On January 19th, the night before Trump's inauguration, the theater community will band together for a show of solidarity in the form of The Ghostlight Project. Named after the light left on on a theater's stage when the auditorium is unoccupied, the protest will gather hundreds of groups in free-form events designed to express support for vulnerable communities targeted by the Trump administration.
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At 83, Chita Rivera Would Still Beat You in a Dance-Off
At eighty-three, Chita Rivera has had the kind of career longevity that no one who started off as a dancer could possibly expect. Along the way, she's picked up the Presidential Medal of Freedom and two Tony Awards. Oh, and she's also the first Latin@ to receive the Kennedy Center Honors.
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This Gender-Fucking Performance Artist Is Changing The Theater Game
“When was the last time you went to the theater and actually felt something authentic?” Mac asked me rhetorically as we discussed the show. By this, he meant something more than the reflected glow of the emotions of the actors. When was I made to feel something in my body? When was I moved? More than his song and dance on the stage – beautiful though those are – this is his true art: Breaking down the walls that keep us from feeling genuine emotion.
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Meet Basil Twist, the 'Genius' Puppet Master Bringing the Inanimate to Life
Like science fiction, puppetry is an art form where the better you are at it, the more people try to call it something else. Puppets, in America, are for children, and children are like small, gullible sociopaths—hardly the folks you'd look to for artistic recommendations. Which begs the question: Why give a "genius" fellowship to someone working in a discipline we barely even recognize as art?
Read MoreMeet the First Black Woman to Play Yitzhak in 'Hedwig and the Angry Inch' on Broadway
Yitzhak was initiated in this run by Lena Hall, but is currently played by Rebecca Naomi Jones, who has been on Broadway before in American Idiot and Passing Strange. The young star has made a name for herself by taking on interesting roles in genre-busting productions. Paper magazine said that Jones was "the girl to call when there's a cooler-than-thou musical in town." She's also the first black woman to play Yitzhak in a major production, a smart choice for a show that plays heavily with fluid identities and cross-casting.
Read MoreHow the Sausage Gets Laid: 'Pretty Filthy' Is a New Musical About Porn
Unless you have an erotic fixation with jazz hands, few things are less sexy than the average musical comedy. At first blush, this might make a musical about porn sound like a terrible idea, two great tastes that just don't go well together, like semen and Starbucks.
But if your goal is to examine porn as a business first and a fuck fest second, as The Civilians have done in their new musical Pretty Filthy, then the resolute asexuality of the Great White Way is an asset.
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