Depending on where you live the theatre scene usually dies down a little during the summer months, expect for the occasional Shakespeare in nature performance. So what do you do during the summer if your life is theatre?

The Katharine Mcphee girl crush is very real.

I recently saw her in ​Waitress​ at the Adelphi Theatre, written by the incomparable Sara Bareilles and Jessie Nelson. I didn’t go solely for Mcphee and in fact knew nothing about the show at all, other than I love the composer. I simply bought a couple of tickets as it seemed to have good reviews.

Starting a new show is always an exciting time for an actor/ actress, and it’s an excitement I live for whether I’m doing tech on the show or acting in it myself. But I’ve noticed something particular happening in my theatre community.  There is inherent sexism that is prevailing over every single theatre group in my hometown.  We have about 12 different groups, and we all run into the same problem-  the shortage of men.

One thing that I have seen a lot more often around my theatre community is that people are bad mouthing their first theatre community. Sometimes we don’t realize that other people in our theatre circle are listening to what we have to say about different topics. Including this one which has so much to do with how we are viewed by others, especially potential directors you might work with in the future.

Whether you’re a big commercial theatre company, regional theater, community theater, conservatory, or high school, picking a season should never be random and thoughtless. The shows an organization produce are integral to how it's perceived by potential theater-goers. When choosing a season, it’s important to keep the actors and director in mind, as well as the type of theater-goers you’re trying to attract.

May is #MentalHealthAwarenessMonth, and Broadway is no stranger to mental health issues. Anxiety and depression have been tackled head on in recent hits like Dear Evan Hansen, and Be More Chill. These shows have brought the issues out of the shadows and into the spotlight by weaving relatable stories of characters who suffer into heartbreaking raw and honest songs.

When the average person thinks about musicals, they often think about musicals from the golden age, like ​Guys and Dolls​, ​Oklahoma​, ​My Fair Lady​, or South​ Pacific to name a few. These musicals have maintained their popularity among musical theatre lovers and occasional theatre goers alike: they’re nostalgic, safe, and predictable. However, in today’s world, safe and predictable can also be exclusive and out of touch. 

Devised Theatre is defined as a method of theatre-making, also referred to as collective creation, in which the performance originates from collaborative, often improvisatory work by a performing ensemble. It has grown more popular over the years, and it has contributed to a large part of theatre-making.

There are so many ways you can go about devised theatre. You can start with a central theme that you want to base your piece on, which leads to research and acquiring knowledge regarding the subject so that you can then decide on the message you would like to pass on to your audience. Another way of starting out is by workshopping methods and/or exercises to create pieces that might then make it to the piece later

Dear theatre goers…

I am writing this because I am extremely disappointed with the behaviour I have seen, so I’m here to enlighten you on basic theatre manners. There is no secret hack to being at the theatre; there is one simple necessity, however.

It’s called respect.

Young people today are bombarded by images of what they ‘should’ look like, due to social media exposure. The ‘perfect’ body is just a societal construct and this unhealthy ideal needs to be eradicated. Young people should be encouraged to accept themselves no matter their shape and size, and to be confident in themselves as people. No one likes horrible people, even if they are a size petite. The popular movie musical Grease is still hugely popular today, and while the songs are undeniably catchy, I don’t think the message portrayed by Sandy’s drastic change at the end of the movie is entirely the right one to be sending out to today’s impressionable teens and young adults.

What's one more red rose? No, I'm not talking about Hadestown.

You know how you can hear something and have it change your life forever? Well, in typical art kid fashion, I heard a poem. It was sprung on me by my acting teacher my sophomore year of high school. She was monologuing about something I couldn't even begin to remember, and all of a sudden she segued into the most beautiful piece of text I had ever heard. It was a big metaphor comparing love to everything and anything you could could imagine and trying to figure out just what it was that made love so special. The piece is called “Little Word, Little White Bird” by Carl Sandburg, and after hunting for a few years, I finally found it in some obscure corner of the internet. Read it for yourself here (I would recommend reading it aloud):

“It’s my fifth year. I just want a line.” Written on audition form by a girl in a musical theater summer program.

There is a glaring achievement gap in children’s theater. Every town seems to have a handful of girls who could go on America’s Got Talent (ATG) and get an impressed nod from Simon Cowell. They are the budding Rachel Berry’s in our lives. These girls, (I call them the ATG girls), through a combination of genetics and opportunity have golden voices and a surfeit of self-confidence. They are amazing. Most of them work hard and show up on time and they get all the leads from the time they are ten years old. And they nail these parts almost every time. They are joyful to watch.