"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
“Are we going to come out of this moment with a new model or new models? No. But what if we were in a constant state of evolving our model? What if we didn’t do what we just did … and get so entrenched in it that getting out of it and moving past becomes this national conversation and...
"The pandemic closed the city on March 13, the eve of the opening of Miami New Drama's first musical. To keep the 5-year-old company going, Hausmann … commissioned seven notable playwrights — five Latino or Latina, two Black — to write short works that would fit under the 'Seven Deadly Sins' rubric. … Guides led audience groups of...
"In my research, it became clear how the techniques used in theatre are used in politics, which further cemented my opinion that theatre artists have the capacity to deeply understand the political machine and work toward dismantling the status quo, creating a more equitable and community-based iteration of governing." - Howlround
Actress Seyi Omooba had been engaged to play Celie in the musical adaptation of Alice Walker's novel in Leicester, England in 2019 — but she was let go when a 2014 Facebook post of hers containing anti-gay comments became public. She's suing for breach of contract. But testimony before a tribunal revealed that Omooba had previously told her agents...
"All in all, the oracular quality of these lines, their sheer wisdom, makes of Beckett, much against his will, no doubt, something of a sage." - The Irish Times
Why did Jujamcyn switch from Ticketmaster to SeatGeek (more commonly a sports ticket app in the U.S.)? For one thing, SeatGeek is very commonly a contactless system, which now seems possible valuable for preventing viral spread. Also, there's the ease of selling more things: "Beyond selling tickets, its technology could be used to allow customers to order food and...
Mark Swed thinks so: Bernstein "devoted four years to the musical. He wrote more music for it than for any other theater work. The show had a $900,000 sponsorship from Coca-Cola. It was billed as the musical of the decade. The show closed on Broadway after seven performances. It was the biggest artistic disaster of Bernstein’s life. The reviews were just...
