Jessica Goldman - HoustonNewMedia.org

As Life Begins Again, What Happened Here Reflects On Our Time At Home

Jessica Goldman — Thu, 27 May 2021 09:00:00 +0000

Remember all those news stories and videos of people around the world thanking frontline workers in various forms for their herculean efforts during the darkest days of the pandemic? The clanging of pots on balconies for hospital workers. The standing ...

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Fatherland Breathes Magic Into the Memoir Play

Jessica Goldman — Mon, 01 Mar 2021 10:00:00 +0000

How do you mourn the death of a father who abandoned you? How do you feel connection to a land you’ve never known? Where ancestors, long and near gone, are only whispers in the symphony that creates your life song? These questions of belonging and iden...

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The Fight Over Which Union’s Rules Theaters Follow Comes To Houston

Jessica Goldman — Thu, 12 Nov 2020 10:00:00 +0000

It's easy to imagine that audience members were thrilled when Stages announced they would be streaming the jukebox musical, Honky Tonk Laundry, live from the Gordy for one week beginning November 10. An honest to goodness live show? Broadcast from an a...

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Twilight: Los Angeles,1992 Makes Streaming Theater Magic

Jessica Goldman — Sun, 08 Nov 2020 10:00:00 +0000

It’s Director Malinda L. Beckham’s voice we hear on the screen prior to the opening of Dirt Dog Theatre Co’s production of Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992, Anne Deveare Smith’s docu-play about the victims and participants of the LA riots. Welcome to this i...

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Strict Union Rule Leaves Many Houston Theaters Scrambling

Jessica Goldman — Tue, 27 Oct 2020 09:00:00 +0000

What if measures taken to protect you have the effect of harming at the same time? It’s a question being considered by the actors and theaters represented by Actors' Equity (AEA), the American labor union representing the world of live theatrical perfo...

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It’s The Meat In the Middle That Gives Oh My God Its Sizzle

Jessica Goldman — Wed, 14 Oct 2020 09:30:00 +0000

God walks into a psychologist’s office, angry, dejected, and seeking therapy. Not a bad premise for a two-hander, but what do you do with it? Serious thinky/talkie? Absurdist exploration? Dark comedy? In Oh My God, Israeli playwright Anat Gov, appears ...

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Drama Squad Brings The Show To You

Jessica Goldman — Tue, 29 Sep 2020 09:00:00 +0000

What did actors do in Elizabethan times when the plague hit and Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre was closed? Not like they could stream their work online or invite audiences to a Zoom show. Highly unlikely they were sitting at home baking banana bread. This...

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Pour A Drink And Gussy Up For The Strange Secret Of Mr. Adrian Rook

Jessica Goldman — Mon, 31 Aug 2020 11:52:00 +0000

“We had a date night”, my husband declared excitedly as we stepped away from the computer screen and began to defrock ourselves of the flashy formal wear we’d been asked to don. He wasn’t wrong. Sure, we hadn’t left our house, might not have been weari...

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Stripping Down The Barriers To In-Person Theater During COVID

Jessica Goldman — Wed, 12 Aug 2020 09:00:00 +0000

It was a Monday, the first time I tried to go to the drive-through strip club. I suppose I should’ve known it would be closed; this style of performance sounded more like a weekend kinda thing. I did have a nice chat with the Parking Valet though, bemu...

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Zoom Tarot Readings with Madame Daphne Mixes Camp with Compassion

Jessica Goldman — Thu, 16 Jul 2020 12:19:00 +0000

Oh Madame Daphne, how I've missed you. Not that I'm happy it took a full-blown pandemic to realize that your brand of mysterious and compassionate camp is exactly the balm I needed. But here we are. Needing this kind of strangely wonderful distraction ...

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COVID First Responders Bare Their Pain in The Line

Jessica Goldman — Mon, 13 Jul 2020 09:00:00 +0000

A show comprised of real-life interviews with COVID first responders while we’re still in the middle of a global pandemic. Sounds like theatrical redundancy. After all, aren’t we already taken into the belly of the emergency response beast via the embe...

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Houston Theater Actors Share Stories of Racism Behind The Scenes

Jessica Goldman — Mon, 15 Jun 2020 09:00:00 +0000

Theaters are liberally minded organizations that wish to be welcoming spaces where people of all races can participate in the power of live performance. Theaters are also spaces where racism happens. Shocked by this dichotomy? You wouldn’t be if you we...

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Checking Back In With Three Actors Trying To Stay Afloat During COVID-19 Shutdowns

Jessica Goldman — Mon, 08 Jun 2020 09:00:00 +0000

Back in March, as shows were canceled and stages went dark, I spoke with three Houston actors to get a sense of how they were coping with the Coronavirus shutdown financially, emotionally, and artistically. At the conclusion of each interview, I asked ...

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Funding Tied To Tourism Is Just Another Reason Houston Theaters Are Suffering From the Coronavirus

Jessica Goldman — Mon, 18 May 2020 09:00:00 +0000

The bad news came on May 5 – an email from the Houston Arts Alliance informing theater companies that, due to the negative economic impact of COVID 19, the grant money they’d been promised would be reduced going forward. By 6 percent for the first quar...

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Houston Actors Spill Some Hairy Tales Amid Coronavirus Stay At Home Orders

Jessica Goldman — Tue, 28 Apr 2020 09:00:00 +0000

Actors are shapeshifters by profession. For a role they’re at times called upon gain/lose weight, wear prosthetic makeup and, of course, cut their hair, grow their hair, dye their hair or hide their own hair under a wig. In other words, they’re used to...

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Nothing Like A Little Friendly Playwrighting Competition To Pass The Time In Isolation

Jessica Goldman — Fri, 17 Apr 2020 09:00:00 +0000

Attention sports fans! Attention theater fans! Attention anyone looking for a competitive but friendly way to fill their isolation time. Cone Man Running Productions is here to scratch your itch with its bracketed War of the Words playwrighting competi...

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In a Time of Social Distancing, Theater Students Run Lines With Inanimate Objects

Jessica Goldman — Mon, 13 Apr 2020 09:00:00 +0000

All across Houston, high school teachers are scrambling to teach lessons online, figuring out how best to translate their curriculum to the virtual world. With subjects like math, English, and history, some of this new learning can come from self-study...

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Houston Costume Designer Makes Masks For Emergency Room Staff

Jessica Goldman — Mon, 06 Apr 2020 09:00:00 +0000

Costume Designer Donna Southern Schmidt was thinking way ahead of most Houstonians when she decided to grab a bunch of leftover materials and take them into isolation with her as the stay at home order hit Houston. Social media connections with fellow ...

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Houston Actors Go Online To Entertain And Occupy Their Time

Jessica Goldman — Tue, 31 Mar 2020 09:00:00 +0000

“Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly; man got to sit and wonder 'why, why, why?" Leave it to Kurt Vonnegut to unintentionally describe our different reactions/realities when it comes to dealing with global problems such as coronavirus. But what about th...

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Streaming Productions A Tricky Prospect For Most Houston Theaters

Jessica Goldman — Mon, 23 Mar 2020 11:57:17 +0000

Almost immediately upon learning of the temporary theater closures across the United States due to coronavirus, it seemed as though every critic in America began filing stories detailing the ways audiences could stream plays and musicals online. Want t...

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