AMERICAN THEATRE • 10th March 2022

The Shows That Got Away and/or Found a Way

One of the most important jobs of theatre journalism—some would say its central, even only, job—is to bear witness to and commemorate a fundamentally ephemeral medium in words and pictures. That’s plenty true in normal times, but this documentary mission has become especially urgent in a time of deep uncertainty and constant reshuffling due to an airborne virus, which has disproportionally encroached on art forms and social practices that rely on appointment gathering and shared (indoor) space.

HowlRound Theatre Commons • 8th March 2022

Clowning for a Cause: Healthcare Clowns Offer Opportunities for Holistic Healing

Although the mark of countless successful theatrical performers is their passion, it takes a special combination of versatility and compassion to transition theatre skills into a healthcare setting. Tiffany Riley does precisely this work as a healthcare clown and a founder of the Laughter League and North American Federation of Healthcare Clown Organizations (NAFHCO).

HowlRound Theatre Commons • 5th January 2021

Seuls en Scène Festival 2020 / Festival Seuls en Scène 2020

Masse wasn’t interested in simply asking artists for video recordings of the works he had intended to present this year and instead came up with a programmatic mix of video recordings of live performance, “staged” readings, one making-of documentary, and a series of docutheatre works.

HowlRound Theatre Commons • 24th November 2020

Hold on Tightly, Let Go Lightly

Pursuing a life in theatre or medicine requires such dedication that it can be hard to imagine a career transition, and yet, as this year has viscerally reminded us, the only constant in life is change. Although the path between theatre and medicine may not be evident at first glance, the specific skill set that both professions require makes the transition more seamless than one might imagine.

AMERICAN THEATRE • 18th February 2020

Into the Woods

The turning point was Katrina, as is so often the case when you’re asking questions in New Orleans, trying to get to the heart of the matter. A Studio in the Woods is located on a plot of land purchased by Lucianne and Joe Carmichael in 1969, comprising 7.66 acres of endangered forest in the Louisiana wetlands.

HowlRound Theatre Commons • 13th January 2020

"French and yet never French enough" / « Français, mais jamais assez français »

Any translator worth their salt can tell you the real work of translation is not the literal (painstaking!) rendering of one language into another, but instead the necessary accompanying cultural translation that carries the meaning of the work.

NOBO Commons • 23rd November 2019

The Fortress of Lushington

Amelia Parenteau interviews Bunny Lushington of the Fortress of Lushington, bringing us the second article in a series on theatre and dance venues in New Orleans.

HowlRound Theatre Commons • 18th November 2019

The American Theatre Was Killing Me

For those unfamiliar with the term “racialized trauma,” counselor Ayanna Molina of True Love Movement explains: “Trauma is hurtful, emotionally damaging situations that you cannot control. [With my clients], the racialized component is that [they] happen specifically because you are Black.”

NOBO Commons • 22nd June 2019

Radical Buffoonery

An interview between Amelia Parenteau and Jon Greene, founder and Artistic director of the Radical Buffoons.

AMERICAN THEATRE • 23rd April 2019

At Europe’s Good Chance Theatre, Refugees Have a Dome and a Home

Good Chance Theatre was started by two Brits, Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson, when, in 2015, they passed through Calais, France, on their way to Germany and they saw the makeshift refugee camp that had formed there.

WomenArts • 14th February 2019

Revolutionary Love: Elizabeth Vega & the Tornillo Occupation

Elizabeth Vega is an “artivist” – an artist and activist who understands that art is its own form of powerful resistance. She has dedicated her life to harnessing that power and teaching others how to do the same. Based in St. Louis, Missouri, she works constantly on projects that combine art and activism...

AMERICAN THEATRE • 28th January 2019

Trigger Warnings Are Not Enough: Why You Need an EDI Advocate

Can a Black girl be called “pale”? How about a Latina ? No matter how you parse the linguistic technicality, the word smacks of whiteness, said one of the actors. And so on Day Two of rehearsal at People’s Light in Malvern...

AMERICAN THEATRE • 31st October 2018

Egypt’s Theatre Rebels

Driving through Tahrir Square at dusk, crammed into a van with other U.S. and European theatremakers, headed to the conference-sponsored hotel, my eyes couldn’t drink it in fast enough: the lights, the people, the gargantuan propaganda billboards and television screens signaling the impending presidential “elections.”

