As with so many other US regional theaters, a post-pandemic cash crunch to put on hold all five of its scheduled productions for the coming season and undertake a $500,000 "Save the Playhouse" emergency fundraising campaign. When performances will resume depends on how much money is raised. - San Antonio Report
Besides the much-discussed problems facing most American theaters, and that leadership at many of the city's companies has changed virtually all at once, there's this: "what once were internal disputes, such as debates over hiring, programming and the allocation of scarce resources, (have spilled) over into the public sphere." - Chicago Tribune
"He was viscerally aware that the essence of dramatic art is found in the living, breathing doing of it with a collective cast of participants—actors, directors, producers, mentors, audiences. Reworking isn’t failure. Indeed, Wilson the bluesman rewrote and remixed in real time, improvising and experimenting his way to mastery and historical revelation." The Atlantic
Leaders of Portland’s Artists Repertory Theatre announced on Tuesday they are canceling the 2023-24 season, just as the company was beginning rehearsals for one of the shows it planned to produce. - Oregon Public Broadcasting
"'(It's) always been an iffy little enterprise that depends way too much on me,” said Peter Schumann. 'Is it sustainable when I'm gone and will people recognize it as important?' Those questions remain unanswered as Schumann's incessant creation of new work keeps the focus on the present." - The New York Times
"I’ve been talking with many here this summer, from producers to those who run venues to the artists themselves, and I’m struck by how many think the fringe is in deep trouble already. One producer I spoke to likened it to climate change." - The Stage
Depending on whom you listen to, fringe 2023 is an atrocity against mental health, social justice and artists’ bank accounts. Or it is a phoenix-from-the-ashes rebirth of the world’s biggest arts festival after the Covid hiatus and last year’s tetchy, partial re-emergence. - The Guardian
"Until recently, comedy has been seen as so quintessentially human that it was assumed A.I. would kill humanity before it would at a club. But since the rise of large language models like ChatGPT less than a year ago, this common wisdom no longer applies." - The New York Times
"While larger institutions ... can still attract and keep good artistic directors, regional theatres and arts centres are struggling. A job heading of one of these offers the same stress, accountability and long hours, but on a smaller budget and with a smaller salary." - The Observer (UK)
Perhaps it's time to revive the film of the stage version? But early on, "there was good reason to think that a film version could be viable, at least before the bottom fell out for movie musicals around the end of the 1960s." - Variety
"The Lost Colony is guided by Littleturtle, a Native American storyteller. Where the Indian characters that colonists confronted once spoke gibberish and pidgin English, they now sing authentic tribal songs and speak Algonquian." - Washington Post
Through high-profile revivals and star-studded screen adaptations, Wilson’s work lives on powerfully and prolifically. Patti Hartigan’s book reminds us what it took for the man to become a monument. - Los Angeles Times
"In the Hamilton Simulator, players use their own avatars as they rub shoulders with the musical's characters through 10 levels set during the Revolutionary War. It starts at the New York docks and the goal is to free the city from the British yoke" — using the musical's songs as weapons. - AP
