New Books Network

About Andy Boyd

Andy Boyd is a playwright based in Brooklyn, New York. He is a graduate of the playwriting MFA at Columbia University, Harvard University, and the Arizona School for the Arts.

NBN Episodes hosted by Andy:

Performing Arts April 30, 2021

Sweet Tea

A Play

E. Patrick Johnson

Hosted by Andy Boyd
E. Patrick Johnson's Sweet Tea has been a monograph, a documentary film, a stage play, and now a published script from Northwestern University Press.  This play weaves together interviews Johnson conducted …
Performing Arts April 22, 2021

Merce Cunningham

After the Arbitrary

Carrie Noland

Hosted by Andy Boyd
Carrie Noland's Merce Cunningham: After the Arbitrary (University of Chicago Press, 2020) goes past conventional understandings of Cunningham that insist that randomness was his central goal as a choreographer, instead …
Performing Arts April 20, 2021

The Antiracist Writing Workshop

How to Decolonizethe Creative Classroom

Felicia Rose Chavez

Hosted by Andy Boyd
Felicia Rose Chavez' The Anti-Racist Writing Workshop: How to Decolonize the Creative Classroom (Breakbeat Poets, 2020) is a practical and persuasive guide to revolutionizing the teaching of creative writing. Combining theory …
Performing Arts April 19, 2021

Owed

Joshua Bennett

Hosted by Andy Boyd
Owed (Penguin, 2020) is the second collection of poems by Dr. Joshua Bennett, poet, professor, and artist. This volume is a wide-ranging, celebratory book focused on what Bennett calls "the Black quotidian," …
Performing Arts March 31, 2021

Meander, Spiral, Explode

Design and Pattern in Narrative

Jane Alison

Hosted by Andy Boyd
Jane Alison's Meander, Spiral, Explode: Design and Pattern in Narrative (Catapult, 2019) is a fascinating tour through a wide range of narrative structures that are inspired by forms in the …
Performing Arts March 26, 2021

Playing Changes

Jazz for the New Century

Nate Chinen

Hosted by Andy Boyd
Nate Chinen's Playing Changes: Jazz for the New Century (Vintage, 2019) is an essential guide to 21st century jazz. Named a best book of the year by NPR, GQ, Billboard …
Performing Arts March 16, 2021

Evening Plays

Richard Maxwell

Hosted by Andy Boyd
Evening Plays (Theatre Communications Group, 2020) collects three plays by experimental playwright Richard Maxwell. The plays are inspired by Dante's Divine Comedy, and all three concern death and dying. The …
Performing Arts March 10, 2021

Staging Chinese Revolution

Theater, Film, and the Afterlives of Propaganda

Xiaomei Chen

Hosted by Andy Boyd
Xiaomei Chen's Staging Chinese Revolution: Theater, Film, and the Afterlives of Propaganda (Columbia UP, 2016) examines the changing place of revolutionary propaganda in a changing China. Chen analyzes the "grey …
Performing Arts February 25, 2021

Maybe the People Would Be the Times

Luc Sante

Hosted by Andy Boyd
Maybe the People Would Be the Times (Verse Chorus Press, 2020) could be described as a memoir in essay form. Collecting pieces from the past two decades, this book covers Luc Sante's …
Performing Arts February 15, 2021

Another Day's Begun

Thornton Wilder’s Our Town in the 21st Century

Howard Sherman

Hosted by Andy Boyd
Howard Sherman's Another Day's Begun: Thornton Wilder's Our Town in the 21st Century (Bloomsbury, 2021) provides a fascinating tour of contemporary productions of Wilder's great play.  Why does this play from …
Performing Arts February 5, 2021

Afro-Fabulations

The Queer Drama of Black Life

Tavia Nyong'o

Hosted by Andy Boyd
Tavia Nyong’o's Afro-Fabulations: The Queer Drama of Black Life (NYU Press, 2018), examines a broad range of artists and disciplines, from Adrian Piper to Kara Walker to the meaning of …
Performing Arts February 5, 2021

Fictional Blues

Narrative Self-Invention from Bessie Smith to Jack White

Kimberly Mack

Hosted by Andy Boyd
The familiar story of Delta blues musician Robert Johnson, who sold his soul to the devil at a Mississippi crossroads in exchange for guitar virtuosity, and the violent stereotypes evoked …
Performing Arts January 29, 2021

¡Presente!

