Lilly Awards

So last night was the Lilly Awards in NYC, which describes itself on Facebook as "An annual awards party to celebrate the work of women in the American theatre." Lest we forget the discussions we had surrounding Outrageous Fortune, let's take a look at the educational background of the six winners in the playwriting category:

• Melissa James Gibson graduated from Columbia University and from the Yale School of Drama with an M.F.A. in Playwriting.
• Chisa Hutchinson got her undergraduate degree at Vassar and an MFA in playwriting from NYU.
• Deborah Zoe Laufer is a graduate of The Juilliard School.
• Annie Baker graduated from the Department of Dramatic Writing at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts.
• Sarah Ruhl studied under Paula Vogel at Brown University (A.B., 1997; M.F.A., 2001)
• Young Jean Lee attended college at UC Berkeley, where she received an Phd in English. She went on to receive an MFA from Mac Wellman's playwriting program at Brooklyn College.
• Lucy Thurber -- I was unable to find any information on her educational background.

So here's the list in another form:

• Columbia
• Yale
• NYU
• Julliard
• Brown
• Brooklyn

It isn't that these playwrights are not deserving -- I'm certain they are -- or that they all have privileged backgrounds -- several of them don't. But rather that the track of success in the field is very, very narrow. If we are looking for diversity in our plays, we just might want to look at diversity in the way our playwrights are educated.

Posted Without Comment (No Comment Necessary)

Please, Please Stop the Madness (Part 2)

http://theatretact.org/?p=237

Pulitzer Checklist

So the Pulitzer Prize in Drama goes to...Next to Normal, a musical that Wikipedia says is about "a mother who struggles with worsening bipolar disorder and the effect that her illness has on her family. The musical also addresses such issues as grieving a loss, suicide, drug abuse, ethics in modern psychiatry, and suburban life."

So:

• Subject matter: middle class suburban life -- check.
• Playwrights
• Brian Yorkey 
• graduate of Columbia University -- check; 
• provided with conservatory training as a child at KidStage -- check

• Tom Kitt 
• graduate of Columbia University -- check; 
• provided with conservatory training as a child at Interlochen Summer Music Program for high school students -- check

But no, there is no such thing as a narrow track for privileged young artists whose parents can afford to send them to get training when they are young. Nah! It's all about talent and desire and believing in yourself. And it has nothing to do with diversity, as you can clearly see, since the subject of the play is about...well...middle-class suburbanites, but they're bi-polar suburbanites dealing with problems...

Right. Now I see.

Update: The Pulitzer Committee overruled the Drama Panel's recommendation. No, let me make that clearer: the Pulitzer Committee "at Columbia University's journalism school, where the prizes are administrated"... You know, Columbia University where Kitt and Yorkey got their degree... Do I smell Denmark?

Update #2: I just about dropped my teeth reading Charles McNulty's condemnation of the Pulitzer committee's overruling of the Drama Panel, when he said:

"I can't help being ticked off. Two points, in particular, rankle: the blinkered New York mentality and the failure to appreciate new directions in playwriting. The board had an opportunity to correct these long-standing shortcomings, and it blew it. In an era in which important new dramatic works rarely get their start in New York, the board's geographical myopia, a vision of the American theater that starts in Times Square and ends just a short taxi ride away is especially disheartening."

I'm giving McNulty an Honorary Membership in CRADLE.

On Unpaid Internships

Yesterday, I posted on the CRADLE blog a post about class and unpaid internships. I hope you'll visit. Summation:

"Not to put too fine a point on it, but this is a deeply corrupt system, one that consciously and shamelessly masquerades as a meritocracy while being, in fact, a plutocracy."

Excellent Summation of Outrageous Fortune Presentation

2am knocks it out of the park.

Heroes of Rural Arts

An overview of a new series on the heroes of the rural and small arts movement at my new blog "Rocking the CRADLE." By the way, will somebody go there and tell me whether they can subscribe to the RSS feed?