Can anything - musicals, serious plays, popular actors, dramatic cuts to staff, or great bundles of tickets - fix this issue? Who knows? "Audiences haven’t fundamentally changed since they started gathering at dramatic festivals in ancient Greece." - Los Angeles Times
The ensemble-driven theater, founded by a close-knit group of Northwestern University classmates and friends in 1988, famously has produced original work for the last 35 years, typically with a strong visual sensibility. - Chicago Tribune
Kay Dick's 1977 novel They depicts a world in which any painter who creates beyond an official limit is blinded, any musician deafened, etc. Peake, an audience favorite in Britain, is co-founder of Maat (Music, Art, Activism and Theatre), which is translating the novel into live performance. - The Guardian
59 countries and regions were represented. It is unsurprising that at a festival that asks how design can respond to the most pressing issues of our world, the climate emergency dominated. Almost as persistent were ideas of cultural heritage and of social inequality. - The Stage
The playwright talks about producing Lorraine Hansberry's The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window, the awkward conversation with a straight guy that inspired Slave Play, the easy way to become an in-demand actor (write a hit play), and why he turned down the chance to be a rich man's boytoy. - NPR
"A few months after she took the job, the booth was shut down because of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and in the time since it has been closed by a blackout, a hurricane, a strike and a pandemic. It's been an eventful 22 years for Bailey." - The New York Times
"Some 68.6 million tickets have been sold from the booth during its 50 years, with more than $2.6 billion going back to the shows. Despite the rise of ... apps hawking discounted theater tickets, lining up at the booth is as fundamental as cooing over the Statue of Liberty." - AP
A majority of the staff of 18 was told they’d be laid off Tuesday; six people will stay on for three to six more months to wrap up operations. Also affected are the roughly 300 people who work on Book-It’s productions throughout a given year. - Seattle Times
"'The general consensus is that we’re all dying,' Demson said. 'No hyperbole.' As California finalizes its state budget, advocates are hoping for millions of dollars to help keep the live performing arts sector — which also includes music, dance, magic shows and circus acts — afloat." - Yahoo! (The Wrap)
"The plans for growing the U.K.'s theater sector are part of the government's $63 billion vision for the creative industries. 'We want the Creative Industries Vision to be something that paves the way for a shift in the balance of power from Broadway to the West End,' Frazer said." - Variety
“Taper shows lose the most money. That’s always been true. But right now they’re costing us twice as much as they would have before. Donations are down. Ultimately, we just can’t afford to continue to lose a million dollars a show at the Taper. We had to pause.” - Los Angeles Times
"An interdisciplinary artist who doesn’t dabble in composition, performance, filmmaking and choreography so much as create from a Gesamtkunstwerk state of mind, ... Monk is both a holdout of New York’s 'downtown' past and a sui generis American master." - The New York Times
André Royo (Bubbles in The Wire) on Drinking in America, sober: "My daughter never saw me act on stage before, so it was the first time for her. You've got to show her the reasons why dad's been away for moments in her life because of the craft." - Salon
"One nine-year-old girl is heard saying to her teacher: 'I'm absolutely sluggardized." A few weeks before, her year five class had been deciphering the word - meaning made lazy or idle - in one of Shakespeare's plays. Now she was using it correctly, to emphasise how exhausted she felt." - BBC
Julian Eltinge "represented a unique form of the art, one that emphasized fidelity to femininity instead of risqué repartee, outlandish outfits or high-energy lip syncing. He made a mint onstage and toured the world, sometimes while wearing a 23-inch corset and ... high-heeled shoes." - Washington Post
