“Today, (after almost four years in New York,) the musical is still packing in crowds, a feat for a show that isn’t a revival or a movie adaptation and lacks big stars or Tony wins. It’s ... one of only four new musicals since the pandemic to recoup their investments.” - Variety
"Encouraging audience enthusiasm while upholding basic theater etiquette has become a tricky balance, but attracting fans itching to sing along is also a badge of popularity. … Where people draw the line on what’s “too crazy” may be the animating question of our time.” - The Washington Post (Yahoo!)
“The Unquiet series, organized by Sara Candela, a poet, is part of a larger movement in which artists, writers and theater groups across the country are creating work in response to the Trump administration’s attacks on arts and their communities.” - The Guardian
The company’s board said that there will be a third-party investigation into social media allegations that founder/artistic director Charles Askenaizer engaged in aggressive behavior during rehearsals. Last week, in solidarity with the accuser, four actors dropped out of Askenaizer’s now-postponed staging of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. - Chicago Tribune
Brandon Weinbrenner, currently the associate artistic director at the Alley Theatre in Houston, will succeed Vincent Lancisi, who is stepping down at the end of the season from the troupe that he founded 35 years ago. - The Baltimore Sun (MSN)
“Since the gargantuan success of Hamilton, … Broadway productions have leaned in to liberal identity politics as their state ideology, favoring ‘message musicals’ (like the women’s suffrage show Suffs) and casting stunts (an all-female 1776) that marry liberal identity politics with the genre’s emotional sincerity.” - The Paris Review
“The worst moment has a name here — le flop. It's the part everyone dreads, when you can feel your red nose begin to droop as the dead air fills the room. But it's also where the real work begins.” - NPR
“There’s so much political resonance with the text — we’ve heard so many amazing, divergent responses in terms of how the piece speaks to today’s slippery political reality — but we didn’t want to play into that too much.” - Culturebot
“At Palo Alto Players, the initiative is part of a broader effort to lower barriers to getting to the theater — one (Managing Director Elizabeth) Santana credits with putting the company in ‘a state of growth,’ a rarity in a Bay Area theater scene reeling from closed companies and abridged lineups.” - San Francisco Chronicle (Yahoo!)
“TheatreWorks Silicon Valley is partnering with the city of Palo Alto on a new venue at a familiar location. The municipality and the Tony-winning theater company announced plans to redevelop (its) existing theater … and build a new one next to it, forming a performing arts complex of 40,000 square feet.” - San Francisco Chronicle (MSN)
The dinner theater/circus arts hybrid's founder says that attendance never really recovered from COVID, but that, this past fall, there began a fatal decline in sales which he attributed to an uncertain economy and fear of ICE. - WBEZ (Chicago)
“The Outsiders, … which opened in April 2024 and won the Tony Award for best new musical two months later, has recouped its $22 million capitalization costs. … The milestone, though occasionally achieved by plays and musical revivals, is an increasingly rare one for new musicals.” - The New York Times
"Stoppard wasn’t telling a story of Nazis and gas chambers; he was exploring the psychological danger of hiding one’s Jewish identity. A month after seeing the play, I decided to fly to London in search of some of my own hidden pieces.” - The Atlantic
“Apprentices can study one of five tracks: directing and artistic programs, lighting design, production management, scenic paint or stage management. The apprenticeships are about 10 months long.” - Seattle Times
