Time To Toss 'New Writing' For Something Wilder And, Perhaps, Newer? "The 'New Writing' play, like the 'Well Made Play' before it, exists as some sort of ideal to which new writers are supposed to aspire. This sense of what makes a good play has crept into the way workshops are run, courses are structured, feedback is given and, most damaging, into the very heart of the relationship between producers and artists. In teaching narrative, characterisation and structure, we are teaching a very particular set of aesthetic values predicated on creating a very particular kind of play." Exuent Magazine 05/11/12

email this story | Posted 05/20/12@08:01AM

Scotland's Smaller Theatre Companies Beginning To Panic Over Planned Funding Changes Creative Scotland, the country's arts funding body, is discontinuing two-year supporting grants in favor of per-project awards. "Companies and individual practitioners are questioning whether they will be able to continue under the new regime, while there are warnings that individual artists will leave Scotland." The Stage (UK) 05/18/12

email this story | Posted 05/18/12@11:11AM

How Technology Could Change Theatre Criticism For Good "While words alone can create a rich tapestry of critical response, imagine how much richer this might be with the addition of images, video, audio, geotagging, experimental forms such as Pinterest - the list goes on. Despite having such options at their fingertips, the majority of those writing theatre criticism for the web remain trapped in the conventional print review format." The Guardian (UK) 05/17/12

email this story | Posted 05/18/12@09:06AM

Bring Back The Sitting Ovation!, Says Ben Brantley "Because we really have reached the point where a standing ovation doesn't mean a thing. Pretty much every show you attend on Broadway these days ends with people jumping to their feet and beating their flippers together like captive sea lions whose zookeeper has arrived with a bucket of fish. This is true even for doomed stinkers that find the casts taking their curtain calls with the pale, hopeless mien of patients who have just received a terminal diagnosis." The New York Times 05/17/12

email this story | Posted 05/17/12@11:53PM

Slumdog Millionaire Musical Won't Involve Film's Creators "[A]fter years of negotiations proved fruitless, a planned London musical about the rags-to-riches game show contestant is now being developed without the participation of any of the film's key creators, including director Danny Boyle and composer A.R. Rahman." Los Angeles Times 05/17/12

email this story | Posted 05/17/12@11:50PM

Audra McDonald On Playing Gershwin's Bess "The last melody in the show, after an entire night of [Bess] singing and being raped and kicked and beaten and all of this stuff, is 'Summertime,' ... And it freaks me out that after all this, I have to sound high and pretty and fresh. And I'm always holding onto that baby, going, 'I know you're just a doll, but help me.'" NPR 05/15/12

email this story | Posted 05/17/12@11:44PM

Diagnosing The Demise Of Toronto's Dancap Productions Dancap chief Aubrey Dan "blamed a tough economy and a shortage of Broadway 'product' ... but he was somewhat the author of his own misfortune ... Multiple sources say the problems were as much internal as external - that while Mr. Dan hired knowledgeable professionals, he frequently spurned their advice." The Globe and Mail (Canada) 05/17/12

email this story | Posted 05/17/12@05:14AM

American Heresy: Death Of A Salesman Is 'A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Mediocrity' Giles Harvey: "I found myself squirming in my seat from boredom and exasperation, amazed at how much glaringly conventional stagecraft Salesman was able to pack into its two acts. The rising action, the dramatic irony, the laborious, grandstanding speeches ... I kept wanting to exclaim, 'It sounds like a play!'" The New Yorker 05/15/12

email this story | Posted 05/16/12@11:51PM

Sonnets, Scenes, And Bar-Hopping: The New York Shakespeare Exchange The NYSX means to explore "what happens when contemporary culture is infused with Shakespearean poetry and themes in unexpected ways." What does that mean? For starters, a Sonnet Project (154 poems, 154 actors, 154 videos), and "a Shakespearean pub crawl, where at each location, a scene breaks out. They call it ... Shakesbeer." NPR 05/16/12

email this story | Posted 05/16/12@11:43PM

What A Difference Some Props Make "We get that Shakespeare wouldn't be Shakespeare - and unimaginative programme designers the world over would be up the proverbial creek - without Desdemona's handkerchief or Macbeth's dagger. ... But what about the impact prop choice can have within a production? What creative freedoms, extended by the playwright to the props person, can affect the outcome of a show? The Guardian (UK) 05/15/12

email this story | Posted 05/16/12@05:08AM

When Characters Are Already Onstage As The Audience Comes In "The main reason for these pre-textual prologues, which blur the start time advertised in the papers, is presumably the pursuit of greater realism: a sense that the performance is joining a story that has begun some time before, rather than requiring a sudden suspension of disbelief. However, the strategy is risky because it creates unease in an auditorium." The Guardian (UK) 05/14/12

