THEATRE

Clifford Odets, The Great Agitprop Playwright Of The 1930s, Is In The Spotlight Again

His most famous play, Waiting for Lefty, is getting a major Off-Broadway revival; Awake and Sing! is opening on Broadway next month; Golden Boy just finished a London run with movie star Josh O’Connor in the lead. Why is Odets having a moment now? Helen Shaw has some ideas. - The New York Times

Why This Fall’s Big Musicals Are Opening Off-Broadway

The theaters are smaller. The tickets are lower, but you still often have big casts. You have to pay the musicians. And you may not have to make a million dollars to make your nut, but maybe you have to make half a million or 400 grand. That's still a lot of money. - NPR

What It’s Like To Be A Professional Scare Actor During Halloween Season

Lyndon Laveaux is one of around 400 scare actors working at the Queen Mary's Dark Harbor in Long Beach. He plays the Captain, the undead master of ceremonies. “I just love it,” he says. “It's like an adult summer camp and I appreciate the fans, I appreciate this community.” - Los Angeles Times (Yahoo!)

After A Hiatus, Williamstown Theatre Festival Regroups By Retrenching

After an interesting and very messy experiment with programming and organization in 2025 and going dark for summer 2026 (not to mention a tumultuous few years before that), the festival has given up its planned expansion into year-round activity, shrunk its full-time staff to three, and is planning a smaller 2027 event. - BroadwayWorld

An Architecture Critic Looks At The Yard, London’s New Theatre Built Out Of Scavenged And Repurposed Materials

Oliver Wainwright: “It is a tour de force of how to do a lot with a little. It reads like a collage of its context: a shed clad with corrugated fibre-cement sheeting, rising from graffiti-covered warehouse walls on one side and framed by a new brick gable end on the other.” - The Guardian

Helping Actors Keep Their Medical Insurance

For an actor to remain insured through SAG-AFTRA, they must typically make a minimum amount of money from on-screen work and residuals. Leveraging his Instagram following of almost 750,000, Cheyenne Jackson began posting headshots of performers, their biographies and how many dollars away each was from crossing that threshold, which this year is $28,090. - The New York Times

Shakespeare’s Globe Artistic Director Michelle Terry To Step Down Late Next Year

“During her (decade) in the role, more than 2,000 actors will have worked with the organisation across 77 productions, which are expected to have been seen by more than 2.3 million people from over 190 countries by the end of her tenure.” - WhatsOnStage (UK)

Center Theatre Group Partners With YMCA To Bring Theater All Over Los Angeles

The program, called “Every Age, Every Stage,” will include free workshops led by theater professionals at local Y branches, mentorship in stagecraft, design and production for young adult members, and free tickets to select mainstage performances. - Los Angeles Times (MSN)

Why The Broadway Musical Survives

Yet the Broadway musical persists, in its wholly impossible format, imposing eight big singing shows a week on its stars, which is, as any veteran will tell you, one of the most brutal workloads possible for a performer—and, when it occurs in long-running shows, mostly invisible as a personal triumph.  - The New Yorker

Helping ‘Benjamin Button’ Grow Up, Into A Musical

"In rehearsals, they tightened the structure, fine-tuned the music and lyrics, tamping down the sentimentality. Still, the show is plenty sentimental." - The New York Times

Four Objects That Measure The Thirty Years Of Rent

"In an alternate universe, might 'Seasons of Love' have opened with the lyric: '31,536,000 seconds?'” - The New York Times

Who Will Take Over Portland’s Many City Performance Spaces?

The city only received two propsals to take over the spaces, known as Portland'5 (yes, there are 5 theatres), starting next July. - Oregon ArtsWatch

Jonathan Groff’s Next Broadway Project Will Be A Solo Show About A School Shooting

“The play, The Amish Project, will be Groff’s first nonmusical production on Broadway, and it’s strikingly personal for him: It’s a work of fiction inspired by a 2006 shooting at a one-room Amish schoolhouse in rural Pennsylvania, just a few minutes from Groff’s childhood home.” - The New York Times

Chicago Shakespeare Theatre Leader Moves On

Kimberly Motes, the executive director of Chicago Shakespeare Theater since 2023, is leaving her position in mid-November to become president and CEO of Hennepin Arts in Minneapolis. - Chicago Tribune

Broadway Contributes $21 Billion To NYC Economy: Study

The latest report from the Broadway League, covering the 2024-25 season, also found that the Broadway theater industry supported 114,600 full-time equivalent jobs and generated $979 million in taxes for the city. - Deadline

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