Ryan Claycomb

And I mean it truly. It was never not an honor to teach in the same community as you.

A beautiful essay on how hard it is to be a learner from probably the best teacher I’ve ever known.

Between the committee meetings and budget spreadsheets, academic admin leaves little time for writing these days, so it's especially gratifying to get work out there that connects with other kinds of commitments, in a journal I've long admired.

scholarworks.wmich.edu/compdr/vol59...

American College Theatre Festival Suspends Affiliation With Kennedy Center The American College Theatre Festival announced it has suspended its long-standing affiliation with the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, citing a misalignment of values while confirming...

Trump breaks things:

For 58 yrs, the American College Theatre Festival, which serves 18,000 students/year, has run its national festival at the Kennedy Center.

No longer: doing it there
is “no longer viable” b/c of decisions that don't align w/ ACTF values.

www.broadwayworld.com/article/Amer...

"Years and years ago, there was a production of The Tempest, out of doors, at an Oxford college on a lawn, which was the stage, and the lawn went back towards the lake in the grounds of the college, and the play began in natural light. But as it developed, and as it became time for Ariel to say his farewell to the world of The Tempest, the evening had started to close in and there was some artificial lighting coming on. And as Ariel uttered his last speech, he turned and he ran across the grass, and he got to the edge of the lake and he just kept running across the top of the water — the producer having thoughtfully provided a kind of walkway an inch beneath the water. And you could see and you could hear the plish, plash as he ran away from you across the top of the lake, until the gloom enveloped him and he disappeared from your view. And as he did so, from the further shore, a firework rocket was ignited, and it went whoosh into the air, and high up there it burst into lots of sparks, and all the sparks went out, and he had gone. "When you look up the stage directions, it says, 'Exit Ariel.”

Eleven years ago, I wrote to Tom Stoppard to ask about this coup de théâtre from 1949. It took me down an unexpected rabbit hole - in memory of Stoppard, here's what I found.

And while others will reference "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead," and "Arcadia," and "Shakespeare in Love," and "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade," and "The Real Thing," I will buy a ticket to "Travesties" before any of them.

Somehow, "Dazzling wit and playful erudition" feels like an understatement. I have been moved and inspired more by other playwrights, but I'd be hard pressed to name an equal in terms of sheer capacity to delight.

Pittsburgh is the Paris of Appalachia, and the northern panhandle of WV is due west. Pittsburgh is not the Midwest.

Ordering now! Congratulations and I'm looking forward to reading where the conversation is going next!

"When the first of August came round, the Professor realized he had pleasantly trifled away nearly two months at a task which should have taken little more than a week."

--Willa Cather, 1925 and timeless

Not only did I first see Rick Cluchey in KRAPP’S LAST TAPE on one of these, but I screened ENDGAME for my own students on one.

Good lord I got a case nearly every summer when I lived in Morgantown. Upside: the z-pack of steroids was great for writing productivity.

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, giant of African literature, dies aged 87 Kenyan writer’s death announced by his daughter, who wrote: ‘He lived a full life, fought a good fight’

www.theguardian.com/books/2025/m...

Who Owns These Tools?: Vauhini Vara and Aarthi Vadde “The desire for that sort of purist kind of connection that one might call communion, is something that I'm interested in in all of my work.”

Who owns tools like ChatGPT, and what does that mean? Can such AI tools be reappropriated by writers?

Such questions are at the heart of @vauhinivara.bsky.social‬’s new book “Searches.”

Hear her in conversation with @aarthivadde.bsky.social‬, new at PB:

Opinion | I wanted to make flood risk visible. So I painted a mural. With climate science under attack, artists and others must engage the public on these issues.

When institutions and policies fail us, the arts stand in the gap.
wapo.st/3ZzDwKJ

Four happy people in academic regalia

Putting the “party” in “platform party.”

You know it’s a philosophy graduation ceremony when your post-Enlightenment joke brings down the house.

I’d try that dish, but I’d avoid Pie-tus Andronicus.

Congrats on the new directions. I hope you'll thrive in the new environs!

1/ I need to say something a little more personal about the NEH. A 🧵

We were at our local theatre last night & cheered when they announced the production was supported by the National Endowment for the Arts. NEA, NEH, IMLS & so many other sources of positive government support permeate our lives. The loss of these agencies is a travesty.

What's most exciting about this review is that Cox, appointed in a Communication Studies department, pulls out different patterns and questions than other reviews have, foregrounding political communication more than theatre studies framing future questions in super-productive ways.

Sometimes academic publishing's glacial timelines can be a feature and not just a bug, as when a good review appears two years after a book's publication.

Thanks to Jordana Cox and Theatre History Studies for the good notice.

muse.jhu.edu/pub/181/arti...

The Red Arrow by William Brewer: 9780593314432 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books When a once-promising young writer agrees to ghostwrite a famous physicist’s memoir, his livelihood is already in jeopardy: Plagued by debt, he’s grown distant from his wife and is haunted...

Currently reading and enjoying William Brewer's *The Red Arrow* not just because it's a really good read, but also because even after 6 years away, a story with well-drawn scenes from Morgantown still warms the cockles of my heart.

www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/675640...

In the midst of the chaos, I find great solace that there are still high school theatre kids to email you asking your expert opinion on why musicals are so amazing.

What I told the Democracy Summit audience last week I gave a keynote talk. I called it: "Building Back a Better Democracy"

"We are not sleepwalkers, fated for disaster. We stand fully awake. We know the status quo is unacceptable.

So enough with the doom and gloom. The time demands action.

Let's reimagine. Let's rebuild. Let's turn this mess around." leedrutman.substack.com/p/what-i-tol...

Colorado State University Lee Drutman, senior fellow at New America, delivers a keynote talk on “Building Back a Better Democracy-Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop” as part of Colorado State University’s 2025 Democracy Summit. ...

Thought-provoking talk by Lee Drutman, (senior fellow at New America) from CSU’s 2025 Democracy Summit - on multi-party electoral politics, proportional voting, and the neighborhood-level work that (more than two) political parties could be doing.

flic.kr/p/2qQsaAU

Our play, COWBOYS AND EAST INDIANS will have its world premiere at @denvercenter.bsky.social in January 2026! so excited and proud! Then on to Atlanta!

**Go read Lauren Berlant's final chapter from Cruel Optimism (2011), "On the Desire for the Political." It is very of-the-moment.

www.dukeupress.edu/cruel-optimism

Empathy Doesn't Make You Less Racist Saidiya Hartman argues that erasing difference can be an act of aggression.

4) find intimate publics when you can and build trust to shore up the networks to do the hard work, 5) READ UP!

* Go read @nberlat.bsky.social on Saidiya Hartman on empathy's dangers: www.everythingishorrible.net/p/empathy-do... 7/