"This project takes formal cues from lensed images. It's styled as an episode of Real Housewives run amok, and the team cites French surrealist film, the photography of Man Ray, and the melodramas of Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Douglas Sirk as major inspirations." - The New York Times
" quirky 104-year-old Manhattan specialty store that has long been a haven for aspiring artists as well as a purveyor of scripts, will reopen next month with a new location, a new look, and a new team of starry owners — the Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda, as well as the show's director, Thomas Kail, lead producer, Jeffrey Seller, and...
"For Andrews, Shakespeare represents a foundation for success, particularly for students of color attending under-resourced schools. If they can master Shakespearean wordplay, 'they can master anything,' she says. But it's not all Shakespeare. The theater ensemble has evolved into a support system and expanding network for the estimated 1,000 young people who have been involved since its founding."...
"This sounds corny, but that’s what I love about art, especially comedy. It’s not evergreen. It changes so much every time you return to it, and as the world changes and as hopefully you change. That’s how art can teach us, whether it’s good stuff or bad stuff, problematic or inspirational, it’s all the same." - The New York...
Brian Cheslik, theatre teacher at the Texas School for the Deaf: "Please know that I am writing this from a place of love and support, in hopes of giving guidance for theatre educators and producers nationwide. While I wrote this to focus on theatre education in schools, these tips do apply to the entertainment industry in general, so you...
"The show is produced by Garth H. Drabinsky, the Tony-winning producer behind Kiss of the Spider Woman, who was sentenced to seven years in a Canadian prison in 2009 for fraud and forgery. That sentence was reduced on appeal to five years. Drabinsky served 17 months before being released on parole in 2013. Subsequent US charges were dismissed in...
There were two attempts in the second half of 2020 to start British theatres up after the pandemic lockdown, and both were quickly ended as COVID cases rose. "Monday's comeback felt like it was actually permanent, 15 audience members said in interviews, many highlighting Britain's speedy vaccination campaign as the reason for their optimism. (Over 55 percent of the...
"There has been a fear that the large-scale redundancies during the pandemic – an estimated 40% of theatre workers lost their jobs – could be followed by a reopening packed with 'safe' work. Instead, 'bold' is the adjective being used to describe much of what is to come. … The National Theatre's deputy artistic director … says the public...
You can imagine my astonishment when, early one morning, my calculations revealed that within Les Miserables, the principal characters of Fantine, Eponine, Gavrosche and Valjean all died on or very close to a golden ratio point. Further analysis revealed that major changes in the story line (matching to within less than 1%) coincided with all 16 golden ratio points....
An errant sentence in a New York Times article (since reworded) led to a lot of participation from actors via social media. They're fed up with the sizeism and lack of body diversity on Broadway - and everywhere else in theatre. "The infamous ideology of a 'Broadway body' — a term that assumes a stage performer’s castability is specifically...
"Ticket-buyers are being told they will be required to wear face masks (although it's not clear how changing advice from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention might affect that expectation). Theaters will have upgraded HVAC systems with virus-trapping filters. Most ticketing will be digital. And theaters are reserving the right to impose a variety of safety protocols" —...
Jose SolÃs: "Theater in my hometown? 'A lot has changed since you've been gone,' said Inma López, a producer and ensemble member at Casa del Teatro Memorias. … Theater in Tegucigalpa went from the didacticism of political plays that toured colleges and high schools in the 1980s, to becoming an essential part of city life." - The New York...
"'The whole process here is to recreate the experience for the audience,' said Falls. 'The audience chooses which performance they want to see, they buy their ticket, they're instructed to get there early to make sure that the technology is working and at 7:30 in the evening, we're all set to go live.'" - Yahoo! (Chicago Tribune)
Charles McNulty: "I prefer to experience plays the way I experience films at the movie theater — uninterrupted. At night when I awake momentarily from dreaming, I can rarely, if ever, restart the same dream when I fall back to sleep. The spell is broken. … Playwrights do the dreamwork for us, but our absorption is required. And unless...
"What's it actually like for the theatermakers who are starting work again after 15 months? Has the pandemic shaped the way they think about theater? We visited four" — a director, a producer, an actor and a costumer — "to find out." - The New York Times
