"For the price of 25 cents — or, for a nicer seat, a hefty 50 cents — the African Theater" (which opened on Sept. 17, 1821 with Richard III) "entertained hundreds of Black New Yorkers with both classic and original work, alongside operas and ballets." - The New York Times
The issue: the venues must require audiences to wear masks and be vaccinated, but similar buildings, or even the same one, are exempt from those rules when used for church services. The mandate "applies differently to venues depending on who is speaking and what they are saying." - Gothamist
It's not exactly easy, but Boyle Heights' Casa 0101 is giving arts and educational opportunities a real go, but it's prepared to go back online if transmission rates go up. - Los Angeles Times
Shepherding the theatre's downtown building through a sale, debt restructuring, capital campaign and construction isn't easy. Oh, and then there's the pandemic. Rodríguez says his discussions with theatre friends "became kind of existential: 'Why do you do this? What do you want? What’s the future look like?'" - Oregon ArtsWatch
The plays are arriving at an existentially challenging moment for Broadway, when theaters have been closed for a year and a half, when the Delta variant has set back the nation’s recovery from Covid, when tourism is way down. - The New York Times
As he told Stephen Colbert this week, "I've been working on a show for a couple years with a playwright named David Ives, and it's called Square One. … With any luck, we'll get it on next season." - The New York Times
" decision, which he said was not made under any kind of internal or outside pressure, brings the exit of Chicago theater's premier auteurist director, … known for the expansiveness of his ambition, the boldness of his risk-taking and the richness of his conceptual productions." - Chicago Tribune
"There's not even blocking," says director Danya Taymor (Julie's niece). "I mean, there's a little blocking." That was worked out by the director and actors with Broadway's great clown, Bill Irwin. He and Taymor talked to Lauren Wingenroth about the play's non-choreography. - Dance Magazine
Some of the comedic experimentation that immediately followed 9/11 tested the limits of free speech for entertainers, who made up the new rules as they went along and found that even jokes about 9/11-adjacent subject matter occasionally crossed a line. - The Atlantic
There's plenty of demand for seats from theatregoers within England, but the audience for midweek afternoon shows is almost entirely tourists from abroad, of whom (thanks to COVID) there are still very few. - The Guardian
Eighteen months after the novel coronavirus shut them all down, the long-running audience favorites — Hamilton, Wicked, The Lion King, Chicago — resume their runs on Tuesday. Reporter Michael Paulson looked in on the preparations. - The New York Times
"Every comedian's response to the attack wasn’t necessarily positive, just like every American's wasn't. Comedy didn't save the country after 9/11, but it did reflect it." - Vulture
