Lauren Halvorsen

This week marks 4 years out of the theater industry for me and @halvorsen.bsky.social’s Nothing for the Group hit me hard.

a mood board of multiple images paired with the following text: The first step of the rebrand process was assembling this chaotic mood board of conflicting design impulses. This collage doubles as a map of my niche cultural obsessions: Icelandic durational performance art, the title sequence of Jackie Brown, my go-to strength training music, nonfiction about ‘the oceanic depths of longing’, my favorite museum, a Norwegian movie I’d avoided watching for three years because I knew I would simultaneously love it and be emotionally destroyed by it. (I was right—and I also immediately planned a trip to Oslo, like a true sicko.)

today is the newsletter's official fifth birthday so I wrote some bts content about the recent rebranding process as a treat: open.substack.com/pub/nothingf...

I haven't asked her yet but I definitely feel like they played Shapeshifter on repeat 100 times

Little Bear Ridge Road will move into the Booth Theatre, currently home to John Proctor is the Villain. Kimberly Belflower's play is a primal scream of teenage ferocity and tenderness, examining how systems of power perpetuate themselves and ultimately asserting that we must take care of each other because institutions exist primarily to protect themselves. The irony of this succession is not lost on me, nor on anyone else paying attention. It's simply irrelevant to an industry that has mastered the performance of accountability, moving seamlessly from critiquing abusive power to rehabilitating its most prominent practitioners, all while congratulating itself on its commitment to progress.

@halvorsen.bsky.social in today’s Nothing For The Group 🔥🔥🔥 nothingforthegroup.substack.com/p/the-week-o...

A quote in brown text on a purple background, that reads: I can’t shake how all every defense of Scott Rudin always cite the financial and creative triumphs—the revenue, the awards, the capital-A art—without considering the invisible losses. Rudin harassed and bullied people over decades, and you can't tangibly measure the impact of that behavior: the careers derailed, the ambitions quashed, the opportunities lost. He’s lauded as a champion and cultivator of theatre, but all I can think about is the potential art he destroyed.

wrote about the Scott Rudin rehabilitation tour in this week's newsletter: open.substack.com/pub/nothingf...

"I've learned that paying people for their time and labor is how we build the world we want to live in, and the world I want to live in is one where creative work is valued." - @halvorsen.bsky.social, re: 5 years of a must-read newsletter
nothingforthegroup.substack.com/p/five-years...

Yo, I didn't realize David Cromer directed of Good Night and Good Luck. I wish I could see it tonight on the livestream but I've got an opera opening (h/t @halvorsen.bsky.social for the link in #NothingForTheGroup) substack.com/redirect/517...

After Trump Takeover, Kennedy Center Ticket Sales Fall Sharply

Ticket sales and subscription revenue at the Kennedy Center have fallen sharply since Trump made himself chairman. Single-ticket sales were down roughly 50%. Subscriptions revenue down 82% for theater and 57% for dance. www.nytimes.com/2025/06/03/a...

Kennedy Center employees announce plans to unionize The organizers cite a lack of transparency from current Kennedy Center leadership and several rounds of layoffs following President Donald Trump’s takeover.

Breaking news: Staffers at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts said that they plan to form a union in response to several waves of layoffs and what they describe as a lack of transparency from leaders at the arts institution, which President Donald Trump took over in February.

I subscribe to like a zillion newsletters and pay for almost all of them (indie podcasts, too) and every time I’m like “maybe this has gotten out of hand…” I look at the list and I’m like, no, actually, I value all of these and get my money’s worth out of them.

NEA GRANT TERMINATION TRACKER

*please repost or forward* Here’s a sheet where arts orgs can record information about their NEA grant termination. Annie Dorsen is collecting this info as a first step towards coordinating a response docs.google.com/spreadsheets...

seven nominations for John Proctor is the Villain. truly wild & surreal. so thrilled for the whole company. 😭

playbill.com/article/tony...

in all seriousness: go see Julia Masli's ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. It's my favorite kind of theatre: weird, communal, droll, ephemeral, delightful

Every April, we celebrate Independent Bookstore Day to remind us how vital indie bookstores are to our communities and society. It’s a day of joy and solidarity, and significant financial impact for these bookstores. This year, Amazon is undercutting that with a “Book Sale” on the same day—a calculated move by a company that has already put half the bookstores in the country out of business, controls over 60% of the market and sells far more books than all indie bookstores combined. The people at Amazon responsible for the timing of their "Book Sale" should be ashamed, but they are shameless.

