Welcome to the “____ & Vincentelli” edition of “Marks & Vincentelli”! Peter was stuck with deadlines so I, Elisabeth, was alone at the wheel. Warning: I got so drunk on power that my accent was completely out of control.

Luckily I had a great guest to keep me on track: Lauren Halvorsen, who writes the theater newsletter “Nothing for the Group” on this very platform.

Every week “Nothing for the Group” offers a great hand-selected aggregation of show announcements from around the country (both in person and digital), news, reading recommendations and what Lauren calls “the regional Game of Thrones” (appointments, departures).

The newsletter usually ends with the popular section “This is not a living wage,” in which Lauren posts job announcements from various theaters around the country and compares the advertised salary with the living wage in that city. You won’t be surprised to hear that the salaries tend to come up woefully short.

So…how do you make a living in theater? And what does a dramaturg does, anyway? And don’t miss the segment in which Lauren revealed how much she had been offered to work on a 29-hour (yeah, right) job.

All this and more in this very special episode of “Marks & Vincentelli”!

Reading list:

A couple of retrospective-minded articles I recently wrote for The New York Times:

Catching up with Mia Yoo, a decade into her run as artistic director at La MaMa.

Mabou Mines celebrated its 50th anniversary with a three-day retrospective.

Thanks to Christian Huygen for our theme music.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit marksvincentelli.substack.com/subscribe