Two new brazenly entertaining works of theatrical biography are a reminder that “voice” is as essential to the stage as it is to a work of literature. - Los Angeles Times
Diep Tran says her concern in covering theatre is, "How do we do this fairly? How do we give credence to both sides on issue? The good thing is, I don’t need to opine about the state of the industry; the artists are already doing that." - American Theatre
The Victory Gardens crisis was unsettling enough to spark conversations among board members at other nonprofit theaters, worried about the message sent to artists and staff members who might be wondering about their own companies’ loyalties. - Washington Post
Last April, a theatre in Stuttgart named Churchill the winner of its 2022 European Drama Award, worth €75,000. When the jury discovered that she's a vocal critic of Israel and supporter of the BDS movement, it cancelled this year's award entirely. - The Guardian
“Through the history on the timeline, we have tried to show the idea of Broadway’s consciousness and American consciousness. The issues are all there, whether actively in protest or inherently in the story.” - Artnet
"The key is Arbery's ear. He is one of the theater's greatest listeners, able to hear and reproduce the subtle and deeply specific ways individuals reveal themselves and their relationships to others with language." - The New York Times Magazine
"In interviews over the last few weeks, many of those involved in bringing The Lion King to Broadway in 1997 spoke about the show's genesis. This oral history contains edited excerpts from those interviews." - The New York Times
The working definition of a "classic play" here is one that's revived repeatedly through the years and reinterpreted over time. What happens in Australia, argues Anthony Nocera, is that the plays which get that treatment are famous British and American titles, though there are plenty of deserving Australian scripts. - The Guardian
Says Kip Williams, who won't pre-record video and insists that his actors perform before the cameras live, "It takes the best of cinema and the essence of theatre and combines them into a new space. ... I want audiences to get lost in that blurred area between film and stage.'" - The Guardian
"One of Mike Birbiglia's simplest and best talents is his instinct for leaping from sprawling existential ideas to prosaic little experiences. ... (His) power is to make that leap seem easy without undermining its magic: Here's the small thing that illuminates the big abstraction." - Vulture
Amid the spate of new shows, producers are facing higher costs due to inflation and extra understudies, as well as the added stressors of unpredictable and changing audience behavior. - The Hollywood Reporter
"The male philosophers in Ibsen's plays do not fare well. In fact, they are a bunch of ramshackle figures – either adding sheer comedy or making audiences cringe. ... His women characters play out ideas and positions on stage, and often pay the costs of their male counterparts' rigidly conceived projects." - Psyche
Well, partially fixed: even the planned $30 million renovation can't address all the issues from decades of deferred maintenance. But leaks will be fixed, bathrooms updated, murals cleaned, seats replaced. And you won't have to walk through offices to gets to some of the seats anymore. - The Philadelphia Inquirer
A marketing document from the Broadway Strategic Return Fund claims that the fund's value quadrupled from January 2016 through September 2021, a period that included the COVID shutdowns — this in an industry notorious for losing investors' money. And now the SEC has noticed this. - Broadway Journal
There have been other periods when stage monologues were big on New York stages. The difference this time is the audiobook and podcast boom; solo shows are easy to adapt, and companies such as Audible are actively producing such pieces to record them. - TheWrap
