2013 IRNE Award Nominations

Johanna Day in Good People. Photo: T. Charles Erickson

From the IRNE Awards website:

The Independent Reviewers of New England (IRNE) Awards were founded by Beverly Creasey of the Journal Newspapers and Larry Stark of the TheaterMirror in 1997. The IRNE Awards recognize the extraordinary wealth of talent in the Boston theatre community.

The IRNEs are one of the big Boston theatre awards every year, mostly because of the diversity involved: the range of artists that get nominated runs the entire gamut of the Boston theatre community, and everyone comes together for a celebration when the awards are announced, usually around late April at the Cyclorama at the BCA (this year's award night information is still TBA). It's a veritable Who's-Who of the Boston theatre community, celebrating every accomplishment from the smallest fringe and community theatre groups all the way up to touring productions at Broadway in Boston.

The IRNE Awards recognize all productions within the calendar year (so the entirety of 2012, for example, as opposed to one of our season, which typically run from September - June), and this year, the Huntington has received a whopping 35 nominations, which is more than any other company in Boston!

Special Upcoming INVISIBLE MAN Post-Show Conversations

From Sam Lasman, Literary Professional Intern

Given the depth and complexity of the themes explored in Invisible Man (both the novel and our currently running stage adaptation), we've invited local scholars who study Ellison, his work, and/or broader themes of African-American literature and identity to lend their voices to a few of our regular post-show conversations. On Saturday, January 12, Robin Bernstein, an Associate Professor of African and African American Studies and Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality at Harvard University, joined us following the 2pm performance. She brought keen perspectives on the representation of invisibility and the performance of black narratives to the conversation. Her most recent book, Racial Innocence: Performing American Childhood from Slavery to Civil Rights, won the 2012 Outstanding Book Award from the Association for Theatre in Higher Education.

Upcoming guests include:

• Saturday, January 19, following the 2pm performance: Cynthia Young, Associate Professor of English and African and African Diaspora Studies at Boston College, teaches courses on race, film, and African American literature. She is the author of Soul Power: Culture, Radicalism and the Making of a U.S. Third World Left and has written widely on popular culture.
• Sunday, January 20, following the 2pm performance: Theo Theoharis, an Associate in the Department of Comparative Literature at Harvard University, teaches a course on the cultural politics of Invisible Man. Professor Theoharis has published books on authors as disparate as Ibsen, Joyce, and Cavafy.
• Saturday, January 26, following the 2pm performance: Sandy Alexandre, an associate professor of American literature at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is the author of The Properties of Violence  (2012), which explores the connections between various representational forms of lynching and the issue of black dispossession. She is conducting research for her second book, trying to determine if slavery's discourse of black “thinghood” — as chattel, cargo, etc. — informs representations of black people’s relationship to material objects. She also has published several scholarly articles.
• Saturday, February 2, following the 2pm performance: Glenda Carpio is a professor of African and African American Studies and English at Harvard University. Her book, Laughing Fit to Kill: Black Humor in the Fictions of Slavery, was published by Oxford University Press in 2008. She is currently working on a book on immigration, expatriation, and exile in American literature. Professor Carpio also recently co-edited African American Literary Studies: New Texts, New Approaches, New Challenges (2011) with Professor Werner Sollors.

We hope you'll join us for one of these special conversations. If you've already seen Invisible Man, let us know what themes you left the theatre thinking about.

What Audiences Are Saying About INVISIBLE MAN

Have you seen Invisible Man? Please share your comments with us.

• In the final moment of the play, Invisible Man declares, "Who knows but that, on the lower frequencies, I speak for you?" When have you felt invisible? Did this story speak for you? 

• Theatre and novels are two very different methods of telling a story. Have you read Ralph Ellison's original novel? Do you think this was a successful stage adaptation? Do you think the theatrical elements -- the video projections, Invisible Man's narration, etc. -- were effective in telling the story?

• Did you attend a post-show conversation? What comments surprised you or made you think differently about the play? Would you attend a post-show conversation again? What were you thinking about on the way home from the theatre?

Make a comment

The Huntington Theatre Company's production of Invisible Man plays through February 3, 2013 at the Avenue of the Arts / BU Theatre. Get tickets and information or call our Box Office at 617 266-0800.

What Audiences Are Saying About GOOD PEOPLE

Have you seen Good People? Please share your comments with us.

• What was your experience like seeing Good People in Boston? Did the characters and setting feel familiar to you? How did that affect your enjoyment of the production? 

• Who do you think are the "good people" in this play?

• Did you attend a post-show conversation? What comments surprised you or made you think differently about the play? Would you attend a post-show conversation again? What were you thinking about on the way home from the theatre?

Make a comment

The Huntington Theatre Company's production of Good People plays through October 14, 2012 at the Avenue of the Arts / BU Theatre. Get tickets and information or call our Box Office at 617 266-0800.