ArtsJournal: Arts, Culture, Ideas

THEATRE

Getting Meta: A Regional Theater’s Play About A Regional Theater’s Search For An Artistic Director

"Oakland playwright Jonathan Spector jokes that if his satire Best Available had a trigger warning, it would be 'realistic portrayals of working in nonprofit theater.' ... To write the show, Spector … interviewed dozens of artistic directors nationwide about how they got their posts." - San Francisco Chronicle (MSN)

LA’s East West Players Chooses Lily Tung Crystal As Its New Director

Tung Crystal is currently the artistic director of Theater Mu, the largest Asian American theater company in the Midwest, as part of its first female co-leadership team with Managing Director Anh Thu T. Pham. - Los Angeles Times

In Search Of Two Lost Shakespeare Plays

We'll never know what scripts by the great playwright disappeared forever because they were never printed and their manuscripts didn't survive. Yet there is solid evidence, including titles, of two currently lost Shakespeare plays. One of them, Love's Labours Won, was definitely printed, so there were once at least 200 copies. - Artnet

Three Chances To Play A God

"If you’re a performer, you have that little spark of magic that makes you watchable, right? When you play a god, it’s like, how do you tap into that part of yourself and turn it way up, and let that be okay?" - American Theatre

One Of The Great Black Broadway Musicals Premiered 50 Years Ago And Then Disappeared. Why?

John McWhorter makes the case for Raisin — a 1973 adaptation of Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun with book by her former husband, Robert Nemiroff (with Charlotte Zaltzberg), music by Judd Woldin and lyrics by Robert Brittan — and suggests a plausible explanation for why it was forgotten. - The New York Times

A New Beckett Festival Is Coming To Liverpool

Co-curated by actor Adrian Dunbar, Beckett: Unbound 2024 is "a multiarts festival that juxtaposes familiar pieces by the Dublin-born author with new responses to his work. After Liverpool, the productions will transfer to Paris." - The Guardian

A Play About Sexual Assault Is Being Used To Train Judges

Playwright Suzie Miller's Prima Facie, a one-woman show about a defense attorney in sexual assault cases who is then raped by a colleague, starred Jodie Comer in the West End and on Broadway. A video of the play is being provided to judges in Northern Ireland who handle sexual assault cases. - BBC

After Eight Years Of Work, Broadway’s Palace Theatre Has A Beautiful, New, Very Blue Renovation

"The venue, owned and operated by the Nederlander Organization, will house Ben Platt: Live at the Palace for a limited engagement beginning May 28, 2024, and later this year will welcome the Broadway premiere of Tammy Faye." During the project, the entire theatre was lifted 30 feet in the air. - Broadway Direct

“Primary Trust” By Eboni Booth Wins Pulitzer Prize For Drama

The story of a middle-aged man suddenly laid off from his job at a bookstore, Primary Trust premiered last summer at New York's Roundabout Theatre Company. The other finalists were Shayok Misha Chowdhury's Public Obscenities and Here There Are Blueberries by Moisés Kaufman and Amanda Gronich. - Deadline

Chicago’s Improv Theatre Scene Is Expanding

The Revival returns "with the opening of a new theater in the South Loop. And The Home Comedy Theater, conceived by a collective of iO and Second City veterans, is building out a space in Lake View as an artistic residence for displaced long-form improvisers." - Chicago Sun-Times

Vulture’s Nominees For The Phonys

Welcome to the theatre awards for things like “The I’ve Seen Fire and I’ve Seen Rain.” - Vulture

After Agonizing Months, A Map For The Future Of LA’s Center Theatre Group

Snehal Desai: "It’s not that CTG doesn’t have folks coming; we have tens of thousands of folks, it’s just that we’re not necessarily getting folks to move within our venues.” - American Theatre

Eddie Redmayne Has Some Things To Say About Audience Interaction In The New Cabaret

Redmayne, just nominated for a Tony, explains, “We’ve had sort of moments where the audience interaction can get a bit too vocal ... and we’ll have to sort of clamber through and improvise around the situation but that, again, keeps us on our toes.” - The Hollywood Reporter

At The Royal Shakespeare Company, New Directors Know The Summer Stratford Audience Loves Tradition

"The hope must be that the more traditional audiences will move with the times, and come around to new visions. You can’t please all of the people all of the time — but you can do your best to take them with you." - The New York Times

Will This New Play About Jesus Of Nazareth’s Family Cause Believers To Freak Out? Maybe, But Not So Far.

Playwright Eleanor Burgess's "Galilee, 34" at SoCal's South Coast Rep depicts Jesus's family and followers months after the Crucifixion as they try to figure out — sometimes arguing and frequently cussing — what to do next and whether to continue the preaching that got Jesus executed. - Los Angeles Times (Yahoo!)

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