The Politics of Presence

Diana Taylor

Hosted by Andy Boyd
Diana Taylor's ¡Presente! The Politics of Presence (Duke University Press, 2020) examines what it means to be presente in the context of protest, theatre, and everyday life. Taylor pays particular …
Performing Arts January 20, 2021

This Is Not My Memoir

André Gregory and Todd London

Hosted by Andy Boyd
André Gregory's not-memoir This Is Not My Memoir (FSG, 2020) is a fascinating trip through theatre history as seen through the eyes of one of its greatest directors. The André we …
Performing Arts January 12, 2021

Sailor Song

The Shanties and Ballads of the High Seas

Gerry Smyth

Hosted by Andy Boyd
Sailor Song: The Shanties and Ballads of the High Seas (University of Washington Press, 2020) by performer and scholar Gerry Smyth includes lyrics and commentary for dozens of sea shanties, as well …
Performing Arts December 30, 2020

Social Poetics

Mark Nowak

Hosted by Andy Boyd
Mark Nowak's Social Poetics (Coffee House Press, 2020) is a history of the poetry workshop "from below and to the left." Inspired by previous workers' poetry workshops led by writers like …
Performing Arts December 28, 2020

My Autobiography of Carson Mccullers

A Memoir

Jenn Shapland

Hosted by Andy Boyd
Jenn Shapland's My Autobiography of Carson McCullers (Tin House Books, 2020) is a fascinating cross-genre book that combines elements of traditional biography with Shapland's own personal narrative of researching McCullers …
Performing Arts December 22, 2020

Magic Time, a Memoir

Notes on Theatre & Other Entertainment

Edwin Wilson

Hosted by Andy Boyd
Edwin Wilson's book Magic Time, a Memoir: Notes on Theatre & Other Entertainment (Smith & Kraus, 2020) is a spirited memoir of a long and fruitful career in the American theatre …
Performing Arts December 15, 2020

A New History of Medieval Japanese Theatre

Noh and Kyōgen from 1300 to 1600

Noel John Pinnington

Hosted by Andy Boyd
Noel Pinnington's A New History of Medieval Japanese Theatre: Noh and Kyōgen from 1300 to 1600 (Palgrave, 2019) traces the history of noh and kyōgen, the first major Japanese theatrical arts. Going …
Performing Arts December 11, 2020

Bob Dylan

How the Songs Work

Timothy Hampton

Hosted by Andy Boyd
Timothy Hampton's Bob Dylan: How the Songs Work (Zone Books, 2020) is a fascinating and meticulous study of Bob Dylan's songwriting craft. Hampton discusses how Dylan incorporated and then transcended …
Performing Arts December 2, 2020

Perpetual Motion

Dance, Digital Cultures, and the Common

Harmony Bench

Hosted by Andy Boyd
Harmony Bench's Perpetual Motion: Dance, Digital Cultures, and the Common (Minnesota UP, 2020) traces the changing ways dance is distributed and created on the internet from the heady early internet …
Performing Arts November 30, 2020

Lot Six

A Memoir

David Adjmi

Hosted by Andy Boyd
Lot Six (Harper 2020) is a moving and hilarious memoir from playwright David Adjmi. The book traces Adjmi’s search for his identity, during which he becomes an observant yeshiva student …
Performing Arts November 16, 2020

One Dyke’s Theater

Selected Plays 1975-2014

Terry Baum

Hosted by Andy Boyd
Terry Baum’s book One Dyke’s Theater: Selected Plays 1975-2014 (Exit Press, 2019) collects plays and solo scripts from throughout the career of a “slightly world-renowned lesbian playwright.” The plays range …
Literary Studies November 6, 2020

There Must Be Happy Endings

On a Theater of Optimism and Honesty

Megan Sandberg-Zakian

Hosted by Andy Boyd
Megan Sandberg-Zakian’s There Must Be Happy Endings: On a Theater of Optimism & Honesty (3rd Thing Press, 2020) makes a powerful case for “militant optimism” in an age of chaos …