Jerald Raymond Pierce

2 months ago | americantheatre.org | Jerald Raymond Pierce

“It came out in a torrent,” Emily Kaczmarek said of the 2018 first draft of her play Soft Target. “Sometimes plays feel like that to me—sort of like a primal scream I just had to get out.”Early in 2018, the U.S. was rocked by the high school massacre in Parkland, Florida, during what would become, at the time, the worst year for school shootings in the country. An educator herself, Kaczmarek recalled struggling to stomach the news, haunted by what the shooting’s survivors were going through.

2 months ago | americantheatre.org | Jerald Raymond Pierce

When I think of the phrase “spending time wisely,” I get shot back to school, to a teacher checking in on time that should have been spent studying or reading but was instead being spent talking or doodling. “Are you spending your time wisely?” It’s a gentle prod to not let the mind wander, to focus on the task at hand. At least, that was the association I had before participating in Candle House Collective’s immersive, telephonic experience Lennox Mutual.

2 months ago | americantheatre.org | Gabriela Furtado Coutinho |Jerald Raymond Pierce

This should be a celebratory time for Chicago theatre. Three of the city’s major institutions are all celebrating significant milestones in their long, illustrious histories. And yet, rather than reveling in celebration, I find myself singing, “one of these things is not like the others.” I feel like I’m looking at the three-headed dragon meme of Chicago theatre: two fierce, steely-eyed legends and one that’s—well, it’s just happy to be there.

Mar 26, 2025 | americantheatre.org | Jerald Raymond Pierce

During the pandemic lockdown, playwright Noga Flaishon spent a lot of time thinking a lot about the intersection of technology and memory. One play she was working on then was Lethe, a cyberpunk story about a woman who gets a chip implanted in her brain that removes all memory of a trauma she experienced. The other, Memoriam, now set for its world premiere at Houston’s Main Street Theater (March 29-April 19), explores the marketability of memories and what we owe to future generations.

Feb 27, 2025 | americantheatre.org | Jerald Raymond Pierce

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