"Approximately eight times a week, 40 weeks a year, Broadway-sized crowds watch (the musical) Queen Esther in a town of 12,000 people in the Ozark Mountains." Theater/dance historian Joanna Dee Das writes that this success isn't about dumbing down — there are key factors here that big-city theaters are neglecting. - The Conversation
“We’re all trying to figure out what it is that makes people get off their couch, come through the rain and show up at an event together, right? It feels like there needs to be some real magnetic attraction, something that they will truly miss if they don’t see it. - Seattle Times
"I ask myself whether, as so many theater companies grapple with ongoing pandemic-related challenges, I should reconceive my role. What ought arts criticism look like when the art can feel like it’s barely hanging on?" - San Francisco Chronicle
Intentionally or not, the stage version of the polymorphously perverse cult classic, produced by North Texas's flagship theater company, has become a standard-bearer of opposition to the state law S.B. 12, which regulates any performance that "appeals to the prurient interest in sex." - MSN (The Washington Post)
Thomas Schumacher, who is 65 and currently holds the titles of president and producer of Disney Theatrical Group, told his staff on Thursday morning that he will take on a new role as the division’s chief creative officer. - The New York Times
Activists with the British group Just Stop Oil, which started the climate-protesting art-vandalism trend, disrupted a West End performance of Les Misérables during (of course) the anthem "Do You Hear The People Sing?" Then they padlocked themselves to the scenery and the performance was ended. - BBC
On Monday, the Latino Theater Company announced $9 million in grants to 52 Latino theaters in cities such as New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Santa Fe, N.M., Denver, Providence, R.I., and St. Paul, Minn. - Los Angeles Times
In an overhaul of its priorities last month, Arts Council of Wales (the national funder) eliminated its entire £1.6 million annual grant to the principality's main English-language theatre. "If this funding decision stands," warns the company's management, "Wales will lose National Theatre Wales in six months’ time." - The Stage
Dmitri Krymov had nine different shows running in Moscow when he left for Philadelphia to stage The Cherry Orchard. Then Putin invaded Ukraine, and Krymov's friends warned him not to come home. Now he's settled in New York, with his own fledgling theater company, raising the money himself. - The New Yorker
Nearly all artistic and managing directors polled saw their company’s price increases as marginal. But for many Americans, an increase of a few dollars per ticket can be significant, especially when piled on top of every other rising cost for goods and services. - American Theatre
Not only did Henry Condye and John Heminges assemble and publish the First Folio, they almost certainly helped lead the rescue of Shakespeare's plays (many of which had not yet been published) from the 1613 fire that destroyed the Globe Theatre. - Literary Hub
While the six Broadway houses controlled by these four companies may be dwarfed by the Shubert Organization, the Nederlander Organization and the recently merged ATG-Jujamcyn bloc, their presence on Broadway is somewhat outsized in a way that many don’t realise. - The Stage
Laurence Olivier said, "Frankly, Lear is an easy part … He’s like all of us really: he’s just a stupid old fart." Tom Courtenay relayed that "I had a much jollier time with it than playing Hamlet." Michael Billington surveys the approaches various actors have taken. - The Guardian
The event, hosted by the Professional Non-Profit Theater Coalition, is poised to “shine a spotlight on the challenges facing the theater industry, showcase the value and importance of professional non-profit theater, and call on Congress to save American theater.” - The Hill
