Theatre

Wendy Caster, an award-winning writer living in New York City, is our new Theatre writer. Her reviews appear regularly on the blog Show Showdown. Her short plays You Look Just Like Him and The Morning After were performed as part of Estrogenius festivals. Her published works include short stories, essays, and one book.
Many of our Theatre columns were written by Robert W. Bethune of Ann Arbor, MI, who had been actively engaged in theatrical production, research, teaching, and criticism for about 25 years.

From Bootleg to Time Machine by Wendy Caster (October 1, 2016)
International Festival vs Fringe Justine Bayod Espoz (Oct 1, 2016)
Streetcar Named Desire revisited by Wendy Caster (Sept 16, 2016)
When Less is More: The 90-Minute Play Wendy Caster (July 2016 online)
Why Do Spoilers Suck? Because Art Is Always New Wendy Caster (Summer 2016)
The Joys of Theatricality Wendy Caster (Spring 2016)
The Tricky Limits of Color-Blind and Gender-Blind Casting Wendy Caster (April 2016 online)
To Stay or Not to Stay- leaving a play during intermission by Wendy Caster (Jan/ Feb 2016)
How to Love Musicals and Still Be Hip by Wendy Caster (Winter 2015)
What I learned Doing Theater by Wendy Caster ( November 2015 online)
The New Audience: How a Culture Evolves by Wendy Caster ( Fall 2015)

