Emily McClanathan

1 week ago | playbill.com | Emily McClanathan

Shows set during the collapse of Germany’s Weimar Republic and Hitler’s ascent to power have been popular choices for revivals in recent years, as theatre artists look to the past in an attempt to make sense of rising authoritarianism in the present. In 2019, New York’s Public Theater staged the first major revival of A Bright Room Called Day, Tony Kushner’s 1985 play about a group of artists in early 1930s Berlin.

1 week ago | chicagotribune.com | Emily McClanathan

Each time the nationally touring production of “Moulin Rouge!” rolls into a new city, an entire truck is required to transport the show’s costumes: a rainbow palette of corsets, cancan skirts, tailcoats, top hats and heeled boots that evokes the opulence of the 1899 Parisian setting. In total, the production travels with 297 costumes for the principal actors and ensemble performers, plus about 200 for understudies and swings.

3 weeks ago | intomore.com | Henry Giardina |Johnny Levanier |Emily McClanathan |David Hudson

The coordinated strikes against trans people of all ages, in all areas of life, continues, coming into particularly grim effect with one ill-phrased Washington Post headline from this morning. Covering a trans girl in a Virginia high school, where trans participation in sports requires being treated as your gender-assigned-at-birth, the Post decided to frame their story as an exciting tale of sticking it to the system—but there’s just one problem.

3 weeks ago | chicagotribune.com | Emily McClanathan

In a conversation with her agent, Ren, the protagonist of Lisa Dillman’s new play “No Such Thing,” describes her attitude toward her audience in her work as a screenwriter. “Let them wonder,” she says. This meta comment relates to several layers of the play, as Ren, a woman in her 60s, explores the possibilities of an unconventional relationship defined solely by self-revelation and untethered to personal history.

1 month ago | chicagotribune.com | Emily McClanathan

When a bright, curious adolescent has access to a library and a strong sense of justice, it’s no surprise if she becomes passionate about one or more social issues and spouts her newfound knowledge to anyone who will listen. But no amount of book learning can fully prepare her when injustice hits close to home — a tension that squeezes the heart of Thyme, the 15-year-old protagonist of “Splash Hatch on the E Going Down” by Kia Corthron.