Questions of Practice: HowlRound's Polly Carl on Excellence and Accessibility

Questions of Practice

Questions of Practice: HowlRound’s Polly Carl on Excellence and Accessibility

Polly Carl, director and editor of HowlRound: A Center for the Theater and Emerson College. Filmed at The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage on May 21, 2013.

Polly Carl describes her work on the HowlRound website as “focused on promoting practices for 21st-century theater-making, based on the core principle that theater is for everyone.” During a spring 2013 visit to the Center, we asked her: Are excellence and accessibility mutually exclusive concepts? Carl mused upon our “$20 million question” and explained her thinking about how other “people get access to becoming better.”

Polly Carl is the director and editor of HowlRound: A Center for the Theater Commons at Emerson College. She also is part of the ArtsEmerson programming team at Emerson College and is currently developing new works for the stage in that context. With over 15 years in professional theater, she has focused on developing and producing new plays, working with dozens of playwrights and theater companies from around the country. She spent two years as director of artistic development at Steppenwolf Theatre and served 11 years at the Playwrights’ Center in Minneapolis, seven as producing artistic director. She regularly teaches, consults, and mentors.

Questions of Practice

Questions of Practice: HowlRound’s Polly Carl on Excellence and Accessibility

About Polly Carl

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