Just Stop Oil demonstration interrupted a performance of The Tempest at The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. Actor Sigourney Weaver sat aghast as protesters walked on stage and fired a confetti cannon, holding placards and announcing politely: “We’ll have to stop the show, ladies and gentlemen, sorry.” - The Conversation
The leaders of four London theatres, including the National Theatre and the Young Vic, along with theatres in Sheffield, Liverpool, and Wales, talk about their goals. - The Guardian
“Hell’s Kitchen, a coming-of-age show inspired by the adolescent experiences of Alicia Keys and fueled by her music, won a Grammy Award on Sunday for best musical theater album.” Keys is composer and lyricist for the songs on the album. - The New York Times
As commercial theatre recovers from the holidays, experimental theatre is amped up. "January is this incredible crush of everyone doing everything all the time, and by the seat of everyone’s pants." - The New York Times
ACT, founded in 1965, has a fiscal year 2025 operating budget of $6.8 million while Seattle Shakespeare Company, founded in 1991, has a current operating budget of $2.5 million. The new company’s fiscal year 2026 budget is still in development. - Seattle Times
"The musical was to have been staged at Leeds Playhouse from 11 April to 11 May before touring to Edinburgh, Birmingham and Manchester. … The new musical was adapted by playwright Zinnie Harris and composer Louis Barabbas, and was to have been directed by Leeds Playhouse’s artistic director, James Brining." - The Guardian
On Monday evening, two members of the group Just Stop Oil climbed onstage at Theatre Royal Drury Lane, fired a confetti cannon, stopped Sigourney Weaver (Prospero) mid-scene in The Tempest, and, amid boos, displayed a sign reading “Over 1.5 Degrees is a Global Shipwreck.” - The Standard (London)
Weyni Mengesha will depart as of August 31 after seven years in the post. A statement said she is leaving in order to focus on her family and her freelance directing career. - Canadian Press (MSN)
The third scene of Eureka Day depicts a board meeting at a private school in Berkeley (!) after a student gets mumps. The board does it town-hall style, with a running feed, shown upstage, of the insane comments the online attendees put in the chat box. Yikes. - The New York Times
A film about a performance of “Hamlet” within the world of Grand Theft Auto suggests that the moral environment of revenge tragedy is not far from that of video games. - The New Yorker
Its most famous alumnus, David Schwimmer, has joined the board, plans to return to its stage, and is doing fundraising around the city. He and the company hope not just to expand their offerings, but to help in the post-COVID revival of downtown Chicago. - Chicago Tribune (Yahoo!)
I could see just fine. (A colleague quipped that sitting any closer wasn’t going to make a show better or worse.) And I understood why it’s called standing at attention: My senses felt heightened and my focus was sharp. - Washington Post
A regular rotation of theatre articles and criticism from daily papers (whatever those are) isn’t coming back. So it’s up to theatre makers to keep writing, posting, blogging, making video about the process and the products - and critics need to deal with it. - The Stage (UK)
It’s edifyiing, truly: "Gazing over hundreds of heads and shifting my weight around in the dark, I was reminded time and again that theaters are just rooms full of people whose vulnerability, uncertainty and imperfections — including my own — are what bring them alive.” - Washington Post (Yahoo)
But as with actual theater, not all political theater is created equal. Some of it is shudderingly effective, to the extent that it ceases to be theater. - San Francisco Chronicle (MSN)
