You can't say that the country is humorless, but the Modi government's laws can have people fined or jailed on mere accusations (even false ones) of insulting the nation or religion, and Hindu nationalists egged on by Modi's party disrupt performances and threaten comedians. - BBC
Sales are down by a third from 2019, and research indicates that many audience members remain wary of attending while COVID case numbers are high. As with Nutcracker for American ballet companies, English theatres depend on panto income to help finance the rest of their seasons. - BBC
Lin-Manuel Miranda, Sara Bareilles, Josh Groban, members of every Broadway show up right now, and many, many other people gathered "on the red stairs above TKTS in Times Square" to sing the composer's "Sunday." - Variety
His non-Broadway role as a Michael Jackson impersonator gave him away - and federal investigators attended LA and San Francisco performances where actor James Beeks was playing Judas (yes, Judas) in a road show of Jesus Christ Superstar. - Washington Post
The entire run of Paradise Blue has been canceled. The playwright wrote on Facebook "that her decision came after she discovered that Black women artists involved with the show were being 'verbally abused and diminished.'" - Los Angeles Times
"After months of relative normalcy, Europe’s opera houses, concert halls and theaters are reintroducing measures all too familiar from earlier phases of the pandemic, restricting audience numbers and mandating testing, if not canceling shows outright." - The New York Times
"His achievement is Shakespearean. Like Shakespeare, he inherited an art form and theater scene from a previous generation, then pushed the boundaries of what theater could do again and again. ... His work follows us through each stage of our own lives." - Slate
This year was the third full production in modern times of the Ordinalia, a cycle of three 14th-century mystery plays originally written in the Celtic language once native to the far southwest of England. - Atlas Obscura
“Almost no theatre of color has a budget over $3 million. Until we reach $5 million, we don’t get access to commission funding or new-work development support. To funders, budget size conveys quality, excellence, and ability to deliver. There’s an inherent bias in providing organizations like us support.” - American Theatre
The 19th century brought about the popularization of the proscenium arch: an architectural feature that effectively separates the audience from the actors on stage. Alongside this structural shift, a change in lighting also reinforced the separation between audience and performers. - The Conversation
It's not a direct adaptation: "Miranda and his co-writer Steven Levenson (Dear Evan Hansen) have added music from Larson's other shows, tweaked some of the character arcs and even removed an entire subplot about Twinkies." - BBC
Yes, the actor, the writer, and the playwright/politician/doyenne all experimented with LSD in the 1950s, when it was legal. They never did it together, though — that was the idea of writer-director James Lapine, who's rather familiar with hallucinogens himself. - The New York Times
First of all, when her neighborhood submitted a bid to be London's Borough of Culture, she agreed to participate, thinking it wouldn't win. Then it did. So she had to come up with an idea. And she did — whereupon something entirely different (a play) was announced. - BBC
It's a musical experiment that questions the long-accepted rules of theatermaking and theatergoing, established and upheld before the pandemic. For example, a percentage of the masked audience traverses a dance floor, because why must they all be seated? - Los Angeles Times
The Method's two main teachers in America, Stella Adler and Sanford Meisner, said in 1979 that they doubted it would outlive them. Well, it's still here. Neighborhood Playhouse School director Pamela Kareman and Stella Adler Studio president Tom Oppenheim talk about the Method's present and future. - American Theatre
