ArtsJournal: Arts, Culture, Ideas

THEATRE

The Returning Broadway Audience Has A Whole New Set Of Pre-Show Rituals

"Coming back has entailed a few adjustments: the ability to deftly juggle proofs of vaccination and photo IDs and tickets to get inside; preshow announcements that now urge people to keep their cellphones off and their masks on." - The New York Times

How Ancient Greek Tragedy Works (And It Does) As Group Therapy

Bryan Doerries, director of Theater of War, "Dozens of Marines of every rank had stood up and quoted lines from the ancient plays from memory, as if they had known them their entire lives, and then related them to personal stories they had never shared." - Literary Hub

Meeting (Potential) Audiences Where They Are… With A Mobile Barbershop

That's what Keenan Scott II did to attract new people to his recently opened Broadway play, Thoughts of a Colored Man, one of eight shows written by Black authors (a record) that will be on Broadway this season. And the tactic may be working. - The New Yorker

The Pacific Northwest’s Only Latinx Theatre Plans Its Comeback

Milagro Theatre's artistic director: "It brought home the value of what we do — that we are practitioners of live theater. ... How do you convey meaning to a stranger? How do you convey emotion to a stranger? That’s what we do in theater." - Oregon ArtsWatch

Royal Shakespeare Company Is UK’s First Performing Arts Institution Given Official Status As Research Organization

The designation, more typically given to universities, makes the RSC eligible for government research grants and will allow it to expand its work as a "teaching theatre." - The Stage

Former “Hamilton” Cast Member, Black And Nonbinary, Files Discrimination Complaint Against Producers

Suni Reid, who's done the show in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, alleges their contract wasn't renewed because they requested a gender-neutral dressing room. Producers say they supported Reid, financially and otherwise, and withdrew the contract only after learning they were being sued. - The New York Times

The Folger’s Karen Ann Daniels: Reconsidering Shakespeare’s Legacy

"Within the theatre industry itself, and in education, we’ve elevated him as sort of a pinnacle. We have an opportunity to understand why and when we’ve done that—when we’ve done that well, when we’ve done that wrong or we’ve used it to hurt other people." - American Theatre

Australian Theatre In Crisis

COVID-related funding losses have seen drama departments at seven universities either cut completely, or drastically pruned. The loss of these programs will have a devastating impact on future generations of artists and arts educators. - ArtsHub

“The Worst Idea In History” — ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ At 50

That phrase is how one potential investor rejected Andrew Lloyd Webber’s proposal to stage the rock opera he wrote with Tim Rice. (That's why it first appeared as a concept album.) Here's how Superstar got to Broadway— and what happened when it did. - The New York Times

LA’s Center Theatre Group Promises All-Female-Playwright Season Next Year (And Gets ‘Slave Play’ Back)

After criticism for programming few plays by women this season, culminating in Jeremy O. Harris pulling Slave Play from the schedule there, CTG says that the entire 2022-23 season at Mark Taper Forum will be plays by female or nonbinary writers, mostly BIPOC. - Yahoo! (Los Angeles Times)

More Than Half Of British Theatres Have Gone Back To In-Person-Only Performances

"Research has found that 56% of publicly subsidised theatres that had at least one online performance during the first 18 months of the pandemic have none scheduled for the autumn season." - The Guardian

How To Explain Trump’s Love Of The Musical “Cats”?

What Trump is soothed by, perhaps, is not the sentimentality of the song alone but a tensile line of steel to which, Betty Buckley thinks, conceivably with undue generosity, he may even be unconsciously sensitive. - The New Yorker

How Julie Taymor Went From Directing Opera And Off-Broadway To Disney

She was reluctant to do Lion King. "I was interested in the avant-garde. I didn’t have any interest in commercial theatre. I hadn’t even seen the animated cartoon, which surprised Tom Schumacher." But then ... the animals called. - Irish Times

A Last Minute Settlement At The Kennedy Center Keeps The Musical Hadestown Afloat

IATSE stagehands at the Kennedy Center voted to strike if a deal couldn't be reached - but at the last minute, the venue and stagehands hammered out a long-term deal, and Hadestown can go forward. But it was painful for everyone. - Washington Post

Black, Queer, And Other Theatre Artists Left The Flea To Protest Racism

Now the Fled Collective artists are back, in collaboration with the theatre, after 18 months of restorative justice work. - American Theatre

Our Free Newsletter

Join our 30,000 subscribers

Latest

Don't Miss

function my_excerpt_length($length){ return 200; } add_filter('excerpt_length', 'my_excerpt_length');