Events labeled “relaxed performances” are ones where it’s okay for the audience to move around, make noise, leave and return to the auditorium if you need to, etc.; there’s usually one per run of a show (if that) and they’re aimed at neuro-atypical people, children, and so on. Maddy Costa argues for “the possibility of all theatre performances being relaxed, with occasional ‘uptight’ performances being programmed to accommodate those who prefer to experience live theatre in a strictly controlled and rarefied atmosphere.” – Exeunt
Theatre
The Man Who Would Be Beckett
Bill Irwin finds Beckett’s remarkable use of language something of a balm at a time when the use of words has grown so imprecise. “Our culture runs away from words,” he bemoaned. “It seems to me one of the things this language can do is help us reconnect with human intelligence, as distinct from artificial intelligence. A lot of Beckett’s language is a portrait of consciousness — of how the mind works.” – Los Angeles Times
At 94, Director Peter Brook Still Keeps A Schedule That’s ‘Terrifying’
His career goes all the way back to 1946 at Stratford, through a 1970 Midsummer Night’s Dream and a nine-hour Mahabharata from the ’80s that arguably changed theatre history, to a new book this fall and a new stage piece, titled Why?, that he’s taking to three continents. Ben Brantley talks with the stage legend about his extraordinary career. – The New York Times
The Ten (Actually 14) Most-Produced Plays In The U.S. For 2019-20
It’s a list packed with ties this season: A Doll’s House, Part 2 by Lucas Hnath and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time lead with a dozen productions each, there’s a two-way tie for third place, and nine plays with eight productions each complete the roster. – American Theatre
America’s 20 Most-Produced Playwrights In 2019-20
Lauren Gunderson leads the list for the second time, this year with 33 productions. Lauren Yee is runner-up with 18, while Lucas Hnath is tied with Tennessee Williams for the third slot (17 each). In a sign of progress, women outnumber men on the list 11 to 9. – American Theatre
Why Ruben Santiago-Hudson Is Taking August Wilson’s ‘Jitney’ On A Coast-To-Coast Tour
“Many audiences haven’t seen August Wilson’s plays done well, so my mission is to go out and do the plays well the way the author intended. The celebration of African American life and the way we navigate this landscape.” – American Theatre
Street Theatre With Giant Moles
“These tufty mammals are the stars of Philippe Quesne’s The Moles, which ran at N.Y.U. Skirball over the weekend and kicked off with a Friday afternoon parade through the West Village. A rock concert, a nature mockumentary, a collective hallucination and a goof on the idea of underground theater, The Moles welcomes audiences, wordlessly, to Caveland, a stalactite-studded subterranean lair that the moles invade and then enjoy, sometimes in the company of a neighborly purple teddy bear.” – The New York Times
Historic Find: Milton’s Notes On Shakespeare’s Plays
The astonishing find, which academics say could be one of the most important literary discoveries of modern times, was made by Cambridge University fellow Jason Scott-Warren when he was reading an article about the anonymous annotator by Pennsylvania State University English professor Claire Bourne. – The Guardian
Actors’ Equity Expels Former Artistic Director Of The Citadel Theatre
“Acting on the findings of a Disciplinary Committee relating to a safe and respectful workplace complaint, Equity’s national Council ratified the recommendation of the Committee and expelled Bob Baker from Equity membership on June 23, 2019,” a notice on Equity’s website reads. “A possible appeal period has now closed.” – The Globe and Mail (Canada)
A Paris Theatre, Closed For Two And A Half Years For A $35 Million Renovation, Is About To Reopen
This isn’t just any (massive) theatre renovation. “It was in the Châtelet where the artistic revolutions and innovations of Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes were first seen; here where Mahler, Strauss and Tchaikovsky conducted; where Josephine Baker, Cole Porter and Juliette Gréco all sang.” Now a British artistic director, the first woman in the theatre’s history, leads the Châtelet as it prepares to rejoin the cultural life of Paris. – The New York Times
