Scholar Darren Freebury-Jones used a text database called Collocations and N-grams to spot parallel phrases and passages in Shakespeare's plays and those of his contemporaries. Oxford Shakespeare scholar Emma Smith writes that Freebury-Jones's computerized approach is less compelling than his own literary analysis. - The Telegraph (UK) (MSN)
Who needs to see a play in which inflammatory positions and arguments aren’t dangerous? Hatred and intolerance won’t disappear because pious new puritans stop them being aired in theatre for fear of causing offence. - The Stage
One big reason that the Tony-winning playwright of The Inheritance has been reluctant to revisit this script, titled Reverberation, is that it's the last play he wrote before getting sober. And where López calls his gay romcom screenplay Red, White & Royal Blue a "joy-bomb," Reverberation is more like an A-bomb. - The Guardian
"In the midst of all this, what does it mean to be a writer trying to write in the way that I want to write? What would the new technologies mean for writers like Saul Bellow or Philip Roth, who I adore, and for the richness of their language?" - The Atlantic
CEO Sadie Lythcott says, "Our artistic ambition was always stifled by the space that we had." Come 2027, NBT will move into a block-long complex with two theaters, a set-building shop and affordable artist housing, all on 125th Street in Harlem. - The Guardian
“If it’s just one idea, it will probably die in the impulse phase. If the idea opens avenues and you see many more roads, that’s worth pursuing. It doesn’t leave you alone.” - Fast Company
Lily Janiak writes that she was reminded — very gladly — of just how many things go right to pull off a farce like this one so successfully. - San Francisco Chronicle (MSN)
Merely Players Presents was founded in Doraville, a DeKalb County suburb whose population is 45% Hispanic, in 2018. This year, for the first time, the company did dual productions of a play, Nilo Cruz's Anna in the Tropics, in English and Spanish, reaching an audience that local theaters rarely connect with. - ArtsATL
For the second year running, Heidi Schreck's What the Constitution Means to Me is the country's most-produced play, and in fifth place is Selina Fillinger’s POTUS: Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive. - The New York Times
Christopher Ashley, artistic director of the La Jolla Playhouse in California and known for directing the Broadway hit Come From Away, will succeed longtime Roundabout chief Todd Haimes, who died last year. - Variety
"Scholars have long suggested that Marlowe had a collaborator for the comic scenes of his classic play, although his name alone is on the 1604 published edition. Now a largely forgotten dramatist, Henry Porter, has emerged as the likely co-author, based on comparative linguistic evidence ... from his surviving play." - The Guardian
Theatre workers across the sector have now described to The Stage how they feel pressure to "power through" all but the most extreme health conditions due to financial insecurity and a "strict" culture. - The Stage
Matthieu Kassovitz's 1995 prize-winner is still considered the reference film about the crisis in France's suburban housing projects. After almost 30 years, Kassovitz and stage director Serge Denoncourt have turned it into a hip-hop musical — with the new subtitle "So Far, Nothing Has Changed." - AP
