The Volksbühne kept an East German spirit alive in a reunified Germany, until its longtime director was fired in 2017. Since then, there have been three other artistic directors, including one accused of sexual harassment. Can the newest AD change the trajectory? - The New York Times
Gigantic surprise, right? On the other hand, a study found that in Britain, "Freelancers have also been networking and organising and built up a sense of solidarity as they felt the government and the public were not necessarily valuing what they do." - BBC
Maybe, but without kids onstage: "We would usually have four teams of 10 children under 12, and four teams of four teenagers rotating through the season, and ... we would be opening the cast up to too much risk." - Irish Times
"I felt in this situation that everybody's wellness was not considered. The theater makers that were causing the harm were being centered over the people who were being harmed — and those who were reporting harm were told to wait it out and endure it." - Yahoo! (Los Angeles Times)
The creator of Hamilton says the show's filmed version o on Disney+ has only increased demand for tickets to the staged production. (If only all shows could be hits like that one …) Lynn Nottage's new play, Clyde's, is streaming as well and could offer more data. - Playbill
You can't say that the country is humorless, but the Modi government's laws can have people fined or jailed on mere accusations (even false ones) of insulting the nation or religion, and Hindu nationalists egged on by Modi's party disrupt performances and threaten comedians. - BBC
Sales are down by a third from 2019, and research indicates that many audience members remain wary of attending while COVID case numbers are high. As with Nutcracker for American ballet companies, English theatres depend on panto income to help finance the rest of their seasons. - BBC
Lin-Manuel Miranda, Sara Bareilles, Josh Groban, members of every Broadway show up right now, and many, many other people gathered "on the red stairs above TKTS in Times Square" to sing the composer's "Sunday." - Variety
His non-Broadway role as a Michael Jackson impersonator gave him away - and federal investigators attended LA and San Francisco performances where actor James Beeks was playing Judas (yes, Judas) in a road show of Jesus Christ Superstar. - Washington Post
The entire run of Paradise Blue has been canceled. The playwright wrote on Facebook "that her decision came after she discovered that Black women artists involved with the show were being 'verbally abused and diminished.'" - Los Angeles Times
"After months of relative normalcy, Europe’s opera houses, concert halls and theaters are reintroducing measures all too familiar from earlier phases of the pandemic, restricting audience numbers and mandating testing, if not canceling shows outright." - The New York Times
"His achievement is Shakespearean. Like Shakespeare, he inherited an art form and theater scene from a previous generation, then pushed the boundaries of what theater could do again and again. ... His work follows us through each stage of our own lives." - Slate
This year was the third full production in modern times of the Ordinalia, a cycle of three 14th-century mystery plays originally written in the Celtic language once native to the far southwest of England. - Atlas Obscura
“Almost no theatre of color has a budget over $3 million. Until we reach $5 million, we don’t get access to commission funding or new-work development support. To funders, budget size conveys quality, excellence, and ability to deliver. There’s an inherent bias in providing organizations like us support.” - American Theatre
