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THEATRE

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

Meeting (Potential) Audiences Where They Are… With A Mobile Barbershop

That's what Keenan Scott II did to attract new people to his recently opened Broadway play, Thoughts of a Colored Man, one of eight shows written by Black authors (a record) that will be on Broadway this season. And the tactic may be working. - The New Yorker

The Pacific Northwest’s Only Latinx Theatre Plans Its Comeback

Milagro Theatre's artistic director: "It brought home the value of what we do — that we are practitioners of live theater. ... How do you convey meaning to a stranger? How do you convey emotion to a stranger? That’s what we do in theater." - Oregon ArtsWatch

Royal Shakespeare Company Is UK’s First Performing Arts Institution Given Official Status As Research Organization

The designation, more typically given to universities, makes the RSC eligible for government research grants and will allow it to expand its work as a "teaching theatre." - The Stage

Former “Hamilton” Cast Member, Black And Nonbinary, Files Discrimination Complaint Against Producers

Suni Reid, who's done the show in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, alleges their contract wasn't renewed because they requested a gender-neutral dressing room. Producers say they supported Reid, financially and otherwise, and withdrew the contract only after learning they were being sued. - The New York Times

The Folger’s Karen Ann Daniels: Reconsidering Shakespeare’s Legacy

"Within the theatre industry itself, and in education, we’ve elevated him as sort of a pinnacle. We have an opportunity to understand why and when we’ve done that—when we’ve done that well, when we’ve done that wrong or we’ve used it to hurt other people." - American Theatre

Australian Theatre In Crisis

COVID-related funding losses have seen drama departments at seven universities either cut completely, or drastically pruned. The loss of these programs will have a devastating impact on future generations of artists and arts educators. - ArtsHub

“The Worst Idea In History” — ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ At 50

That phrase is how one potential investor rejected Andrew Lloyd Webber’s proposal to stage the rock opera he wrote with Tim Rice. (That's why it first appeared as a concept album.) Here's how Superstar got to Broadway— and what happened when it did. - The New York Times

LA’s Center Theatre Group Promises All-Female-Playwright Season Next Year (And Gets ‘Slave Play’ Back)

After criticism for programming few plays by women this season, culminating in Jeremy O. Harris pulling Slave Play from the schedule there, CTG says that the entire 2022-23 season at Mark Taper Forum will be plays by female or nonbinary writers, mostly BIPOC. - Yahoo! (Los Angeles Times)

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