“The lessons of Bloody Bloody are seen in American society today. Today, Native women are murdered at a rate higher than any other race in America. The majority of the perpetrators of violent crimes against Native women are non-Native men. The ‘jokes’ in Bloody Bloody about killing Indians are not ‘jokes.’ They are a reality.”
“Of course the heightened visibility of plays written by women is welcome. But all over the country, even at venues which are attempting to make female playwrights’ voices heard, there is often a gendering of theatre spaces when it comes to writers and directors.”
“Jelly’s Last Jam was the first musical written and directed by an African American that was not simply a toe-tapping entertainment with happy, singing people of color. … [It] was akin to a Brancusi sculpture of 50 years in the life of an arrogant, racist, braggadocio genius.”
“The work, discarded by Pinter when plans to make it into a film fell through, has been adapted for radio by the film and stage director Sir Richard Eyre.”
“Student Patiwat Saraiyaem, 23, and activist Porntip Mankong, 26, had pleaded guilty to defamation” under Thailand’s lèse-majesté law, the world’s strictest, “following their arrests last August, nearly a year after The Wolf Bride – a satire set in a fictional kingdom – was performed.”
“We spoke with, and listened purposefully to members of racially diverse communities and particularly with our most direct constituents, Asian-Americans, regarding how tackling this work might be perceived when the Asian presence is thrust into the center of a conversation that has historically excluded it. After carefully absorbing arguments of both support and opposition, we have chosen to cancel the production, concluding that the goal that propelled us — to lift up the Asian-American theater artist — could not be sufficiently achieved.”
“I don’t think there’s pressure [to remove] the bawdy jokes. He’s bawdier a lot more times than people realise. The pressures I feel are more for times where he will say something very antisemitic.”
Along with theater veteran Jerry Zaks, the Oscar-winning actor will direct a musical adaptation of Chazz Palmintieri’s play A Bronx Tale, a film version of which De Niro directed in 1993.
“Now that Broadway-minded songwriters no longer have a universal musical language on which to draw, it isn’t possible to write a show with genuine broad-gauge audience appeal. It says everything about the desperate state of the American musical that the last theatrical song to become an enduringly popular hit, Stephen Sondheim’s “Send in the Clowns,” was written in 1973.”
“The critically acclaimed epic play Father Comes Home from the Wars (Parts 1, 2, & 3) by Suzan-Lori Parks has won the Edward M. Kennedy Prize for a theatrical work inspired by American history … A check for $100,000 will also go to Ms. Parks, a Pulitzer Prize winner for the drama Topdog/Underdog.”
“While the locals flock to the 300 or so venues, they are largely un-visited by tourists and expats because one of the main requirements for a visit is a good knowledge of French. At least that’s what Carl de Poncins says. He quit his job as the marketing director of a multinational company last year to focus on making theatre accessible for English speakers by introducing surtitles.”
“By the time the meeting broke up it looked as if a civil war were at hand and that, in an extreme rarity for the U.S. labor movement, a substantial force within a union was mobilizing against a pay hike.”
“A roughly $21 million balance exists on the total purchase price of $24.75 million.”
“My grandma walked straight to the president’s grave. She stood for half a second, then her neck arched back, her body heaved forward, and for the first time in my life, I saw my grandma spit. It wasn’t a casual spit. It was a once in a lifetime spit. I watched as the saliva of our ancestors flowed through her mouth and hit that grave with an echo that turned heads and stopped conversations.”
“Nowhere in the world can visitors walk by so many historic theaters and movie palaces. Block after block, stunning Beaux Arts, Art Deco, and revival-style buildings attract the eyes upward, teasing out its many intricate details. Famed acts such as the Marx Brothers, Houdini, and Duke Ellington once walked here, but it seems that time has dimmed the street’s glamour.”
“You feel like crap, you’re exhausted, you may be sick, you may have a cold. I’ve got arthritis everywhere. … But it all disappears the minute the lights come up and you start walking down a small dark hallway or climbing down into this tunnel. I have no idea what the attraction is. I cannot tell you how many times a day I say to myself, ‘Why am I doing this? Why do I have to go there?’ I have no answer for it.”
“His name might not have been on the handicappers’ shortlist, but Joseph Haj’s appointment Tuesday as artistic director of the Guthrie Theater brought waves of acknowledgment and praise. ‘He’s a huge player on the national scene – one of the finest theater artists working in America today,’ said [former NEA head of theater] Ralph Remington.”
“He asks students to write bad plays, to write plays with their nondominant hands, to write a play that takes five hours to perform and covers a period of seven years. Ms. Satter recalled an exercise in which she had to write a play in a language she barely knew.” Yet his master’s program has been turning out some of New York’s most audacious – and lauded – young playwrights.
“Despite his reverence for the Bard, Simon Russell Beale argues against a puritanical approach to his texts, suggesting that they should be seen as blueprints. Shakespeare is ‘big enough’ to withstand having scenes cut and lines transposed or obsolete words changed for the sake of clarity, he said.”
Mark Shenton: “Every single seat, regardless of where in the house it is, is becoming an investment. And if you have to pause before you even book a ticket in the balcony, why bother? … It’s the poorer, younger theatregoers – and the theatregoing habit we hope they will gain, as I did, in the upper circle and balcony – that I hope aren’t priced out of the equation.”
“Union BECTU is demanding a rise in the hourly rate that tour guides working at the venue receive, claiming that collectively the employees help make the Globe thousands of pounds. According to the Globe, tours generate a turnover of £3 million a year, and a net profit of £200,000 annually.”
“Improv theater is particularly helpful because it doesn’t rely on memorization, which patients may struggle with. Rather, improv is about going with the flow and enjoying the immediate energies.”
“The Hayes is one of only 40 Broadway theaters, which rarely come up for sale, and it is widely regarded as a beautiful playhouse in a prime location.”
“What’s not to like about a show in the early or late afternoon? Matinees are sometimes cheaper, frequently easier to secure a ticket for when a show is popular, and the transport options are often easier, too.”
“It’s difficult for them to get up and speak in front of people who may employ them if they feel they might not get employed if they speak the alternate view from what the producers feel. … They’re intimidated.”
“Your incredibly important show about your Furby collection will be rubbish. Live a little before you ask us to pay money and/or attention.”
“Work seems to be being supported and assisted at a community level. So there’s a perception that people with learning disabilities can enjoy participatory activity but – on the other side of that – the professional opportunities and the professional training is dwindling. And it seems to be a strategic choice.”
“Sir Tom explained how he had to change a scene in The Hard Truth three times between the previews, making a particular allusion more and more obvious each time. … ‘And I must say that I was completely wrong [in assuming the audience would understand it] and I really resent it.'”
Except that the prize at the festival of Dionysus wasn’t a statuette. It was a live goat.
Michael Gambon: “This can’t work. You can’t be in theatre, free on the stage, shouting and screaming and running around, with someone reading you your lines.”