A Few Quick Bloggy Thoughts on the Sam Gold / Daniel Craig / David Oyelowo "Othello" by Isaac Butler

By Isaac Butler Now that I've seen it, I’d like to briefly talk about a couple of aspects of Sam Gold’s recent, much-lauded production of Othello at New York Theatre Workshop and how it …

Statement from the Dramatists Guild on the New York Fringe Festival by Isaac Butler

NYC Fringe Contract: WARNING! The Guild has reviewed this year's contract for the NYC Fringe Festival and believes it is problematic, as are the Festival's application requirements. Playwrig…

How Canon-Obsessed is the American Theater? by Isaac Butler

By Isaac Butler Over at American Theatre magazine, Susan Jonas has a great piece about expanding the theatrical canon to include overlooked works by women that is well worth your time. I am,…

A Brief Proposal Re: David Foster Wallace by Isaac Butler

by Isaac Butler Let's never write about David Foster Wallace again. Let's never read anything about David Foster Wallace again. Let's instead read things actually written by David Foster Wal…

Nice Work If You Can Get It by Isaac Butler

By Isaac Butler You know, it's amazing, the racket that war promoters have discovered and built for themselves over the last fifteen years. Really, it's astounding. First, you can get paid t…

Elia Kazan on Orson Welles by Isaac Butler

By Isaac Butler "There are some of the younger geniuses-- everybody who has done one successful production on Broadway is a genius-- who are aware of the rewards that a conscious attitu…

Out of Sync. by Isaac Butler

by Isaac Butler This week, the good folks over at TCG asked me to respond to some interview questions as part of a roundtable about the future of theater. I'm very proud of the results, whic…

Startling Chutzpah in the 99-Seat Aftermath by Isaac Butler

Two important pieces of news coming out of the LA 99-seat scene that are relevant to the often heated and ugly debate over reforming the Equity contract there. First off, let’s take a look…

Or Maybe They're Bad Plays by Isaac Butler

The Equity Council Votes to Change The 99-Seat Plan by Isaac Butler

By Isaac Butler Equity has alerted its membership that they are changing the 99-Seat Plan. Well, really, they're eliminating it, but the changes are not quite as drastic as the original prop…

Equity E-mails Its Members, Explains What a Union Is by Isaac Butler

By Isaac Butler AEA took the rhetorical gloves off today, explaining why it was offensive to use civil rights era imagery as part of a protest against the union and giving people a refresher…

Nothing But Net (A Quick Note on Measuring Theatre Size) by Isaac Butler

By Isaac Butler Since my last post on this issue, folks have been pushing back about my use of gross income instead of net income for judging theater size. I initially thought my explanation…

Who Benefits from the 99-Seat Plan? by Isaac Butler

By Isaac Butler (For my non-theater readers, this post is gonna get into the weeds on a union contract issue in California. This might not be the post for you.) Last week, my old friend and …

On Doing the Work by Isaac Butler

by Isaac Butler Over at The Atlantic, Adrian Hong would like us to know that The Interview, the recently canceled film starring Seth Rogan and James Franco about a hapless talk show host and…

"The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time" by Isaac Butler

By Isaac Butler Theatre is the slowest of art forms. When Doubleday published Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, it was, if not quite the vanguard of a trend,…

Who Should Run the Guthrie? by Isaac Butler

Marianne Combs has a great roundup of people who her readers think should be considered for the Guthrie AD job. There’s some good folks on there, but I think they’re missing a couple. So…

RIP Elaine Stritch by Isaac Butler

by Isaac Butler There are no words.

Diversity, Exclusion and Owning Your Argument by Isaac Butler

by Isaac Butler Today, the theatrically-minded zones of the internet are all abuzz about Jonathan Mandell’s HowlRound piece, “Is Diversity a Codeword for Exclusion?” The piece is in th…

On Likable Characters by Isaac Butler

By Isaac Butler Laura Miller's incisive bit of close reading of the work of Jennifer Weiner reminds me that I always meant to write about "likable characters," back when there was …

"Annie" Wasn't a Critical Disappointment by Isaac Butler

by Isaac Butler Patrick Healy, in the Times: The $12 million Broadway revival of “Annie” closed last month as a critical disappointment and commercial failure. But it turns out that the …

"That August Wilson Feeling" now up at American Theatre! by Isaac Butler

By Isaac Butler Hey folks... just wanted to let you know that an essay I wrote about August Wilson's 20th Century Cycle appears in this month's American Theatre and can be read online. I've …

A New Chapter for Shakespeare Santa Cruz by Isaac Butler

By Isaac Butler You remember Shakespeare Santa Cruz, right? The classics company killed by complex accounting? If you don't, allow me to refresh your memory: In August, the University of Cal…

We Pay for What We Value by Isaac Butler

By Isaac Butler The Flea Theatre, which relies on the unpaid labor of its resident company "The Bats," who also do menial jobs around the space and used to have to pay to audition,…

My Trip to "Fun Home" by Isaac Butler

By Isaac Butler In the years that I had been away from New York, The Public Theatre finished the renovations to its lobby. There’s a part of me that’s nostalgic for the old space. True, …

They're All Gonna Laugh At You by 99seats

by 99Seats Spoiler alert: This is a post about Carrie, both the old and the new, so if there are spoilers here...I feel sorry for you. Get out of your house more. Towards the end of the new …

Innovation Isn't Always Good by Isaac Butler

By Isaac Butler Up on Howlround today, you'll find this lengthy piece about innovation in arts business practices in anticipation of the "National Innovation Summit for Arts & Cultu…

"Enough Said"' by Isaac Butler

“Most of our friends we find interesting find us boring: the most interesting find us most boring. The few who are somewhere in the middle with whom there is reciprocal interest, we distru…

Theater J, Zionism, and the Downside of Culturally-Specific Theatre by Isaac Butler

by Isaac Butler For the third time since this blog's creation, Washington, D.C.'s Theater J has in some way backed down from or reconsidered a controversial play: Plans for the English-langu…

The Realism Canard, Or: Why Fact-Checking Fiction Is Poisoning Criticism. by Isaac Butler

by Isaac Butler Every work of fictional narrative art takes place within its own world. That world may resemble our world. But it is never our world. It is always the world summoned into bei…

What Did You Look Up On Wikipedia? Guest Starring Yours Truly by Isaac Butler

by Isaac Butler While I was briefly in Minneapolis, I stopped off at my friend Sally's place to record an episode of her web series What Did You Look Up Wikipedia? We has a blast. Hope you d…

Does Isherwood Want to Write About Theatre Anymore? by Isaac Butler

By Isaac Butler That was the question that lingered in my head after I read (most of) this interminable and insufferable piece about whether or not there's too much Shakespeare going on. It …