypsy. Social conventions, intolerance, and stubbornness stand in the way of their happiness. Will Stach and Chicha end up together? Will the family secrets come out? Is a happy ending always happy? Poznań Opera stages a rarely performed opera by Stanislaw Moniuszko, shown for the first time in a full musical arrangement prepared by its conductor Rafał Kłoczko. Ilaria Lanzino, an I ..read more

The term of ritual has always been an object for endless discussions amongst theologians, cultural theorists, anthropologists, psychologists, philosophers, etc. Many myth theorists looked to ritual as a description of the religion. But recently, some symbolic anthropologists, for example, W. Robertson Smith or Clifford Geertz, have found the ritual to be fundamental to the dynamics of culture. Theoretical descriptions of ritual generally regard it as action and thus automatically distinguish it from the conceptual aspects of religion, such as beliefs, symbols, and myths. William Robertson Smi ..read more

On March 17, 2023, the Bedlam Theatre in New York will be debuting the musical showcase, Best Time to Be Alive, which has been an ongoing project for its artists since 2019. Ready to hit its next benchmark for a live audience, the artistic triad (composed of the Librettist, Composer/Lyricist, and Dramaturg) gathered with me to discuss the meaning behind the story, and at times, quite literally, what a time it is to be alive. The Bedlam Theater was looking for a new work, preferably a musical unlike any other when Composer and Lyricist, Renoir Kobashi, and Artistic Director, Eric Tucker, began ..read more

The second edition of the Kenya Theatre Awards took place on 23rd February 2023 at the Kenya National Theatre in Nairobi. Among the dignitaries in attendance were Hon. Ababu Namwamba, the Cabinet Secretary for Youth Affairs, Sports and the Arts; Akinyi Odongo OGW; and veteran media personality Jimmy Gathu. As expected, Ngahiika Ndenda (I Will Marry When I Want) was the big winner of the night. Ngahiika Ndenda, a Gikũyũ-language play, was first performed nearly fifty years ago and earned its playwright, Ngũgi wa Thiong’o, a one-year stint in a Maximum Security Prison.  It was more recentl ..read more

Productions of Broadway musicals have body issues. Full stop. From casting norms for Broadway choruses to the use of fat suits in Hairspray and Jennifer Holliday’s well-documented struggles with weight in relation to her Tony Award-winning role as Effie White in Dreamgirls, Broadway musicals have perpetuated questionable—to say the least—body politics for decades. This troubled history is precisely where Ryan Donovan’s new book, Broadway Bodies: A Critical History of Conformity (Oxford University Press, 2023), intervenes, offering a rich in-depth study of musical theatre, casting, and body po ..read more

Alexandra Bachzetsis’s latest group performance, 2020: Obscene, estranges the word obscene from its sexual connotation and turns it into a stage play that challenges normative gender roles. I know it isn’t your scene It’s better than a sex scene And it′s so fucking obscene, obscene, yeah In one of his early songs, Marylin Manson points towards the difference between a sex scene and something that is obscene. In Alexandra Bachzetsis’s 2020: Obscene, presented at the Tanzquartier Vienna, the stage is divided into two areas. One is clothed in a bright red, the other in a yellow plastic coating ..read more

The memory play is a theatrical genre which allows the playwright to locate their characters in the here and now while at the same time travelling back in time. It is the form adopted by Bjørg Vik, a Norwegian writer and journalist who died in 2018, for her short play, The Journey to Venice. This contemporary Norwegian classic won the Ibsen Prize in 1992 and was televised a year later. Although it has often been staged in northern Europe, the playwright and her other work are scarcely known in the UK. Once again, Neil McPherson’s Finborough Theatre has made a discovery — and presents a rare g ..read more

Creating art that reflects our time, Kat Mustatea is a playwright and technologist whose conceptual triumphs are rooted in narrative-led, drama. Her creative endeavors pay regard to the bearing of AI and social media on art and society. Among Mustatea’s numerous accomplishments is a STARTS Residency at The Pompidou Center in Paris. Her augmented reality (AR) book meant to disappear “Voidopolis,” is forthcoming in 2023 from MIT Press/Penguin Random House. It previously won the Dante Prize for art and has been exhibited globally, including at Ars Electronica in Vienna. A cohort member of NEW IN ..read more

Xavier Bobés is one of those remarkable artists able to conjure a world through a few objects that he animates with a magician’s sense of the unexpected. His dramaturgy provides the spectator with a window into the past, to things that have been sidelined or forgotten. In Cosas que se olvidan fácilmente/Things Easily Forgotten, Bobés conjured the history of Spain in the dictatorship years through a series of objects, magazines, photographs and postcards found in a flea market. It was a remarkable piece of theatre that encouraged those of us who witnessed Bobés dexterous object manipulation to ..read more

Olga Voronkova is a London-based, Belarusian video editor, scriptwriter, copywriter, and producer working with Belarus Free Theatre and Young Vic. Her work focuses on the intersection of acting and theatre with social activism, psychology, and human behavior. Her most recent project for the European Theatre Convention – as part of Young Europe IV – shares stories of Ukrainian refugees for school-age audiences in London. Young Europe IV is a 3-year programme focused on young audiences and the non-dominant voices in our societies and their stories. Young Europe IV is the winner of a 50,000 EUR ..read more