Note: This is a guest posting from Clare O’Connor, production dramaturg and assistant director for our fall MainStage production of The Killer Angels. Jeff Shaara is a historical novelist, having penned eight New York Times bestsellers. He is the son of Michael Shaara, and he wrote the prequel and sequel to his father’s Pulitzer prize-winning […]
An interview with Karen Tarjan
Note: This is a guest posting from Clare O’Connor, production dramaturg and assistant director for our fall MainStage production of The Killer Angels. Continuing her 20-year involvement with Lifeline Theatre, Karen Tarjan is the adaptor of The Killer Angels. She is a founding member of the Beau Jest Moving Theatre of Boston, and Seanachai Theatre […]
An interview with Hal Jespersen
Note: This is a guest posting from Clare O’Connor, production dramaturg and assistant director for our fall MainStage production of The Killer Angels. Hal Jespersen is a freelance cartographer specializing in maps of the American Civil War. His work has been featured in books, journals, and magazines, as well as Wikipedia, for which Jespersen has […]
The Entail that Drives a Novel
Note: This is a guest posting from Maren Robinson, production dramaturg for our spring/summer MainStage production of Pride and Prejudice. “I do think it is the hardest thing in the world, that your estate should be entailed away from your own children, I am sure, if I had been you, I should have tried long […]
The Regency you might not know might seem strangely familiar
Note: This is a guest posting from Maren Robinson, production dramaturg for our spring/summer MainStage production of Pride and Prejudice. The clothing, the customs and the class system of the Regency may seem distant from our own time, but ongoing foreign wars, a fragile economy, criticism of the wealthy and an active Evangelical movement could […]
The Enigmatic Jane
Note: This is a guest posting from Maren Robinson, production dramaturg for our spring/summer MainStage production of Pride and Prejudice. There is something enigmatic about Jane Austen that makes it difficult for readers to have a sense of her beyond her novel and a few meager biographical details and this sense of her as a […]
What is this connection we have to Pride and Prejudice?
Note: This is a guest posting from Maren Robinson, production dramaturg for our spring/summer MainStage production of Pride and Prejudice. Dear Reader, “What is this connection we have to Pride and Prejudice?” (This being a blog post in which neuroscientists and I will state the obvious about reading and still fail to capture the ineffable […]
Anatomy of the Hunger Lobby Display
Note: This is a guest posting from Maren Robinson, production dramaturg for our winter MainStage production of Hunger. Now that I am working on my third production at Lifeline I thought it would be fun to go through the anatomy of the dramaturgical materials in the lobby that are among the production photos of the […]
Seed Hunters: Old World and Brave New World
Note: This is a guest posting from Maren Robinson, production dramaturg for our winter MainStage production of Hunger. The work that the scientists in Hunger are conducting is scientific work that continues today. Portions of the story are flashbacks to the seed gathering trips conducted by Nikolai Vavilov and his students. In many ways Vavilov […]
Hunger and the Siege of Leningrad
Note: This is a guest posting from Maren Robinson, production dramaturg for our winter MainStage production of Hunger. Rehearsals for Hunger started after Thanksgiving and going into other holidays there was plenty of food in the rehearsal room. The abundance of food at our American holidays reminds me how far removed we are from real […]