Cultural Services of the French Embassy in the United States • 29th October 2018

Interview with Director and Author David Geselson

The 7th Edition of Seuls en Scène, Princeton French Theater Festival, presented Doreen, written and directed by David Geselson from Compagnie Lieux-Dits on September 28 and 29, 2018. David Geselson spoke to journalist Amelia Parenteau before leaving Princeton.

HowlRound • 12th July 2018

The City of Brotherly Love Presents: The Empathy Project

As theatre folk know well, sometimes the most meaningful creations are borne out of the fruit of circumstance. To wit, the Lantern Theater Company in Center City, Philadelphia, happens to be located around the corner from the Sidney Kimmel Medical College (SKMC) of Thomas Jefferson University.

HowlRound • 18th February 2018

Baldwin’s Back in France: An Interview with Elise Vigier / Retour de Baldwin en France : Une interview avec Elise Vigier

In 2012, I traveled from Paris, where I was studying, to Arles to see a production of a play I was translating into English, Louise, elle est folle, by Leslie Kaplan, starring and co-created by Elise Vigier...

AMERICAN THEATRE • 16th January 2018

True West Africa

In Dakar, Senegal, the general refrain is that theatre “doesn’t exist” in the nation’s capital city, the westernmost spot on the continent.

HowlRound • 8th January 2018

Interview with Werewere Liking of the Theatre Company Village Ki-Yi Mbock

This past October, I had the opportunity to live in residence with the theatre company and students in training at the Village Ki-Yi Mbock, in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire.

AMERICAN THEATRE • 22nd August 2017

How Do You Solve a Problem Like Documentary Theatre?

What’s in a name? Of the seven contemporary theatremakers I spoke to for this piece, not one was happy with the term “documentary theatre” to describe their work. All had...

AMERICAN THEATRE • 22nd August 2017

Real Talk About Real Talk

To find out more about the practice and implications of documentary theatre, I gathered some of the field’s veterans for a frank conversation about their craft, how it’s changed—and how...

IRT Theater • 1st October 2021

Tussaud/Antoinette | IRT Theater

A story of two Maries. One ruled wax, one ruled France. One survived, the other did not. So one made a sculpture of the other’s guillotined head… and launched an empire.

Kickstarter • 13th November 2019

WOKE: A Dream Play

WOKE is a new play by Amelia Parenteau about an intimate interracial relationship, set entirely in a bed, directed by Emma S. Kimball.

New Statesman • 19th August 2019

“Everything that follows is true”: how verbatim theatre questions the meaning of truth

In Miracle Village, a community for convicted sex offenders in rural Florida, five men sit in a therapy class, and are made to introduce themselves. “Say what your offence is, and then say what you actually did,”

Dixon Place • 11th April 2017

(Projection)

(Projection) peels back the layers of a New York millennial apartment, subverting and reinforcing the classic living room play to reveal the universal truths of defining yourself in your 20’s....

Villa Albertine • 7th February 2022

Eva Doumbia returns to New Orleans! | Villa Albertine

The French version of the play "Autophagies" written and directed by Eva Doumbia initially premiered in French at the Festival d’Avignon in July 2021 to an audience thrilled by the mélange of “traditional disciplines joined by another, widely popular one: Cooking.

Cultural Services of the French Embassy in the United States • 14th October 2020

Live Talk: Caroline Guiela Nguyen & Kate Loewald

WITH: Caroline Guiela Nguyen, Theater Director and Founder of the company Les Hommes Approximatifs, and Kate Loewald, Founding Producer of The Play Company in New York. The discussion will be in English with the assistance of the translator Amelia Parenteau.

Voyage Theater Company • 1st October 2020

The Day My Father Killed Me

The Day My Father Killed Me by Magali Solignat and Charlotte Boimare, translated from French by Amelia Parenteau, is based on the true story of a popular singer and radio DJ in Guadeloupe who murdered his 18 year-old son.

Lewis Center for the Arts • 10th September 2020

Pistes (Tracks) — English Translation

Tracks... by Penda Diouf. Translated by Amelia Parenteau for Princeton University's Seuls en Scène 2020 French Theater Festival. This text was commissioned by the SACD as part of the “Intrepid Ones” project, on the theme of courage.