Study Shows That Gendered Discrimination, And A Lack Of Parental Support, Create Massive Barriers For Women Theatre Designers
Sometimes you just need a study to back up what seemingly everyone (at least the women) already knows: “The fields of design, production, and technical theatre are the most male-dominated,” and the reasons? Er: Ninety percent of respondents “reported having experienced a negative work environment, gender-based harassment, and/or pay disparity,” especially in lighting and sound design. – American Theatre
After 40 Years, ‘For Colored Girls’ Returns, As A Celebration And As A Weapon, To The Theatre Where It Was Born
Ntozake Shange’s For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf “has been part of the canon since it became a Broadway hit in 1976. Still, [the play] doesn’t get a lot of professional productions; it’s been much more a staple of college theater. … But at a moment when race and gender are so prominent in the tumultuous civic dialogue — and when black playwrights, particularly women, are pushing both the content and form of contemporary American drama in new directions — the time seems right to revisit Shange’s text.” – The New York Times
‘Unmanly Grief’ — Performing A Trans Hamlet
“Jenet Le Lacheur — a transfeminine Brit who earned recognition, before coming out, in the West End production of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child — has … [recently starred] as Hamlet in Daniel Winder’s dystopian production of the Shakespeare play … The fact that Winder’s Hamlet was nonbinary and transfeminine was largely subtextual — a subtle but important thread running through the production.” – HowlRound
This Off-Broadway Play Was So Fraught, It Hired Post-Show Counselors For The Audience. Now It’s Headed To Broadway — Can Broadway Handle It?
Jeremy O. Harris’s Slave Play “often funny and pervasively unsettling, examines that lingering wound [of American slavery] through the frustrated sex lives, and taboo sexual fantasies, of three contemporary interracial couples. … An internet-based backlash, seemingly fueled by people who had not seen the play, was threatening enough to require stepped-up security” for its Off-Broadway run. “Many of the participants still can’t quite believe this play, on Broadway, is happening.” – The New York Times
A Stage Combat Consultancy Run Entirely By Women
With four RSC plays, three other London shows, and a regional production all this year alone, the company called Rc-Annie is one of the most in-demand firms of its kind. Reporter Nick Smurthwaite talks to Rc-Annie’s two founders, Rachel Bown-Williams and Ruth Cooper-Brown. – The Stage
Can Card Tricks Make The World A Better Place? These Magicians Are Giving It A Try
Reporter Claire Armitstead talks to prestidigitators who use their craft to comfort children in refugee camps, restore movement to hemiplegia patients, assist in research on cognition; treat dyslexia and and symptoms of autism, and teach surgeons how to relate to their patients as human beings. – The Guardian
After Controversy, Jewish Theatre Artists In Britain Form Collective To Draft ‘Best Practices ‘Guide
A few weeks ago, the group said in an open letter that Jews were not sufficiently represented onstage – or offstage, in production teams – in the theatre in Britain, criticism sparked by a production of The Falsettos. What to do about it? Well, the group, now named the Jewish Artists’ Collective, “will draft a best-practice proposal for the industry and open a conversation with both Jewish and non-Jewish artists.” – The Stage (UK)
How To Attract Young Audiences To Theatre, And Keep Them
A case study comes via Portland Center Stage in Oregon, where the theatre had a funded chance to experiment to see what works … and what doesn’t. Turns out, exterior bus advertising and billboards really work: “All those surveyed mentioned that if they can’t avoid advertising, they tend to pay attention.” – American Theatre
Do Transfers Of London Shows To Broadway Say Something About The State Of Broadway?
