ArtsJournal: Arts, Culture, Ideas

THEATRE

Looking To A Play About An Earlier Epidemic To Answer A Key Question About This One

In Larry Kramer's The Normal Heart, Lily Janiak finds some lines that shed bright, painful light on why some people would refuse a vaccine that demonstrably saves lives. - San Francisco Chronicle

Bollywood Is Coming To Broadway (What Took So Long?)

"Come Fall in Love — The DDLJ Musical, based on the Indian filmmaker Aditya Chopra's 1995 hit Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, which has become a cultural touchstone of contemporary Bollywood, will open during the 2022-23 season." - The New York Times

Inside The Phantom’s Return To Broadway

So much celebration ensued - and, well, perhaps for good reason. "The show, which opened on Broadway in 1988 and has never closed, takes its first post-pandemic bow not just as a monied buttress for the industry, but as a symbol for Broadway’s own endurance." - Variety

Actor Sues Musical, Saying He Was Fired Because He Is Christian

One of Come from Away's former leads, Chad Kimball, "claimed he was terminated 'wholly or partly' because of his religious beliefs." - The New York Times

Broadway Shows, With The Advantage Of Time Off And Protests, Have Quietly Made Changes

Many changes came about because actors requested some rethinking of words, lyrics, or choreography. Sally Hemings, for instance, no longer flirt-dances with Jefferson in Hamilton's "What Did I Miss?" - The New York Times

The Week That Shook The Center Theatre Group

The reaction to Center Theatre Group's 2021-2022 lineup came quickly. "CTG had received a torrent of calls, emails, and criticism on social media ... and was in the midst of crafting an official response. And then the other shoe dropped." - American Theatre

Giant Puppet Finishes Four-Month Refugee Walk From Syria To UK

Little Amal, whose name means hope in Arabic, was created by Handspring, the company that made the equine puppets in War Horse. She stands 3.5 metres (11ft 5in) tall and is operated by a team of eight puppeteers working shifts to control her legs, arms and facial features. - The Guardian

Is Eight Shows A Week Too Much To Ask Of Actors?

The schedule is famously wearing, especially for leads in demanding roles. (Come the holidays, they sometimes do ten shows a week.) As Broadway returns from the pandemic shutdown, some performers are asking that their standbys go on more frequently, and some producers are obliging. - TheaterMania

The Unprecedented Logistics Behind Getting Broadway Up And Working Again

Broadway shows stopped dead in their tracks in March 2020. The production teams simply had to hurriedly depart their stages with scenery still in place, costumes hanging on racks and dressing rooms abandoned — leaving behind a kind of theatrical Pompeii. - Washington Post

Is This 12 Hours Of Documentary Theatre Or Is It Displaying People As If They Were In An Exhibit?

The show 12 Last Songs at Leeds Playhouse consists solely of dozens of people talking about, or actually doing, what they do for a living: a midwife lecturing about the birth process, an astrophysicist talking about stars, a chef making dinner, a decorator hanging wallpaper. - The Guardian

A New Shakespeare-Style Theatre In The UK North

Shakespeare North Playhouse is on course to open next summer, joining only a handful of historically accurate, wooden-framed theatre auditoriums in England. - The Stage

England’s Theatres Are Open, No Masks Or Distancing Required, And Feelings Are Mixed

"How are theater fans feeling about this new normal? Has the pandemic changed what they're seeing, and how they're seeing it? We spoke to theater enthusiasts to find out." - The New York Times

Shakespeare, Otello, And Race – A Complicated Issue

Art at its Shakespearean finest isn’t a repository for wisdom but an interrogation of what we think we know. It’s one of the rare opportunities in our polarized world to contemplate how we live and might live as a community. - Los Angeles Times

The Returning Broadway Audience Has A Whole New Set Of Pre-Show Rituals

"Coming back has entailed a few adjustments: the ability to deftly juggle proofs of vaccination and photo IDs and tickets to get inside; preshow announcements that now urge people to keep their cellphones off and their masks on." - The New York Times

How Ancient Greek Tragedy Works (And It Does) As Group Therapy

Bryan Doerries, director of Theater of War, "Dozens of Marines of every rank had stood up and quoted lines from the ancient plays from memory, as if they had known them their entire lives, and then related them to personal stories they had never shared." - Literary Hub

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