MARK BLANKENSHIP
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Creating a Crucial Moment in Awake and Sing!
Welcome to Building Character , our ongoing look at performers and how they create their roles
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You’ll Never Guess Where the Shipwreck Came From
The surprising inspiration for Amazing Grace‘s pivotal scene — Of all the musicals currently on Broadway, Amazing Grace seems the least likely to be influenced by experimental German theatre. Yet the Berliner Ensemble, the company co-founded by Bertolt Brecht, is the direct inspiration for one of the show’s most memorable moments. Here’s how you draw […]
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WATCH: What Is a Cue-to-Cue?
We’ve got a new video in our Theatre Dictionary ! (You can browse all our videos right here. )
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This is the Place Where Your Feelings Are Safe
Why Dale Soules understands her character in Shows for Days — There’s a moment in Shows For Days, now playing at Lincoln Center Theater, when a character named Sid annihilates her pride. To save her theatre company, she must ask for help from the woman who broke her heart. And even though Douglas Carter Beane’s […]
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WATCH: Meet The Assembly
Meet the Assembly, where political questions get investigated from all sides. This video features all four of The Assembly’s co-artistic directors — Stephen Aubrey, Edward Bauer, Nick Benacerraf, and Jess Chayes — as well as company members Ben Beckley and Emily Louise Perkins.
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Why Can We See Those Puppeteers?
Manual Cinema wants you to witness how they work — There’s a moment on screen, pictured above, when an old woman looks at herself in the mirror. The tentative way she touches the glass communicates her loneliness, her grief, and her disbelief that she’s still alive while her beloved sister is in the ground. That’s […]
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One Rachmaninoff Is Not Enough
Practical concerns inspire deep meaning in Dave Malloy’s new musical — Never underestimate the power of practical limitations. In the theatre, at least, they often lead to a show’s most innovative elements. Just look at what happened with Preludes, the new musical written and composed by Dave Malloy that’s currently making its world premiere in […]
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It’s the Funniest King Lear of the Season!
Why My Perfect Mind injects comedy into tragedy
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The World We Hear Vs. the World We See
Sound changes everything in 10 Out of 12 — “I think of theatre ultimately as a sonic event, rather than a visual one.” So says playwright Anne Washburn, who’s certainly honoring that credo with her new show. Playing through July 18 at Soho Rep, 10 Out of 12 is about what we hear as much […]