Cocktails with the Canon is an interview-based podcast series, by The Old Globe and co-hosted by Artistic Associate Lamar Perry and Literary Manager/Dramaturg Danielle Mages Amato, that seeks to interrogate the American theatre canon. Presented through a series of conversations with various artists about their experiences with the “traditional” Western canon of dramatic literature, the podcast explores how that canon includes and excludes certain writers, groups, and aesthetics, ultimately asking the question: how can we expand the canon and create access for all? The podcast also investigates the playwrights’ personal stories and their hopes for the American theatre, as well as the works that are considered canon within their individual communities. Listeners should walk away from Cocktails with the Canon feeling like they’ve just left a night at the theatre and a gathering with their community over drinks and food.
MEET THE HOSTS
Lamar Perry (he/him/his) is a Queer Black director, producer, and writer. He recently served as the associate director on I Gotta Home as part of Roundabout Theatre Company’s Refocus Project. His other recent projects include the audio plays Punchbowl Spaces and The Family Sound (Blindspot Collective/La Jolla Playhouse) and a developmental workshop of Run/Fire (Cygnet Theatre Company). He also served as the assistant director on the world premiere of Katori Hall’s The Hot Wing King directed by Steve H. Broadnax III at Signature Theatre. Recently he taught and directed first-year M.F.A. acting candidates in a devising-theatre workshop at UC San Diego. He is a 2020–2021 member of the Roundabout Directors Group and a 2020 National Alliance for Musical Theatre Observer. @mrlamarperry.
Danielle Mages Amato holds an M.F.A. in Dramaturgy and a Ph.D. in Drama and Theatre from UC San Diego. She currently works as Literary Manager and Dramaturg at The Old Globe. She is a past president and board member of Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas. She spent four years as the dramaturg and literary manager of Studio Theatre in Washington DC. At the Globe, she has overseen eight years of the Powers New Voices Festival and has dramaturged world premieres of plays by Sam Hunter, JC Lee, Matthew Lopez, Itamar Moses, Anna Ziegler, and others. She is the author of The Hidden Memory of Objects, a novel published by Balzer+Bray/HarperCollins.
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