When you first glance at the name Hamnet, you are met with a combination of familiarity and confusion. Perhaps it’s a typo? Living in the shadow of one of the greatest characters ever written, history struggles to bestow Hamnet—William Shakespeare’s only son—a separate identity, one distanced from the legacy of his father’s writing. In Dead Centre’s Hamnet (SEP 20 – OCT 7), this child finally has the space and time to define himself and own his…
In WET: A DACAmented Journey, Alex Alpharaoh tells his true, real life story of what it means to be an American in every sense of the word except one: on paper. As a writer, performer, poet, activist, director, producer, and teacher based in Los Angeles, Alpharaoh is able to capture the imagination of audiences and provoke meaningful discussions in a variety of mediums. His ability to convey a story through the written word—and…
In the fall of 1945, British playwright J.D. Priestly and his wife Jane boarded a war-battered Douglas C-47 plane with no seats or seat belts and traveled to Moscow, Russia. Priestly was about to premiere his new play, An Inspector Calls. The play was written in just one week. Unable to find a venue for the production in London, Priestly exported his show over 2,000 miles away to the USSR. The show debuted at the…
Making a space for myself in the world of theater, and building a sustained career in it, was an all-consuming effort that lasted the better part of 20 years. I couldn’t afford graduate school or to gain experience via low pay, or unpaid, internships. I had day jobs and side hustles, paying my bills with jobs bartending and data management consulting. I didn’t have a steady paycheck in the theater until I was 40. I…
Over the weekend of August 19th and 20th, ArtsEmerson hosted a celebratory and successful summer fundraiser on Martha’s Vineyard in support of the Gaining Ground Fund. The weekend revolved around power couple entrepreneur Sheila Johnson and The Honorable William Newman performing a reading of Bill and Sheila: A Love Story– written by playwright Daniel Beaty, and based on the remarkable true story of the couple’s relationship. The Gaining Ground Fund elevates and encourages the ambitions…
