Editor's Note

By Jim O’Quinn

During the many years that American Theatre was a primarily black-and-white magazine, theatrical design got short shrift in our pages—not because we didn't attempt to cover that essential discipline and the artists who practice it, but because without the element of color, it's virtually impossible to communicate on the printed page the richness, complexity and impact of sets, costumes or lighting.

No longer. Working with a full-color palette, in this month's issue and in a special gallery on the TCG website, art director Kitty Suen offers readers an elegant visual sampling of the Prague Quadrennial, where the world's most distinctive stage designs were showcased in June. Senior editor Randy Gener's equally elegant commentary from Prague, "All the World's a Pavilion," is a reminder of how language itself can respond to form, color and light with critical insights that rival the power of camera or video. (Gener also tackles the question of how publishers deal with stage design in his review of a spate of new design books.)

There's plenty more in this issue to please the eye. Master photographer Michal Daniel was on hand in Minneapolis to capture the artfulness and the energy of the recent TCG National Conference, and our only regret is that—along with "Anchored in Artistry," staff writer Eliza Bent's discerning account of the gathering—we don't have more space to feature the faces, vistas and moments of interaction and illumination his camera recorded.

Perhaps the month's most provocative images accompany our lead feature, "The Church that Jerry Built," critic Roger Copeland's feverishly evocative analysis of the controversial British musical Jerry Springer-The Opera, just now making its landing on American shores. Klan robes, burning crosses and tabloid grotesquerie are the show's visual currency, as audiences in Des Moines, Minneapolis and Washington, D.C., are scheduled to discover in the coming season.

One clear sign that stage design is no longer the neglected stepchild of American Theatre coverage is our popular ongoing feature Production Notebook, a double-page spread of images and interviews that celebrates the most exciting aspects of American stage design—in this case, a radical and austere staging of Macbeth at Arlington, Va.'s Washington Shakespeare Company. Consider this monthly feature an emblem of our commitment to stage design, its import and variety.