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THEATRE

“Phantom” Is Coming Back To New York, Says Andrew Lloyd Webber, But Not To Broadway

“In a new Instagram video – watch it below – Lloyd Webber, pretending to speak for the Phantom character, says that the musical is returning but at ‘a better address in New York, in a better area.’” The show ended its 35-year Broadway run in 2023. - Deadline

Broadway Is Selling A Lot Of Tickets To Young Adults

The 18-to-25 demographic isn’t usually considered a target audience for a circuit where tickets are so expensive, but the last couple of seasons have seen productions of shows deliberately aimed at that age group. It seems to be working. - The Guardian

Maybe “Glengarry Glen Ross” Isn’t A Critique Of Cutthroat Capitalism

“What if … Glengarry is instead celebrating the deceit, in fact presenting it as the epitome of manliness? What if Glengarry Glen Ross, quite possibly in ways a younger Mamet himself did not entirely fathom, offers us a joyful ethnography of Donald Trump’s America?” - The New Republic

Study: Number Of Theatre Productions In UK Has Declined By A Third In The Past Decade

In 2024, the 40 best-funded theatre companies that make their own productions - ranging from the National Theatre to the Colchester Mercury - opened 229 original productions, compared with 332 in 2014, a drop of 31%. - BBC

SoulPepper Theatre Launches A Community “Public Domain” Project

 With a full slate of free programming that ranges from workshops and classes to performance, the company is hoping to become a neighbourhood hub. - Ludwig Van

Number Of Productions Staged By British Theatres Has Plummeted Over Last Decade

“The number of plays and musicals staged by the UK's main subsidised theatres last year was down by almost a third compared with 10 years earlier, BBC research suggests. In 2024, the 40 best-funded theatre companies that make their own productions opened 229 original productions, compared with 332 in 2014.” - BBC

Producer Jeffrey Seller Recounts The Gestation And Birth Of “Rent”

“In this excerpt, adapted from Seller’s memoir, Theater Kid (out on May 6 from Simon & Schuster), the producer lays out the musical’s long road from dispiriting workshop to its simultaneously triumphant and tragic first preview performance.” - Vulture

How “Six” Challenges Conventional Broadway Musical Conventions

“Six,” which runs a sleek 85 minutes as an unruly concert where performers are explicitly competing for the audience’s sympathy, might ultimately be less interesting for its girl-power reframing of history than for its reconsideration of some of musical theater’s basic structural assumptions. - San Francisco Chronicle

A French Canadian Comedian Says English-Speaking Audiences Want Different Things

“After years of performing worldwide in French, Quebec comedian Rachid Badouri is touring a new solo show in English, and says there’s a subtle difference in what his new audiences want from him.” - CBC

Bernadette Peters, Back On Broadway, Longs To Ride The Central Park Carousel

Then there’s the time Sondheim took her to the Met for a Seurat exhibition. - The New York Times

The Dutch Avant-Garde Theatre Company That Keeps Sending Shows To The West End And Broadway

That company is Internationaal Theater Amsterdam, directed for 20 years by Ivo van Hove and since 2023 by Eline Arbo. Her adaptation of Annie Ernaux’s The Years originated at ITA before being restaged with British actors in London, where the production just earned Arbo an Olivier Award. - The Guardian

The List Keepers: Recording And Memorializing How AIDS Ravaged New York Theater

“More than 40 years after the start of the epidemic, the full numerical scope of the toll AIDS took on the world of theater in New York remains difficult to assess. It’s not just inaccurate death notices that are the enemy of historical precision; it’s the passage of decades.” - New York Magazine (MSN)

Simon Russell Beale Has Issues With “Titus Andronicus”

And yest he’s currently rehearsing the title role at the RSC. “There are certain plays in the canon that teeter on the edge of acceptability. Titus is one of those for me. I don’t understand the violence. I don’t understand why as an audience we feel excited, stimulated, challenged by it.” - The Guardian

Frank Rich’s Brief History Of Broadway As Business

“The historic fantasy of the Great White Way as a glamorous montage of gleaming marquees, sparky backstage romances, and elegant audiences reveling in black tie was a Hollywood concoction, arguably false from the start.” - New York Magazine (MSN)

Only Ancient Greek Theater In Ionian Islands Has Been Excavated

“Perched on a hillside on Lefkada, an island off the west coast of Greece, the structure has been excavated by archaeologists from the Ephorate of Antiquities of Aitoloakarnania and Lefkada over the past decade.” - Artnet

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