In the Folger’s newest exhibition To Hear Her Speak: Black Women and Shakespeare, curated by Akhimie, more than 400 years of Black women’s engagement with Shakespeare is collectively explored for the first time, illuminating the ways in which Black women have claimed and reimagined the works of Shakespeare through scholarship and craft. - The Guardian
The history play was published without a named author in 1596, and it was long believed that Shakespeare had written a few scenes. New analysis shows “beyond doubt” that he wrote “the lion’s share,” 23 segments of the script, while Christopher Marlowe wrote nine. - The Guardian
The incident happened last week at England’s Chichester Festival Theatre: last Tuesday’s performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream was cancelled after a cast member reported that he’d just been chased through the streets by people shouting abuse. One 16-year-old suspect has been arrested and charged. - The News (Portsmouth, UK)
A first-time playwright now has a one-in-five shot at a second production within two seasons. If mine gets one and keeps traveling, the money waits in a catalogue Bertelsmann owns. - Jared Harbour
Basically? "It’s a two-hour whirlwind of pop music-infused teen joy, thoughtful discussion of cultural revisionism, complex young characters, and dynamic performances." - KC Studio
Possible? Maybe: "Davidson found sources for Puddletown’s business structure by looking backward, to the kind of cooperative arrangements used by first traveling commedia dell’arte companies to Shakespeare’s players, on down to late 19th and early century repertory troupes." Its first show is free. - Oregon ArtsWatch
Nobody quite knew what they had when 2011's first revival started. But "Sound of Music Live delivered an astounding 18 million-plus viewers — well past the hope internally that it would reach at least 10 million." - Variety
"However, there was no explanation given of exactly how a girl performing as a male character runs afoul of the more recent SB12, leaving only the implication that perhaps gender equality has been nixed under its provisions." - Downstage Center
Comedians now routinely give their audiences hours of new material every week, in exchange for subscription and advertising revenue that, while amounting to much less than what box offices and network sales departments once commanded, also goes more substantially and directly to the artists. - The New Yorker
Roundabout Theater Company had planned for next spring a large-scale Broadway revival of The Full Monty. That has been postponed, and Roundabout has scheduled a star-studded production of the Romanian-French absurdist playwright’s Rhinoceros, about a town whose inhabitants are turning into half-blind, ill-tempered horned pachyderms. - The New York Times
The management of Chichester Festival Theatre said in a statement, “We were deeply shocked that a member of the company of A Midsummer Night’s Dream was the victim of an appallingly abusive attack, aggressively hounded and physically pursued through the centre of Chichester, ... prior to the performance on Tuesday 13 October.” - WhatsOnStage (UK)
Other Desert Cities starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Ed Harris, and Allison Janney grossed $2.1 million in its first week, behind only long-running juggernauts Hamilton, Harry Potter and Lion King. Other hits include Billy Crystal’s 360, A Few Good Men starring Bradley Whitford and Tom Blyth, and Bowen Yang’s turn in Oh, Mary! - The Hollywood Reporter
District officials canceled South Grand Prairie High School’s production largely out of concern about breaking Texas’s recent law banning drag performances in front of minors. Meanwhile, the student actress points out that denying her the chance to perform because she’s female violates Title IX. - Fort Worth Star-Telegram
“Since January, when the US imposed a fuel blockade in a bid to upend the communist-run government, (Cubans) have had to contend with blackouts spanning days. … On a recent Friday evening, …candles flickered outside the theater hall, while the inside was lit by an array of rechargeable lights in all shapes and sizes.” - Reuters
