The set designer for the production at the Bard on the Beach Shakespeare Festival: "It just immediately added a layer that I don't think we would have achieved if we had to fake it out of totally brand new bolts of fabric from the store." - CBC
Just what we need: More joyless, foolish bureaucrats quashing theatrical productions. "The interactive show is set at an Italian-American wedding, with a three-course meal, live music and dancing." - BBC
"In the early 1960s, the Jewish American soul was tied in knots. On the one hand, Jews knew they were outsiders. ... On the other hand, Jews were finally starting to get what their immigrant grandparents had worked so hard in sweatshops to achieve." Then came Fiddler. - Salon
He realised that in this case technology had triggered deeper emotions than a stage performance. "VR is a very personal experience as opposed to theatre, which is communal." - BBC
For immigrants, it's seeing their own history on a Broadway stage; for their children, it's a major lesson. ("Growing up, the only thing I really knew about Imelda was her shoe collection.") For the all-Filipino cast, it's revisiting "a past that's hardly in the rearview mirror." - The New York Times
"Here's what to know about Imelda and Ferdinand Marcos, the People Power Revolution of 1986 and the controversies the show" — Here Lies Love, now on Broadway after runs Off-Broadway and elsewhere — "has faced." - The New York Times
As of Sept. 1, Tim Bond, who was the festival's associate artistic director from 1996-2007 and is currently AD at TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, succeeds Nataki Garrett, who departed in May after an extremely challenging four-year tenure which included COVID closures, wildfires, and financial crises. - Ashland.news
"When I watch the shows each year, I feel like I'm at a church pageant for a religion I don't belong to. It's as if it's not supposed to be good theater; it's supposed to be moral instruction that even a child could understand." - MSN (San Francisco Chronicle)
"The crisis is a perfect storm of bad economic and demographic trends, exacerbated by a change in cultural habits during the pandemic. … The confluence has theater business professionals issuing dire warnings. 'By this time next year, I think the industry will shrink by half,'" said one consultant. - MSN (The Washington Post)
“How does expect writers to continue to find the will to write when there is not only little chance of production but also little chance of engaging a theatre in any meaningful discussion about work in which has already expressed an interest? - The Guardian
"Around the country, in blue states as well as red, theater teachers say it has become increasingly difficult to find plays and musicals that will escape the kind of criticism that, they fear, could cost them their jobs or result in a cutback in funding." - The New York Times
"On April 21 of the cursed year of 2020, the Upright Citizens Brigade — New York’s premier improv-comedy venue — announced it was closing its Hell’s Kitchen theater and training center permanently." But now, UCB has announced a new theatre will open in Manhattan this fall. - Vulture
"The desire to tell beautiful stories is still there, but the funding to support fair and livable compensation is not. Operating out of rental venues and struggling to regain audiences post-pandemic, Chicago storefronts find themselves at a crossroads." - American Theatre
"Theaters must think more expansively of themselves as communal spaces, not merely entertainment venues for stage presentations to ticket buyers; what does it mean to be a civic space, a public space, a 'third place'? No, really." - Culturebot
Can anything - musicals, serious plays, popular actors, dramatic cuts to staff, or great bundles of tickets - fix this issue? Who knows? "Audiences haven’t fundamentally changed since they started gathering at dramatic festivals in ancient Greece." - Los Angeles Times