Man, this is a pretty fucking gross move from Amazon, huh? Good on @bookshop.org for not mincing words, though:

Fellow authors, I love you, and I know it feels like we don’t have a choice, but B&N and Am*zon both scheduled sales this week to preempt Independent Bookstore Day, a hugely vital source of income for indie bookstores. Please don’t promote their sales; please promote your local indie this week.

Trans Lifeline is a good place to direct resources if you’re looking to help here

fuck everyone involved with this decision

i need news organizations to start explicitly stating in headlines, subheadlines, and ledes that RFK is a lying conspiracy theorist about autism instead of burying it six paragraphs deep

RFK Jr.'s autism study to amass medical records of many Americans The autism study is planning to link confidential data "with broad coverage in the U.S. population" in one place for the first time.

this is straight up eugenics www.cbsnews.com/news/rfk-jr-...

The Dramaturg is the Hero of 'John Proctor is the Villain' Playwright Kimberly Belflower and dramaturg Lauren Halvorsen on how their collaboration paved the way for Broadway's hit new play

I love that celebration of this article, which is a celebration of
@halvorsen.bsky.social's dramaturgy work, has the LMDA Listserv more alive than its been in ages.
#dramaturgy #newplays

www.tdf.org/on-stage/tdf...

These layoffs represent another chapter in America's ongoing brain drain, following the federal government's systematic defunding of scientists, researchers, and academic institutions. Authoritarians target artists and intellectuals because creativity, knowledge, and expression foster dissent. These regimes identify the voices challenging power structures, then dismantle their platforms under the guise of efficiency or economic necessity. Artists envision new worlds and invite others to do the same. Imagination is profoundly dangerous to those who benefit from the status quo. It’s not surprising that the Kennedy Center’s first sacrifices were the artists tasked with expanding the circle of who gets to participate in American cultural life.

in which @halvorsen.bsky.social gives it to us straight (& not just about the state of American theater)
nothingforthegroup.substack.com/p/the-week-o...

my punishment for not planning my JPITV opening night outfit more than three days in advance is now I have to go to a MALL in VIRGINIA on a SATURDAY

entered the delusional stage of life where i think having a paper planner will solve all of my problems

the hotel guests of White Lotus Season 4 better include an undercover reporter

“give yourself the uncomfortable luxury of changing your mind about the shape your career, because over time your priorities and desires will shift in ways you cannot anticipate” is the thing I want to scream from the mountain at every single theater professional I still talk to. It is LIFE CHANGING

I'd like to see arts funders ask potential funded orgs what their staff's workloads break down to on an hourly basis as part of the decision process. Because I can tell you, too many orgs are "balancing their budgets" by requiring a shitload of unpaid labor.

I don't live & work in a rural area like Anne, but after spending so much time in NYC for rehearsals & previews lately, I really value the distance I have living in DC, even though we have our own rich theatre scene. NYC theatre is all-consuming like no other, I felt like I lost all sense of time.

bills, bills, bills #35 A week in the life and wallet of a production shop head who left the industry eight years ago

this month's anonymous money diary is a real banger -- from a former production shop head & designer who left the theatre industry eight years ago: nothingforthegroup.substack.com/p/bills-bill...

My Friend’s Show Was Kind of Terrible. What Do I Say When I See Them? (Gift Article) You can always consider telling the truth, but it may not be advisable in this case.

The NYT asked me to give some sage advice for a timeless question: www.nytimes.com/2025/03/31/a...

a gray city sidewalk with "WE SAW GOODY PROCTOR WITH VILLAIN TICKETS" spray painted in yellow on it

finally encountered one of these in the wild

A hand holds a Playbill in the mezzanine of the Booth Theatre in NYC. Sadie Sink in a green sweater sits on a desk in a high school classroom in the image on the Playbill. Text on both the Playbill and the projected on the curtain is JOHN PROCTOR IS THE VILLAIN. The play is by Kimberly Belflower

TERRIFIC play I finally got to see tonight, after hearing its dramaturg @halvorsen.bsky.social tweet about it in the beforetimes. JOHN PROCTOR IS THE VILLAIN, by Kimberly Belflower, dir by Danya Taymor. What a great night at the theatre! #GoSeeAPlay #GoSeeANewPlay