“Don’t take freedom for granted!” This saying is what Helder Guimarães heard from his parents at the dinner table as they recounted stories of their oppressive past in Portugal. Born after the Carnation Revolution in 1974, the 29 year old Helder, knowing the value of freedom, decided to move to the United States to expand his professional opportunities. Playwright and performer Helder Guimarães in The Hope Theory at Geffen Playhouse. Directed by Frank Marshall. Photo by Jeff Lorch. At the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles, Helder Guimarães, an extraordinary magician recognized by The New York ..read more

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Sejong Center for the Performing Arts (artistic director, Sun-Woong Koh) staged the play Littoral by Lebanese-Canadian playwright Wajdi Mouawad from June 14 to June 30. This was a Seoul Theatre production, with direction by Jeong Kim and translation by Jaeil Lim. This play, also translated as “Tideline,” was written in 1999 and is the first of Mouawad’s epic quartet called The Blood of Promises (Le Sang des promesses), alongside Scorched (Incendies, 2003), Forests (Forêts, 2006), and Heavens (Ciels, 2009). The play is based on the author’s own history of having to leave his home country of Le ..read more

In 1979 the very first French iconic rock opera – Starmania, created by Michel Berger (composer) and Luc Plamondon (librettist), premiered at the Paris Congress Centre / Le Palais des Congrès. The original run was concise and lasted for only twenty-five performances, but, despite that, the rock opera Starmania (sub-titled Starmania, ou la passion de Johnny Rockfort selon les évangiles télévisés / Starmania, or The Passion of Johnny Rockfort According to the Televised Gospels) appeared on various stages more than once and underwent multiple successful productions (1980, 1986, 1988, 1994). The ..read more

Is Jordan Cheng for real?  The 37-year-old actor, singer, and composer is everywhere these days. In 2023, he won two of the city’s top drama awards and was nominated for two more while adding to his credits three major stage productions, original music for another — and concerts at clubs, Disneyland, and the airport. Banking on his growing recognition and, very importantly, his boyish grace, the Hong Kong Arts Festival is focusing the promotional campaign of its 2024 musical commission, I Am What I Am, on Cheng, who will headline as the leader of a scrappy lion dance troupe.  But it ..read more

After Brexit, UK productions very rarely play in Italy, but Biennale theatre directors Gianni Forte and Stefano Ricci have made an exception. The final days of the Festival put center stage some major practitioners from different parts of the world: the Australian company, Back to Back Theatre, recipients of the Golden Lion Award, presented Food Court; Swiss dramatist and director Milo Rau brought Medea’s Children, while UK’s Tim Crouch performed his 2022 play, Truth’s a Dog Must to Kennel. Crouch’s acclaimed Shakespeare inspired one-man plays – his earlier ones include I, Malvolio, I, Peaseb ..read more

The European Theatre Convention (ETC) in collaboration with Renew Culture officially launched in July 2024 the ETC Theatre Green Book (ETC TGB). The sixty-nine-page, freely available document brimming with images, graphs, and tables aims to offer a clear, step-by-step, and undaunting roadmap to live arts institutions in their journey towards achieving carbon emission neutrality. For the sixty-three publicly-funded European theatres members of the ETC, this goal is currently set for 2030. The ETC initiative extends and adapts the ideas and methods contained by the UK-focused 2020 Theatre Green ..read more

I first encountered Dmytro Ternoviy through my Worldwide Ukrainian Play Readings project. His play, On the Eve, set in the last hours before Russia launched its full-scale invasion on 24 February 2022, told of good, well-meaning people who simply could not believe that Russia would attack them. Dmytro and I remain in frequent contact as we prepare two collaborations – one a series of podcasts supported by Ukrainskaya Pravda, Ukraine’s top newspaper, that will present numerous texts from an anthology I edited (A Dictionary of Emotions in a Time of War: 20 Short Works by Ukrainian Playwrights ..read more

This is Part 2 of the interview with Dmytro Ternoviy. For Part 1, go here. Dmytro Ternoviy’s answers are translated from Ukrainian into English. John Freedman: Kharkiv is one of the oldest and most important cities in Ukraine’s history. An argument can be made that Russian intellectual and spiritual life was actually formed and developed in Kharkiv. Do you think this has anything to do with the ferocity of Russia’s ongoing attacks? Dmytro Ternoviy: Russians live in a world of their own perverted logic and cannot believe that no one wants to see them here. There are, of course, a certain numbe ..read more

Do you ever wish you could have a say in how your city developed its land? Well, this month, New Yorkers finally can. At least, in the theoretical theatrical exercise of DIRT. The interactive theater piece imagines a scenario in which the East River drains, inviting audience members to develop the land as they wish. After a run at this year’s Exponential Festival in Brooklyn, DIRT moves across the East River (still very much a river in real life) for a run this July at The Tank. Sour Milk, makers of Traffic and Feast, created the show. Consisting of Christina Tang, Anna Jastrzembski, and Cars ..read more