Wendy Caster: wendycaster@gmail.com

Previously published essays all written by Robert W. Bethune:
Being Harrowed by Theater (January online 2015)
Can Theater still do its Job? (Winter 2014)
Threading a Needle (November 2014 online)
No need to Justifying the arts (Oct 2014 online)
The false dichotomy: Performance in straight spoken drama and comedy, musical theater and opera, ballet and modern dance (Fall 2014)
What: Peperangan Bintang? What? Malaysian Puppetry(August 2014)
Senses, skin, and live performance(July 2014)
The anonymous audience  (Summer 2014)
Supersize that? Or make it a slider? (May 2014)
When is a play not a play (Spring 2014)
Suppply and Demand: actors payment for performing in national tours of musicals. (February online 2014)
The Performance the Public Never Sees (Oct online 2013)
Unimportant productions matter as they are the talent pool of theater professionals and more (Fall 2013)
Theatre vs Theater (July online 2013)
Why theater matters less than it used to (Summer 2013)
Dream Cast & Dream Production (Spring 2013)
Can Theater be localvore? (January/ February 2013)
Can Theater be Democratic? (November/ December 2012)
Live Theatre vs Cinema (September/ October 2012)
Ira Aldridge and Visual Evidence in Theater History (July/ August 2012)
What do we want from a theater review? (May/ June 2012)
Basic requirements for a theatre production (March/ April 2012)
Big Fish, Small Pond: the dilemma of the theatre professional (Jan/ Feb 2012)
Make money the old-fashioned way: earn it (Nov/ Dec 2011)
Paying attention to the physicality of performers (Sept/ Oct 2011)
Wonderful stuff. Not theater. How to tell the difference (July/ August 2011)
What the heck, I'm already here, how bad can it be?About a theater critic who travels beyond his town to look at plays. (May/ Jun 2011)
It Never Lets up, Does it? Economics of Theatre survival and what Actors can do (March/ April 2011)
The Mysteries of Theatre "But oh, that Tenth" (Jan/ Feb 2011)
Our Last, Best Hope (Nov/ Dec 2010)
When theater artists don't go to the theater (Sep/ Oct 2010)
A Need for an Old Theater (July/ August 2010)
Would we rather have Live or Memorex (May/ June 2010)
News from around the world leaves us wondering what is Truth (Mar/ Apr 2010)
The Simplest Moments are the Best: Christmas Pagentry & the ancient role of Theatre (Jan/ Feb 2010 )
Checklist for Directors (Nov/ Dec 2009 )
Nudity Laid Bare — & that about covers it! (Sept/ Oct 2009 )
Why Don't Just Shoot the Messenger? (Jul/Aug 2009 )
Why Don't we do it in the Round? (June 2009 )
Thoughts on Stage Nudity (May 2009 )
Self-censorship (Apr 2009 )
The Sickness of the Standing O (March 2009 )
Stiff Competition (Jan/Feb 2009)
Getting the Details Right (December 2008 )
What is this Theater Thing About? (November 2008 )
The Resolute Pretense (October 2008 )
Aeschylus and Klytaimnestra(Septrember 2008 )
Theater for Truthtellers (July/ August 2008)
We Could Use a Little More Imagination Around Here (June 2008)
Will Theatre Go the way of Vaudeville? (May 2008)
Should the Repertory company Come Back? (April 2008)
Local Audience Support for Local Professional Theatre (March 2008)
What Actors want from Directors (January/February 2008)
Honesty with the Audience (December 2007)
The Drum One Beats and the One who Beats the Drum (November 2007)
Sometimes the Work Hurts (October 2007)
Home from Stratford and back to the real world ( September 200)7
Fundamental Creativity for Theater Companies (July/ August 2007)
What goes on in the actor's brain? (June 2007)
Windy City and Wit, or, The Power of Thought (May 2007)
Performance, Memory and the Aging Actor (April 2007)
The Outraged Actor Needs to Grow Up (March 2007)
Copyright, Creative Control, and a Toe Permit (January/February 2007)
Casey at the Bat (December 2006)
When is an actor not an actor? (October 2006)
Building Your Audience (September 2006)
The Mask of the Playwright (July/August 2006)
An Art not made but Done (June 2006)
Talking Like Real People (May 2006)
Hatred, Loathing, Fear, Terror, and Getting Reviewed (April 2006)
Acting Stands on Three Legs (March 2006)
Theater on the Flat Floor (Jan/Feb 2006)
What do we do about Costumes? (December 2005)
Action Words and Speech (November 2005)
Life and Death (October 2005)
Please Take Your Seats…in Red Bank, NJ (September 2005)
Ancient Wisdom (September 2005)
You Have to Know How it Feels (August, 2005)
Theater on the Brain (July, 2005)
Getting rid of park benches and getting back to them (June, 2005)
Is There Another Way? (May, 2005)
The Power of Language (April, 2005)
Comedy, Tragedy, Sex and Death - the Key to it All (March, 2005)
Parallel Imagination (Jan/Feb, 2005)
The Two Things That Have to Happen When You Translate Drama (Dec, 2004)
Audition Feedback (Nov, 2004)
The Artistic Risk of theNew Play (Oct, 2004)
Are New Plays Risky? (Sept, 2004)
The dysfunctional market (Aug, 2004)
Mooning - A Theatrical Art (Jul, 2004)
Brownian Motion (May, 2004)
Just An Action is Not Enough (Jun, 2004)
Evanescence (Apr, 2004)
Finding the Right Dialect (Mar, 2004)
Giving it What It Needs (Jan/Feb, 2004)
On Politics and Theatre (Dec, 2003)
Staging An Idea (Nov, 2003)
Authenticity Versus Reality (Oct, 2003)
Simple Rules for Playing Strindberg (Sept, 2003)
The Art of the Aside (Aug, 2003)
Wakey-Wakey! It's a Beautiful Day! (Jul, 2003)
Tragedy, Comedy, & Doors (Jun, 2003)
Video & Theatre (May, 2003)
Don't Tell the Actors What to Do! (April, 2003)
The Useless Knowledge of the Actor (March, 2003)
Is This How Adults Behave? (January/February, 2003)
Before the Fourth Wall (December, 2002)
We Are Not Above the World (November, 2002)
Can We Laugh at 9/11? (October, 2002)
Theatricality (September, 2002)
To Translate is to Betray? (August, 2002)
The Secret Mind of the Theatre Artist (July, 2002)
Prepare the Performer, Not the Performance (June, 2002)
Jes' sittin' on the ol' theater front porch (September, 1999)