For almost three decades, the ambitious, history-centered company had to make do with the second-floor of a 110-year-old church building in Lake View — along with dodgy electrical wiring, no elevator, toilets that didn’t always work and no central air conditioning. - WBEZ
The Justice Department has quietly resolved a yearslong investigation into possible anticompetitive practices by a major player in the lucrative touring market for Broadway shows, saying it decided not to prosecute the company. - The New York Times
“Cats has always been a ballroom: Distinct personalities enter the floor, presenting their style and story, and a community watches to see who commands the room. This new production doesn’t impose anything foreign onto the musical. For me, it illuminates what was always there.” - The New York Times
“There are a lot of maybes involved in The Hand & The Eye, the 36,000-square-foot magic-themed entertainment and dining complex set to open this month inside the distinctively eccentric McCormick Mansion on the corner of Ontario and Rush Streets alongside the struggling Magnificent Mile.” - Chicago Tribune (Yahoo!)
Leading figures from the world of comedy have met the government to make the case for comedy, including that it be recognised as an art form in its own right to improve funding access and policy development. - BBC
“According to producing artistic director Rachel May, Synchronicity’s programming, partnerships, and community impact have never been stronger, and the theatre’s leadership is actively engaged in a search for a new theatrical home.” - American Theatre
Shawn and Eisenberg, an author and actress who has been Shawn’s partner for five decades, performed with scripts in the Off-Broadway production of What We Did Before Our Moth Days to fill in for ill co-stars Hope Davis and Maria Dizzia. - Playbill
“When I did it before, nobody was really explicitly saying the opposite of what I was saying. I was attacking implicit assumptions, unthought-through assumptions that people seemed to have. Now I’m attacking open declarations that people are making very publicly.” - Slate (MSN)
The Todd Haimes Theatre is one of five spaces owned by Roundabout, including Studio 54 and the Stephen Sondheim Theatre on Broadway. The current production of “Fallen Angels” will mark its official opening on April 19, and will run in a limited engagement through June 7. - Broadway News
Between his roles as producer, co-playwright, and star of Good Night, and Good Luck, about CBS newscaster Edward R. Murrow, Clooney himself took in an estimated $9 million (if not more) for the 13-week run of the production, which grossed $48 million. - Broadway Journal
“Matt Stone and Trey Parker, having grown up around church members in Colorado, did not want to make fun of them or their religion. ‘They believe goofy stuff, but they’re really nice,’ Parker said.’" Yet, wonders Jesse Green, could the show get produced these days? - The New York Times
The playwright’s handwritten notes, stage directions and edits made during rehearsals for the play’s world premiere contain some telling and even surprising details. “Sometimes,” says Mantello, “it’s just a little clue that lodges itself in your brain.” - The New York Times
“A week after boos rained down in a ceremony honoring Chicago’s top storefront theater companies, the Joseph Jefferson Awards — known as ‘the Jeffs’ — are facing backlash. … The looming questions underneath all of the recent blowback: Are the Jeff Awards broken? After over a half-century in operation, what purpose do they serve today?” - WBEZ (Chicago)
“Even the fact that audiences were made up of Black and white South Africans mingling together was unheard of in a city where the law separated areas and people by race.” - NPR
“A narrative poem full of sex, drugs and violence, it tells the story of a crazy gathering hosted by a beautiful vaudeville singer named Queenie and her crass clown performer boyfriend, Burrs. The poem’s jazzy syncopated rhythms make it as lively and unpredictable as the action.” - The New York Times
