“Some Twin Cities performing arts venues have come in for severe criticism in recent years over issues involving inclusion, diversity and casting — issues that confront the field nationally. Yet at this moment, this last week of March, 2014, the offerings of major stages in the Twin Cities have never been more diverse. (And all […]
“British theatre is both art and part of an industry topped by film and television that produces highly skilled practitioners but doesn’t always know how to use them. Except stereotypically.”
Michael Dobson, director of the Shakespeare Institute in Stratford-upon-Avon, and Observer theatre critic Clare Brennan argue it out.
The Golden Mask festival began in 1995 as Moscow’s equivalent of the Tonys. Now theater companies (and opera and dance troupes) from throughout Russia spend three weeks in March and April in the capital competing for awards in 34 categories – and that’s not even counting fringe fests and tours.
Jasper Rees recounts the long and tortured genesis of Dylan Thomas’s Under Milk Wood.
Starting in September, producers of touring shows in the UK will be able to claim up to a 25% tax rebate, with other productions receiving 20%. So what exactly will be the definition of what qualifies as touring shows and productions?
“We looked round and saw smoke pouring out of the corner of the theatre. We went running over with a fire extinguisher, thought ‘well maybe it’s just a small fire’, went in and the whole building was just well alight.”
“After all, scalping—or price-gouging, if you prefer—already works for airlines and sports teams and hotels and Broadway shows and nobody seems to complain—at least, not those that can afford them. And furthermore, like it or not, pretty soon everybody will be doing it. So hey, why fight it?”
“I think it’s going to be a fun experiment for the Portland arts community which is very diverse but often falls into the trap that everyone’s competing for the same dollars, the few art dollars out there that are still left,” says organizer Peter Platt. “Instead there’s strength in numbers. You can come together, collaborate, […]
“While our change might just be producing an art that can create social commentary and create a message for an audience, I think that is an idea of expression in general and of our First Amendment rights: We’re given the ability to produce material that can create change and be a part of our society.”
“How do you put on new work, in the main house, while also keeping your audience? Familiar stories, brands and characters reinvented for the stage can seem like a smart way forward.”
The trend started as a way to increase box office income and get some new people inside the building, but now companies in both the U.S. and Europe are proudly mounting full-scale productions of Rodgers & Hammerstein, Sondheim and even Andrew Lloyd Webber. (Don’t worry, they’re not going to do Mamma Mia!.)
“Tessa Ross, the Film4 controller whose credits include the Oscar-winning 12 Years A Slave and Slumdog Millionaire, is leaving Channel 4 to become chief executive of the National Theatre.”
The creators of The Eradication of Schizophrenia in Western Lapland may not transform the mental health professions, but they’re trying to convey to the rest of us what the actual experience of psychosis – the hallucinations and delusions – is like.
“Being a trailblazer in both radio and the stage, Welles adapted many of his stage productions for the wireless. The Internet Archive has posted many of these recordings online, which you can listen to for free. The selection includes performances of Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Richard III, Macbeth and, of course, Julius Caesar, among others. […]
“A black box stage. A shiny piano-black floor. To the strains of ‘Blue Danube’, eight performers – women in garishly bright dresses, men in elegant black tailcoats – are picked out in the lights. Moving in slow motion, they look like puppets slowly coming to life.”
Part of the auditorium ceiling at the Apollo Theatre in London’s West End fell in med-performance in December. Staff of a BBC Radio 4 programme “has seen a letter from Westminster City Council saying hessian wadding embedded in the ceiling was getting weaker over time.”
Assistant fight choreographer Patrick McCollum: “It’s about working on developing boxing technique with the actors, and then we also created ways that the actors can safely impact on each other in the show so it looks like a real fight. It is essentially a real fight.”
“As soon as we could use things like radio-controlled servos, we started using them. As soon as we could use computers to help perform our creatures, we used them.”
First step: Get the RSC performing more work by female playwrights – and consider how to talk about gender and theatre without going directly to Issue Of The Day 101.
“No matter how good you are or how hard you work, the jobs may not be forthcoming. But instead of drowning in a pool of disillusionment, it is possible to take the power back.”
“Though effective in many ways, he’s largely unsuited for the entrepreneurial and managerial tasks for which he’s responsible.”
“Actors may move to Los Angeles with the hope to make money in movies and television. What they find, however, may surprise them and save their artistic lives: a thriving Los Angeles theater scene of generous, talented artists.”
And not just productions, but also scripts. “If you’re sitting anywhere else on planet earth, you know that this country is the country that produces. Wherever you are, you’ll see more British plays than anything else – apart from maybe Neil Simon. On the whole, British plays have a better build quality.”
“In one scene from a Cleveland-area high-school production of Grease, the character Kenickie … carried a pizza box from Guys Pizza, a local place, though the script calls for a bag lunch. Later the restaurant owner’s father briefly appeared as a burger restaurant worker who happens to be wearing a large button with a Guys […]
A reporter shares the secrets of the lighting at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse: what types of candle provide the right light, how to keep them from going out while actors walk, how to prevent drips and pools of wax – and how the company’s management convinced their insurers and the London fire department to go […]
“The scheme will mean producers are able to claim up to a 25% tax rebate on 80% of a production’s up-front eligible budget costs ahead of its run. Touring shows will receive a 25% relief, while other productions will be eligible for a 20% tax credit.”
“With this requirement [for scientists] to perform (student assessment of lecturers’ abilities is now standard), comes an increasing readiness to engage with audiences who might have little understanding of the process of science, but a lot of interest in the message of science. But theatre can engage with science in more ways than simply the […]
“Jugglers have always taken advantage of audiences’ ignorance. Instead of performing hard tricks, they perform easy tricks that look hard. They lie to delight. But then came a guy who wasn’t interested in lying, who wanted to do stuff that was hard because he could.”
Jon Robin Baitz’s first title for Other Desert Cities was Love and Mercy. Tennessee Williams initially gave Cat on a Hot Tin Roof the title A Place of Stone. And then there’s Urinetown – did that one hurt, help, or both?