ArtsJournal: Arts, Culture, Ideas

THEATRE

Last Year, Protesters Demanded Philadelphia’s Walnut Street Theater Address Racial Inequities There. And What Did Management Do?

Well, you can't say they did nothing whatsoever … - Broad Street Review (Philadelphia)

Broadway Theater To Be Renamed After James Earl Jones

"The Shubert Organization, which is Broadway's biggest landlord, … said Wednesday that it would name the Cort Theater, a landmark 110-year-old house located on West 48th Street," after the 91-year-old actor. - The New York Times

London: The Theatre’s Great. The Going To Theatre Not So Much

I’d been able to stop thinking about the ventilation, wondering what I was breathing and whether it was worth it. I decided it wasn’t and fled at intermission, back onto the street, back into the open air. - The New York Times

Another Major Chicago Theater Is Losing Its Longtime Director

"Barbara Gaines will exit her position as artistic director of Chicago Shakespeare Theater, the company she founded some 36 years ago, … likely at the end of 2022, (by which point) almost all of the major Chicago-area theaters will have new artistic leadership from the pre-pandemic era." - MSN (Chicago Tribune)

Often, The Show Did Not Ever Go On After Pandemic Restrictions Eased

For instance, among the dozens of hard stories, "at the shutdown’s outset, Signature Theatre in Arlington had to scratch the world premiere of Camille Claudel, a decades-in-the-making musical by Frank Wildhorn and Nan Knighton that has not been rescheduled." - Washington Post

To Get Museum-Goers Truly Involved In The Work, Add Theatre

Science says it's a good idea. "Audience members, whether they know each other or not, will synchronize their heartbeats while watching a live theater performance" - and that works in a natural history museum as well as a proscenium theatre. - American Alliance of Museums

Time To Get Rid Of Gendered Acting Awards?

What might an awards show that more accurately reflects the world around us actually look like? Specifically, what might an awards show that rewards actors without dividing them along the gender binary look like? - American Theatre

Long Wharf Theatre Is Leaving Its Building. So What Is My Relationship With The Company?

This forces me and so many others whose lives have included hours spent in the building to examine how we connect with a theatre conceptually, when there is no longer a fixed location. Is a theatre the building or the work? - The Stage

The Transcript Of The Emmett Till Murder Trial Is Put Onstage For The First Time

The Chicago company Collaboraction has edited the proceedings of the 1955 case — in which an all-white Mississippi jury acquitted two white men who later admitted killing the 14-year-old victim — into an immersive theater piece titled Trial in the Delta: The Murder of Emmett Till. - MSN (Chicago Tribune)

After 46 Years, San Diego Repertory Theatre’s Founding Artistic Director Is Retiring

In 1976, Sam Woodhouse and D.W. Jacobs launched a theater company "for a San Diego that didn't exist at the time" — cosmopolitan, with a vibrant downtown. After more than 330 productions, including 50+ world premieres, that helped create the city he envisioned, Woodhouse is stepping down. - The San Diego Union-Tribune

Madonna Banned Phones At Her Performance. Should Theatres Follow Her Lead?

The Queen of Pop had insisted that everyone attending deposit their phones into small pouches, which were then sealed, given back to us to hold on to, and only unlocked at the end of the show. - The Stage

What “The Music Man” Lost When The Broadway Producers Cleaned Up “Ya Got Trouble”

"Cutting the race-baiting from Harold's signature song feels like an easy enough fix, but … the elision leaves a vacuum at the show's center. Are the people of River City really that worked up about modernity? If Harold Hill isn't selling lightly coded racial anxiety, what exactly is he selling?" - Slate

Long Wharf Theatre Giving Up Its Longtime Home

As the company remade itself, it faced a real estate quandary: whether to renew its expiring lease at the New Haven Food Terminal, just off Interstate 95, where it has been performing for 57 years. - The New York Times

The Audience At This Musical Behaved So Badly That The Director Just Ended The Show

Northern Ireland Opera's performance of Sondheim's Into the Woods in Belfast last Saturday was cut short at the intermission after spectators moved around and talked so much that the cast complained to house management and ushers were abused as they tried to maintain order. - Belfast Telegraph

How Aleshea Harris Puts Black Life Onstage

Hilton Als: "Harris's aim as a playwright is to remove the kitchen sink and slather the stage with blood and celebration. … Just as Tennessee Williams made 'deliberate cruelty' a major concern of his work, Harris aims to show how love can make you a target." - The New Yorker

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