It is certainly possible to say that roughly a quarter of all the Broadway shows announced have at least one, if not both, feet planted in UK soil. But to those who wield this ‘fact’ to suggest US artists are getting short shrift, I say – with the appropriate eye roll – “Oh, please.” – The Stage
Making New Theatre From The Messenger Speeches In Greek Tragedies
“Show, don’t tell” is one of the most basic rules of dramatic writing. Yet the ancient Greeks told-rather-than-showing all the time: convention forbid onstage violence, so messengers recounted the tragedies’ grisly denouements. Five years ago, shortly after she had told friends she was giving up theatre, JoAnne Akalaitis got the idea to assemble some of those monologues — describing the sacrificing of Iphigenia, Pentheus being torn to pieces by the Bacchae, the poisoning of Jason’s bride by Medea, the slaughter of the Persian army — into a work called Bad News! I was there. – American Theatre
Theatre Pros Grade Boris Johnson’s First Week
“What we’re watching now is a man realising that the character he invented for himself in order to get something he didn’t want doesn’t work when you’re prime minister. It was fine for panel shows and PR opportunities, and for getting him into No 10, but he didn’t think it through. He failed to write the final act, and now he’s trapped in his own clown, in a costume that doesn’t fit any more, being forced to perform in a circus that’s packing up around him. How funny is that?” – The Guardian
Audience Members Loudly Enjoy Play, Man Shushes Them. But Why?
“I wish I could have told him that his outburst about our outbursts (if gasps and laughs are outbursts) betrayed the DNA of theater itself. Unless he plans on buying out venues to watch plays alone, he’s much better off consuming entertainment in the privacy of his own home. (Seriously, stay away from movie theaters, sir!)” – Los Angeles Times
Adrienne Kennedy, An American Original
A special package on the great African-American playwright as she approaches her 88th birthday (Sept. 13), including a Q&A with Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, a feature on the undergraduate playwriting seminar she taught at Harvard in 1997 (a class which is said to have changed many of the students’ lives), and tributes from a dozen colleagues and former students, including Natalie Portman, Ishmael Reed, Michael Kahn, Robert O’Hara, and Aleshea Harris. – American Theatre
When A Cell Phone Goes Off During A Play, Keep Quiet And Let It Ring, Says Chicago Tribune Critic
Chris Jones recounts what happened at a recent Broadway performance of Harold Pinter’s Betrayal when a cell phone went off, repeatedly, and seemed to make Tom Hiddleston cry without breaking character. It was a powerful. ambiguous moment — until the audience began to call out the phone and its owner. – Chicago Tribune
How A Small-Town New England Summer Festival Became A Major Feeder For New York’s Theatre Season
“Seven transfers in one season puts [the Williamstown Theater Festival] at the top of the list of New York stage feeders; no single theater, let alone one that’s lit only 50 days a year, comes close. And yet the achievement does not mean that the festival has strayed as far from its original vision as that might suggest.” As Williamstown artistic director Mandy Greenfield tells Jesse Green (who once worked there himself), “We’re not chasing Broadway. We’re chasing a way of working.” – The New York Times
Kansas City Rep Gets A New Leader
Stuart Carden, who starts his new job within days, will be only the fifth artistic director in the Rep’s 55-year history. – Kansas City Star
Actors In UK’s Publicly Subsidised Theatres To Get Pay Raise Of 2% Over Three Years
“[After] negotiations described by union Equity as the toughest in recent times, … performers’ weekly minimum pay will increase from £450 currently to £459.05 over three years – leaving actors concerned that, after tax and agent fees, they will not be earning much more than the minimum wage, currently £8.21 an hour.” – The Stage
Why London Really Needs More Theatres
“The authoritative Theatres Trust reckons there are currently 263 theatres in London. It’s about the same number as Tokyo, whereas Paris has around 350. New York tops the list with well over 400. Producers believe more tickets could be sold in London. But first they need more places to originate shows in and to transfer existing shows to.” – BBC
The Turkish Grandmother Who Inspired Theatre To Change The World
Her village doesn’t have a stage, so she gathers her performers under a walnut tree in her garden for rehearsals while they do their domestic chores. Her love of theatre is apparently contagious. “When I see Ummiye calling me on my mobile, I come running,” one of her actresses says. And people in other parts of the country want a piece of the action, issuing invitations on social media for the group to perform locally. – BBC
How Stage Actors Make Their (Now-Mandatory) Audition Videos
The days of the in-person first audition (and maybe even second) are over, writes Melissa Errico: even well-established performers like herself and Raúl Esparza have to send in videos of themselves reading any part they’re trying out for. “How does an actor knock on the door when there is no door anymore?” – The New York Times