Paula Tomei is SCR’s first and only managing director, and she steered the Tony-winning institution through many years of growth, transformation and challenges. During Tomei’s time at SCR, the company has presented 435 plays, 149 of which have been world premieres commissioned and produced with SCR's support. - CultureOC
"The school board in Sherman voted unanimously Monday to reinstate the original show and cast after a meeting in which dozens criticized them and spoke in support the 17-year-old transgender boy who’d lost his role in the production because of a new policy." - AP
"For this work, Smith’s decision to blend her contemporary interviews with historical accounts of Maryland in the mid-1860s is apt. The echoes of history reverberate loudly, revealing the power of historical trauma to shape behavior in the present day." - The Atlantic
At Santa Monica College, "the campus police chief told if protesters breached backstage during a performance, they could grab fire extinguishers to defend themselves." - Los Angeles Times
"We've had a lot of excited conversations after the play with members of the audience who are responding very energetically to the questions that the play brings up." - LAist
"A stream of passengers walked by, searching for anything to look at other than the 32-year-old man struggling to fit an egg-shaped cardboard headpiece imprinted with the visage of a Nintendo mascot onto his neck." - Slate
New York theatres are finally starting to take advantage of relaxed laws around alcohol so they can be their own theatre bars. It's a new mix for a city that had weirdly puritanical laws for a long time. - The New York Times
"Some hairpieces are bobby-dazzlers: towers of Restoration foppery, ravishingly long Rapunzels. Others slink by unnoticed, disguised in realism. Who makes them? Who pins them on (the actors) night after night?" To find out, David Jays met a freelance maker in London and the head of wigs for the RSC. - The Guardian
“You have to be a small business first, not just somebody asking for business,” he said. “You have to be your own PR person. You got to be your own manager. You have to learn how to edit, too.” - Gothamist
For many, spending months trying to really understand why they have lost investment and feeling they are no closer to an answer has made them less confident in the way English arts funding is assessed and distributed. - The Stage
Well, the stated reason was this: "It was brought to the District’s attention that the current production contained mature adult themes, profane language, and sexual content." In "Oklahoma!" ... Okay … (It seems the real reason had to do with one particular detail of casting.) - Howard Sherman
"Created by the British theater troupe Punchdrunk, … the Macbeth-inspired immersive theater experience that is hosted in three empty, hulking warehouse spaces in downtown (Manhattan) will say goodbye early next year on its 5,000 performance." - AP
One didn’t read Brustein to determine which Broadway shows to buy tickets to. One read Brustein to understand a play or musical in its larger historical context and to be reminded of the artistic values that guided his judgments. - Los Angeles Times
Kenneth Branagh's King Lear in the West End is getting panned, but sometimes (as with Paul Mescal and Daniel Radcliffe) they're terrific. But half the audience comes just to see the celebrity in person, and sometimes producers blow the budget on the star while everything else looks cheap. - The Guardian
