半岛体育

[However] I do think that the content, and maybe the style of the plays, that a lot of places have been producing has begun to shift somewhat significantly. Looking at the past Studio season, the major topics were: college admissions and race, the decolonization movement in South Africa, cultural appropriation of Black artists, modern mothering, lobbyists, climate change, the fault lines of modern Judaism鈥攖here鈥檚 not a single play in the season that doesn鈥檛 vibrate with some hot political content, and I don鈥檛 think we would have said that five or ten years ago. But at least for us, I don鈥檛 feel like it鈥檚 鈥渟creaming Politics.鈥� It鈥檚 [maybe just] a little more front and center than it was before.

半岛体育: I think several leaders in the field are similarly perceiving a shift right now.
MMG: In the same way that our culture is going into a non-binary direction, I think the arts are also moving in a similar direction. Younger and seasoned artists alike are thinking about how to make work across different platforms and mediums and pushing the boundary of the form a lot more. It feels like we鈥檙e in an amazing moment in the American theatre, where stories by people of color are being centered in a way that they haven鈥檛 been before鈥攐r if they have, it was once a season.

DM: Particularly emerging American writers are hungry to grapple with and address issues of race and class onstage. I think that this election has made this great national stain more visible somehow and people want to say something about that.

半岛体育: And they鈥檙e approaching it in different ways. 鈥淧olitical theatre鈥� isn鈥檛 clearly definable either.
MMG: Sometimes I think the conversation about 鈥渨hat鈥檚 political鈥� becomes a binary conversation, especially in Washington, D.C. But it鈥檚 hard, particularly when you鈥檙e talking about race, because just walking down the street can be a difficult thing for folks of color. I can鈥檛 help but think that they become politicized because of that and it's impossible to separate [a lot of the time]. Something I鈥檓 really grappling with is why it can suddenly feel so narrow when people talk about political theatre versus what David said, that just by virtue of the fact that we collaborate in the way that we do, our art form is a political act. It says something about what we believe our world should look like.

半岛体育: Moving on to what it means to be an artistic director more generally. What鈥檚 something you wish more people knew about the job?
DM: One of the great tricks of being an artistic director is finding space for yourself to be imaginative and creative and responsive to artistic responses that are within yourself. I feel like the emotional capital that one has, as well as the time that one has to do those things, makes it a challenge. The work that鈥檚 done by the people who surround me鈥攑articularly if it gives me more of that room鈥攊s indispensable.

MMG: Part of the work of being an AD is having to toggle back and forth between the broader picture鈥攈aving to be the public face of the organization, having to raise a lot of money鈥攁nd the more reflective and introspective side. That time is needed to keep our finger on the pulse of what鈥檚 happening in our culture.

半岛体育: There needs to be a retreat for artistic directors.
MMG: It would have to be a silent retreat, or else they鈥檇 all just complain! [But to what David was saying] I rely most on the people around me. I鈥檓 nothing without the artists, the staff, the audiences. This is an art form, a job, and a responsibility that you can鈥檛 do alone. Collaboration is at its heart and our currency is relationships.

DM: I would also say [that I rely on] good instinct. Often once things reach my desk, they鈥檙e difficult decisions. You learn both to trust your gut and to interrogate what your gut is saying. To try and reflect on whether your gut is appropriately aligned.

This interview has been condensed and edited.

Studio Theatre's upcoming season includes Antoinette Nwandu's critically acclaimed Pass Over, the Tony-winning musical Fun Home, and the American premiere of White Pearl, a new dark comedy from Thai-Australian writer Anchuli Felicia King about toxic corporate culture, selling whiteness, and shame as both a cultural commodity and canny marketing strategy.

Highlights from Woolly Mammoth's 40th anniversary include Jackie Sibblies Drury's Pulitzer Prize鈥搘inning Fairview, a traveling production of Aleshea Harris' acclaimed What to Send Up When It Goes Down, Anne Washburn's Shipwreck: A History Play About 2017, and Paola L谩zaro's There鈥檚 Always the Hudson.