Editor's Note

By Jim O'Quinn

Anybody who saw the Foundry Theatre Company of New York City's 2002 production of Talk, Carl Hancock Rux's virtuosic play of ideas (scheduled to be published this month by TCG Books), will be aware that Rux is not a man of few words. We knew about the writer's characteristic volubility when we asked him to turn journalist (in addition to his other identities of poet, novelist, musician, dancer and playwright) in order to examine the rapid ascent and critical success of the five-year-old Classical Theatre of Harlem. Not unexpectedly, Rux's cover story, "A Rage in Harlem," is lengthy—it runs more than 6,000 words—and, as we also anticipated, it is a rich and heady mix of Harlem history and lore, distinctive artistic personalities, crackling controversy and critical analysis. In the age of the media sound-bite and the mini-mini-review, American Theatre remains committed to just such full and multi-faceted examinations of important theatrical subjects and issues.

This issue features another case in point—the third installment of our extended series on the convergence of hip-hop culture and theatre. On the heels of theoretical essays by Roberta Uno and Jorge Ignacio Cortiñas, in April and May/June, the actress and playwright Eisa Davis talks this month about the reach of the hip-hop aesthetic into the retrospective past and the potential future; and a panel of hip-hop practitioners moves the ongoing conversation in solidly practical directions. There's a bristling debate about hip-hop image and identity happening on the Letters to the Editor page as well.

Still another department in this issue—Postmark Moscow—demonstrates the merits of accommodating the word count to a story's demands: Rather than limit our perspective on contemporary Russian theatre to this reporter's comments on an array of director-centric productions in the 2004 Golden Mask festival, we decided to draw as well upon the unique expertise of Moscow Times theatre critic John Freedman, who has the inside track on a burgeoning "new drama" movement that is already sending feelers west toward Great Britain and the U.S.

So settle in. These are stories that can't be encompassed in a sound-bite. Sometimes more really is more. —Jim O'Quinn

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