No, before you get your knickers in a bunch. This is not an article telling you that you shouldn’t have religious stories or allegories in Theatre. In fact, anyone out there that tells you whether or not you need to have religion in whatever you do needs to shut up and walk away. Theatre is a medium that anyone can reflect humanity through any lens and should never be restricted in its attempts. However, we are going to be discussing the role it can play and when it might perhaps go too far. Or whether it even can or not.

The past six months have left me, as well as much of America, confused and struggling to find their footing. I know I’m not alone when I say that, as a young woman in her 20s, the climate of our country threw me for a loop. My place of refuge and solace became Broadway and what cemented that was the Public Theatre’s production of “Joan of Arc: Into the Fire”.

Now, my college friends know how obsessed I am with this musical (David Byrne—where is the cast album???) but not many out there may realize how impactful this show was for a variety of reasons and how it has, in my perspective, added to the transformation of modern musical theatre.

Seldom does a week go by where I don't see message boards light up with rage if a certain performer of a certain show doesn't come out to greet the fans by the stage door, after the show. 

While I understand the disappointment they may feel not being able to get an autograph or selfie with their favorite performer, I'll never understand the hateful comments towards those who don't grace the stage door audience with their presence. 

2016 was the year of white-washing, yellow-facing, and an all-around ordeal for Asian American representation. Asian-Americans reacted in different ways. So people created hashtags, some people created podcasts, and some people made a brilliant variety show.

No one else was going to clean up this mess. The actors were not going to fix the uneven lights anymore than the lighting designer and electricians were going to fix the actors’ stumbles. The director and set/props designer were never going to agree 100% on the look of the play. The playwright was not going to stop hounding the sound designer about the clarity of the lines and volume of the music and the sound designer was never going to talk to anybody, which meant that Tina had to squeeze the information she needed out of him like the juice from shreds of potato that were destined to become a latke.

Because Tina was the Stage Manager; all messes were her messes to clean up.

Indisputably, the most-heard song at auditions for about a decade and a half has been "Gimme Gimme", by Dick Scanlan and Jeanine Tesori from the Broadway hit, Thoroughly Modern Millie. There are reasons why it’s so popular. And there’s a ton of reasons why nobody – and I mean nobody – should be auditioning with this song. I’ll go into those in a moment. But, since nothing I say is going to stop the steady parade of role-seekers essaying this epic, I thought I’d talk about how it could be done better.

With the rehash after rehash of the Disney Corporation, and all the other rebrandings and crazy adaptations happening in a collage of grotesque parodistical Hollywood writing rooms. I have but one question for the beloved industry: what happened to all the writers?

Quite often, I hear people tell young, aspiring actors, directors and playwrights in theatre – and it’s something that I’ve heard myself a few times, in the past – that people need to have a backup plan. In reality, what many of these people are trying to say to them is this: As they are dreaming about their future in the arts, they ought to be thinking more “realistically” about their future careers, at the same time. This is a sentiment I’ve seen echoed on many occasions, and it’s a sentiment which, based on my own life experience and those I’ve observed, I find to be something that all people who are serious about pursuing their dreams in the arts should ignore at all costs.

I was recently on my way home, going down the side of the street I normally take to get to the train. On my way there, I was met by a slightly unexpected blockade.

Earlier that morning, I did catch a glimpse of the red carpet. By the time I had returned to the same spot that afternoon, the festivities had begun. Earlier than I expected, of course. Curious, I waited to see what was going on.

Recently, Chicago Sun-Times theatre critic Hedy Weiss' out-of-bounds commentary within her theatre reviews has finally caught up with her. Her racist comments about the subject matter in the play Pass Over,  was certainly an unacceptable place for a theatre critic to go. 

When you combine this latest issues with her past ones such as anti-Semitism and body shaming, I'll be the first to say that Ms. Weiss has no business working for a major newspaper, let alone in a city as diverse as Chicago.