A scene from “Visions From the Center of the Earth” at ASHTAR Theatre in Ramallah.
I read with great interest your recent article “Theatre in a Time of Genocide: Palestinian Imagination Under Fire.” I am grateful that American Theatre continues to highlight artists working under extraordinary and painful circumstances. Palestinian theatremakers deserve attention, empathy, and serious engagement from the global artistic community.
My concern is not the subject matter itself, nor the right of its authors to speak forcefully from lived experience. It is about editorial framing. When legally and politically contested terms such as “genocide” are presented in an arts publication without contextual qualification or clear attribution, the focus can shift from the theatre practice being described to geopolitical adjudication. Opinion writing rightly reflects an author’s convictions, yet even in that format, language carrying significant legal and historical weight benefits from explicit framing that signals it as the author’s interpretation rather than settled fact.
Clear attribution or contextualization of such terminology would have strengthened the article’s focus on artistic experience and preserved the pluralistic space that American Theatre seeks to cultivate. In a field that prides itself on fostering encounter across difference, careful editorial calibration helps ensure that passionate testimony invites reflection rather than forecloses dialogue.
Theatre thrives on complexity and multiplicity. Arts journalism can model those same values by distinguishing carefully between artistic perspective and institutional voice, especially when language carries profound moral and legal implications. My hope is that American Theatre will continue to provide space for urgent artistic expression while also sustaining the rigorous, inclusive conversation that makes our field stronger.
Paul Epner
Chicago
Everybody Loves Lois
This (“Lois Smith and the Work That Endures” by Lyndsey Bourne) may be one of the best interviews with a person in the arts…that I’ve ever read! (Former New Yorker with a NOW addiction). Brava, Ms. Bourne!
Susan Gold
Anybody unfamiliar with Paul Mazursky’s film Next Stop, Greenwich Villageand Lois Smith’s superb work in it, should track it down and watch it immediately. The film captures eloquently, hilariously, movingly a specific time and place, replete with the hopes and dreams and sorrows of being a young actor on the loose and trying to make it in New York City. Highly recommend, particularly fans of Ms. Smith.
Paul M. Barnes
The Playscript’s the Thing
These titles are fantastic (“Jonathan Norton’s Moments of Change”). But sadly his plays are not available to buy. I spent last week reaching out to friends and I finally found one of his plays. Which of course was fantastic. It is sad that here in America it is almost impossible to find new plays. In Britain plays are often published on opening night! Let’s hope someone publishes Norton’s wonderful plays soon.
Chambers Stevens
Los Angeles