"Peter Barnes had 14 soliloquies on BBC Radio 3 under the umbrella titles Barnes' People and More Barnes' People. They attracted remarkable actors, including Laurence Olivier (in his final role), Judi Dench, Alec Guinness, Alan Rickman, Janet Suzman and Jeremy Irons. Barnes wrote, though, a 15th monologue, which the BBC, in mysterious circumstances, withdrew from production in 1990....
What you get is writer-performer Kris Andersson's Dixie’s Happy Hour, "a 95-minute performance streamed to patrons of 21 arts centers and theaters across the country. … A year into the pandemic, streaming shows are nothing new, but Andersson's approach of a touring schedule rather than a one-off with a particular theater is novel. As is his profit-sharing model: Hosting...
“We are thinking that we will have a slate of work with both digital and in-person opportunities. Because digital is not going away. We’re in a digital space. There’s a lot to figure out from a union standpoint, an actors’ standpoint from all sorts of things about how we stay in the space, but I believe that it’s here...
"The mobs that descended on Washington, D.C., last month have intellectual roots in many places, going back to the bloody beginnings of this country. But they also have roots in specific areas of modern culture, including Facebook, BuzzFeed, and the increasingly online world of comedy. All the forces that incubated the rioters are still there, unchanged, chugging along as...
Social distancing is easier outdoors and there's more air circulation, not to mention the fact that, as one director puts it, "Outdoor arts is more accessible because it's in democratic open spaces." So companies across the UK are getting ready to perform outside their buildings, many for the first time, as soon as weather and health regulations permit. -...
Rereading “Hamlet” after the storming of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, I was struck by how fears of insurrection permeate the play. Every age sees itself in Shakespeare’s tragedy, but little did I expect to be reminded of the recent uprising and its poisonous politics when returning to this most philosophical of revenge dramas. - Los Angeles Times
“Would I go see a play and sit in a playhouse with 150 people? If the 150 people were tested, and they were all negative, yes, I would do that,” Cuomo said during a press briefing. “I think reopening with testing is going to be the key.” - CNBC
"By one count, Broadway is directly responsible for nearly 100,000 jobs in New York City alone and, as a leading attraction for people who travel to the city, it has an economic impact of nearly $15 billion." (video plus transcript) - PBS NewsHour
From “The Elephant Man” to “Chicago,” “Cats” to “Thoroughly Modern Millie,” Huntley was the designer behind the wigs and often-elaborate locks that helped define the lasting visual impression of some 300 projects, earning him a special Tony Award in 2003. - The New York Times
Paul Huntley has been doing wigs for so long that he can remember helping construct Elizabeth Taylor's braids for Cleopatra. He's been on Broadway since 1973. But now, after a fractured pelvis, a pandemic shutdown, and the delay of his final show - Diana - it's time to wind down and move back to London, he says. "There is...
With joy. No, truly: "We must now work urgently, with purpose, centered in joy. ... This is not joyful expression solely for the purpose of joy; they are the tools that work in community and can withstand great stress." - American Theatre
Performances for kids in schools are the only ones allowed under current COVID restrictions, so puppet shows are the only live theatre happening in France now. "The situation for French puppeteers is bittersweet. While it constitutes a return to their roots, as children remain their most faithful fans, many of them have worked hard to position the form as...
It was with no small amount of happiness that Center Theatre Group this week said it had generated more than $700,000 through a single fundraising event: a boisterous Zoom party featuring an impressive list of theater makers and celebrities. The event was part of the RWQuarantunes program, launched last year by WME partner Richard Weitz and his teenage daughter,...
Whether or not onscreen theater feels like theater may depend on whether it offers a feeling of liveness, with all the potential for error and surprise and invention and anything-could-go-wrong-at-any-moment contingency that liveness affords. - The New York Times
The short answer is that it couldn't work the way it did in the 1930s: the legal and theatrical landscape then was too different. (For a start, there was no such thing as not-for-profit theatre.) But there are certainly possibilities; here are a few of them. - American Theatre