email this story | Posted 05/16/12@01:04AM

A New Fund To Finance Musicals Based On Movies "Funding for screen-to-stage projects is getting a lift from a newly announced fund called Broadway & Vine. The fund is designed to help with the optioning of movie titles for adaptation as musicals, commissioning creative teams for script development and staging the first readings and presentations." Los Angeles Times 05/14/12

email this story | Posted 05/16/12@01:00AM

Lincoln Center Theater To Open Third Stage "The 112-seat theater, home to Lincoln Center Theater's latest program, LCT3, aims to develop new talent, feed the company's two larger theaters - the Vivian Beaumont and the Mitzi E. Newhouse - and attract younger, more diverse audiences. Even the drinks at intermission will be cheaper" - as will the tickets, at $20 each. The New York Times 05/15/12

email this story | Posted 05/14/12@11:57PM

The Second Time Around - Why It's Good To Revisit Theatre You Know "The relationship between any work of art and its perceiver is mutable. (Every time I reread "Anna Karenina" or "David Copperfield," I feel differently about the title character.) But that of theater and the theatergoer is especially fluid. Unlike books or paintings or movies, works of theater are not fixed creations." The New York Times 05/14/12

email this story | Posted 05/14/12@02:40AM

Punch And Judy Turn 350 Amid Raucous Crowd Of Puppeteers "Punch and Judy men and women - known as 'professors' - took their hand puppets on a procession in London's Covent Garden, staged shows for hundreds of children and held a church service with the red-nosed Mr Punch in the pulpit." Yahoo (AFP) 05/13/12

email this story | Posted 05/13/12@05:34PM

The Courage To Write (The Damned Stage Directions) "It took flipping out about stage directions for me to realize how much I have internalized all the various messages I've heard and witnessed over the past seven years. And it's even sadder that I felt the need for permission from others to embrace something that used to be instinctual to my process." 2AMTheatre 05/10/12

email this story | Posted 05/13/12@05:24PM

Crap Year For Musicals - Thank The Theatre Gods For Performers "Does it say something about the state of the American musical theater that the animating incident in the most accomplished new Broadway show of the season is the repairing of a vacuum cleaner?" The New York Times 05/10/12

email this story | Posted 05/13/12@05:20PM

Bringing Cinema To Broadway With A New Movies-To-Musicals Fund "Theater and movie industry execs Jed Bernstein, Bob Israel and Rich Battista have teamed to launch the Broadway and Vine Fund, a new fund for optioning movie titles for musical theater adaptations. First property to be optioned is 1984 Fox pic The Flamingo Kid." Variety 05/13/12

email this story | Posted 05/13/12@05:18PM

Audra McDonald Returns To The Stage - And Garners More Acclaim "Five years ago she stunned admirers of her luminous soprano by decamping to Los Angeles and the (nonsinging) role of the fertility specialist Naomi Bennett on the ABC series Private Practice. Now she has come back to New York theater, in The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess, and her performance as the wanton, drug-addicted Bess has earned her superlative reviews and a Tony Award nomination, her seventh in 18 years." The New York Times 05/13/12

email this story | Posted 05/13/12@05:14PM

Hanging In The Air: Performance Art, Or Just A Good Night's Sleep? "I climbed gingerly up a ladder and stepped into a red structure hanging like a balloon from a tree, deep in the woods of Holt Hall in Norfolk. The balloon began to expand as if by magic, its sides unfurling like petals; I lay down and the sky was visible through a porthole above me. There was a strange, soothing singing; a hand and face appeared at the porthole, and a smiling woman dressed in a kimono descended, set out four cups and saucers, and offered me tea." The Guardian 05/13/12

email this story | Posted 05/13/12@05:05PM

Broadway's Current Obsession With Stars: A Faustian Bargain? "Adding a star packs the house, allowing producers to command top dollar for tickets, but here's the rub: Most stars can agree only to limited engagements because of film and TV commitments. And when a star departs, attendance generally dips." Backstage 05/11/12

email this story | Posted 05/13/12@08:45AM

London Theatre Names Its First Woman Artistic Director "The Royal Court theatre in London has named Vicky Featherstone, head of the National Theatre of Scotland, as its first female artistic director. Featherstone, who kicked off her career as an unpaid assistant director at the Royal Court, will succeed Dominic Cooke when he steps down in April 2013." BBC 05/11/12

email this story | Posted 05/13/12@08:29AM