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 July 14, 2021

Staging Lives in Latin American Theater

Bodies, Objects, Archives

Paola Hernández

Hosted by Andy Boyd
Paola Hernandez's book Staging Lives in Latin American Theater: Bodies, Objects, Archives (Northwestern UP, 2021) looks at a wide range of documentary theatre practices across South and Central America, including the …
Performing Arts June 25, 2021

From Aphra Behn to Fun Home

A Cultural History of Feminist Theater

Carey Purcell

Hosted by Andy Boyd
Theatre has long been considered a feminine interest for which women consistently purchase the majority of tickets, while the shows they are seeing typically are written and brought to the …
Performing Arts June 21, 2021

Beeswing

Losing My Way and Finding My Voice 1967-1975

Richard Thompson

Hosted by Andy Boyd
Richard Thompson's Beeswing: Losing My Way and Finding My Voice 1967-1975 (Algonquin Books, 2021) gives fans of his music a tale as rollicking and entertaining as the reels and ballads he …
Performing Arts June 15, 2021

2 Washington Square

Constance Congdon

Hosted by Andy Boyd
Constance Congdon's 2 Washington Square (Broadway Play Publishing, 2020) is a free-wheeling adaptation of Henry James' novel Washington Square set on the cusp of the 1960s as one era gives way to a startlingly …
Performing Arts June 7, 2021

Deviant Opera

Sex, Power, and Perversion on Stage

Axel Englund

Hosted by Andy Boyd
In Deviant Opera: Sex, Power, and Perversion on Stage (University of California Press, 2020), Axel Englund examines an increasingly common trope in opera direction: the use of imagery associated with the kink …
Performing Arts June 1, 2021

Ann, Fran, and Mary Ann

Erin Courtney

Hosted by Andy Boyd
Ann, Fran, & Mary Ann (53rd State Press, 2020) is a new play by Erin Courtney, one of the most exciting contemporary American playwrights. This is a play that engages with …
Performing Arts May 28, 2021

Henry Cow

The World Is a Problem

Benjamin Piekut

Hosted by Andy Boyd
Benjamin Piekut's Henry Cow: The World is a Problem (Duke UP, 2019) provides a compelling case study of the problems and possibilities of collective improvisation through the story of Henry Cow …
Performing Arts May 14, 2021

Tragedy, the Greeks, and Us

Simon Critchley

Hosted by Andy Boyd
Simon Critchley's Tragedy, the Greeks, and Us (Vintage, 2020) does not offer a comprehensive theory of tragedy. Instead, it takes issue with the bland simplifications that philosophers have offered in place of a …
Performing Arts May 10, 2021

Radical Black Theatre in the New Deal

Kate Dossett

Hosted by Andy Boyd
Kate Dossett's book Radical Black Theatre in the New Deal (UNC Press, 2020) turns conventional understandings of the Federal Theatre Project on its head. This book shines a light on the …
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 …