Humana Theater Festival Report
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HUMANA<br />
The 41st annual<br />
<strong>Humana</strong> <strong>Festival</strong> of<br />
ew American Plays at<br />
the Actor’s Theatre of<br />
Louisville started with<br />
“crying it out” and<br />
ended with the<br />
assertion that “we’re<br />
going to be okay.”<br />
Those bookend titles<br />
accurately<br />
ncompassed the wide<br />
range of funny,<br />
poignant and hardhitting<br />
plays seen at<br />
the festival this year.<br />
With the impending<br />
demise of the National<br />
ndowment for the Arts<br />
potentially leading to<br />
the defunding of<br />
multitudes of artistic<br />
nstitutions, there was a<br />
loaded call to – as<br />
Molly Smith Metzler<br />
said — “ask the big<br />
questions” at this<br />
year’s festival.<br />
THEATER FESTIVAL<br />
REPORT<br />
Santa Barbara’s Kate<br />
Bergstrom Saw Many<br />
New Plays in<br />
Louisville<br />
Artistic director Les Waters<br />
and<br />
Associate Director Meredith<br />
McDonough<br />
Along with their savvy<br />
team of associates,<br />
compiled an eclectic,<br />
moving collection of<br />
commissions and new<br />
works to be performed in<br />
rep on their three stages.<br />
<strong>Humana</strong>, according to<br />
Waters, is “always<br />
evolving according to the<br />
shows we have the<br />
passion to do each<br />
year…what interests me<br />
when they are all put<br />
together is how people<br />
will detect something<br />
that wasn’t there<br />
necessarily consciously.”<br />
Staples of the season<br />
include an ensemble<br />
showcase of the<br />
nineteen apprentice<br />
actors and a talk with a<br />
leading national figure in<br />
the theatre. This year<br />
that role went to none<br />
other than the demi-god<br />
Taylor Mac.
Donald<br />
Trump carried this tic into the<br />
White House, where after five<br />
months in office, his habit of<br />
touting, then failing to deliver<br />
either timely policy proposals<br />
or evidence to back an<br />
assortment of claims, has<br />
become a recurring theme of<br />
his presidency.<br />
When it comes to policy,<br />
President Donald Trump<br />
has a decent record of at<br />
least pursuing his<br />
TRUMP<br />
core<br />
campaign promises.<br />
Obamacare is on the<br />
ropes. The US is on its<br />
way out of the Paris<br />
Climate deal. He has tried,<br />
over and again, to enact<br />
some kind of travel ban,<br />
first pitched as a blanket<br />
halt on Muslim<br />
immigration before being<br />
edited to block people<br />
from six Muslim-majority<br />
nations.<br />
Where Trump falls curiously short, though, is<br />
in his day-to-day commitments. They'll come.<br />
It'll just be a few weeks, he says. But then<br />
the weeks drag on. The phenomenon isn't<br />
new, exactly, as his campaign was filled with<br />
empty threats -- the infamous "beans" were<br />
never spilled on Ted Cruz's wife -- and<br />
unfulfilled guarantees, like the press<br />
conference Trump said, in early August of<br />
2016, Melania Trump would hold "over the<br />
next couple of weeks." It never came.