Articles

IRT reimagines a classic with “The Glass Menagerie”

The Indiana Repertory Theatre (IRT) is reimagining a profound classic this spring with “The Glass Menagerie.”

Directed by James Still, “The Glass Menagerie” by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tennessee Williams is showing on the Janet Allen State March 11-April 16.

“One of the many astonishing things about the play is that so many of the elements in its story that have made it a ‘classic’ are the same elements that make it shockingly contemporary and relevant,” Still said in a statement.

Still At It

Playwright James Still has authored several dozen plays over his long career, many of which focus on a combination of political, cultural, and personal topics, including The Velocity of Gary, Appoggiatura, and the much-translated, globally produced And Then They Came for Me: Remembering the World of Anne Frank. But his current passion project is one that easily covers all three.

Playwright James Still Wins Eugene and Marilyn Glick Indiana Authors Award

INDIANAPOLIS: Indiana Humanities and Glick Philanthropies announced the 8 recipients of the 2020 Eugene and Marilyn Glick Indiana Authors Awards. The awards, which recognize authors with a connection to Indiana, and were announced in the fall.

2020 Drama Winner: The Jack Plays

A series of three plays featuring members of the same family, The Jack Plays take readers from a family Thanksgiving in Vermont, to the streets of Venice, to the inner workings of the CIA in Yemen. Across these geographies, Still brings complex, detailed characters to life, exploring family, love, loss, grief and healing.

Familiar and troubling: A conversation with ‘Twelve Angry Men’ director James Still

Still is also an accomplished director and directed the Syracuse Stage/IRT co-production of “Twelve Angry Men.” This interview took place prior to the start of rehearsals.

Indiana Repertory Theatre’s James Still talks new season lineup

For 20 years, James Still has been the playwright in residency at the Indiana Repertory Theatre, and to honor him, the Indy downtown show palace is featuring two of his plays in its 46th season. IRT recently announced the nine-production season, which runs from Sept.19 through May 20.

American History TV: The Widow Lincoln Interview

Playwright James Still and actor Mary Bacon talked about Ford's Theatre's production of The Widow Lincoln, commissioned to mark the 150th anniversary of President Lincoln's assassination. On the night of April 14th, 1865, Abraham Lincoln was mortally wounded as he sat in the presidential box with his wife, Mary, watching the popular comedy Our American Cousin. He died the next morning.

Indiana Rep Names James Still Playwright-in-Residence in Perpetuity

In honor of his 20th season as the resident playwright, a $2.5-million gift will give Still a permanent artistic home.

After serving as the playwright-in-residence at Indiana Repertory Theatre (IRT) for 20 seasons, James Still will stay at the theatre a bit longer. To honor his 20th season, a $2.5-million donation was made to continue the residency program in perpetuity. This James Still Playwright-in-Resident fund will support future generations of playwrights in the James Still Playwright-in-Residence program.

3-year grant brought playwright to IRT; 20 years later, he’s still around

Kansas-native James Still made his first trip to Indianapolis in 1991, when he was invited to the Bonderman National New Youth Playwriting Symposium, a mouthful of a national contest then-housed at the Indiana Repertory Theatre.

One production led to another, and when a Pew Charitable Trust grant program surfaced a few years later that encouraged artist residencies, Still and the IRT’s Janet Allen went for it, landing Still the title of the theater’s first playwright-in-residence—a role he was to assume for three years.

Allegedly.

Playwright celebrates 20 years with Indiana Repertory Theatre

For 20 years, IRT Playwright James Still has been bringing ideas to life and to the stage. We celebrate his run and chat about the new play, Miranda, and James’ latest directorial endeavor, Dial “M” for Murder.

In Indianapolis, James Still is not just a playwright —he's a brand.

Playwrights tend to be perpetual freelancers--long-term relationships, at least with theatres, aren't typically part of the deal. Instead, relationships can last anywhere from a torrid afternoon (a reading) to a giddy month (a production) to a year or two of ups and downs (a commission). Or a mutual affinity might develop between playwright and theatre that leads to multiple productions over the course of the playwright's career, but even that arrangement isn't one of daily and maturing intimacy. Instead, it's likely to have the peripatetic rhythm of a couple who keeps breaking up and getting back together--not so much Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward as, well, Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee.

Still Going Strong

A conversation with IRT playwright-in-residence James Still on the eve of his 10-year anniversary season.

James Still wasn’t born in Indiana, but you wouldn’t know it from his scripts. The Kansas native has been absorbing and transforming the culture here for a decade now as playwright-in-residence at Indiana Repertory Theatre. Still lives in L.A. most of the time, but he also spends a lot of time in Indianapolis (he calls himself an “outside insider”), as well as in cities around the globe where he works in theater, movies, and television.

Q&A: James Still, IRT Playwright-in-Residence

Indiana Repertory Theatre playwright-in-residence James Still talked to IM moments before the recent world premiere of his newest play, The House That Jack Built. Here, Still divulges his inspiration for the play and how it became the platform to tell a story he couldn’t find the words to say himself.

Alumnus gets back to his roots in agricultural ‘Amber Waves’

In 1990, when Kansas University alumnus James Still wrote his one-act play about a struggling Kansas farm family, the show put an exclamation point on an issue already dominating headlines.

The farm crisis of the 1980s was bleeding into the next decade, prodded by drought, feed shortages and declining prices.

But the devastation didn’t stop in the pasture. Hotlines took calls from farmers grappling with depression, alcohol abuse, domestic violence and suicidal tendencies.