Theatre

Mann didn’t just lead Princeton’s $23 million theatre from a respected regional outpost to a Tony-winning incubator of new work and new talent. While there she also built on an already ground-breaking career as a documentary-play creator and feminist director to create signature American works as Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters’ First 100 Years. Her stamp is on not only generations of theatre artists but creative administrators as well. – American Theatre

The creator of Hamilton, playing the title role in the musical’s high-profile run in Puerto Rico, was in the middle of the song “My Shot” when he spotted someone recording the show on her phone — and ad-libbed, in rhythm, “Lady filming in the 4th row, please stop it.” (After the show he tweeted “Please don’t make me do that shit again.”) — CBS

An evangelical parish called The International Church in the Midlands village of Mansfield Woodhouse encouraged its members to donate thousands (it would be “giving to God”) to develop a show about Adam and Eve, titled Heaven on Earth, that would tour to stadiums around the UK. The project has now gone bust, with debts of £2.6 million. — BBC

“I don’t fault my friend for fleeing the theatre. This is art that hurts, though, to me, the pain seems entirely appropriate, even welcome. It’s not art of the cloying variety; it doesn’t depict pain that is pity-seeking, or that aims to emotionally hijack an audience on a ride through some dreary personal catharsis.” – The New Yorker

“The role is wrenching, vocally and emotionally, and [Andrew Barth Feldman] will be the first teenager to tackle it on Broadway. The character is 17, but adolescent boys are often thought to be too immature to play adolescent boys, and all of his predecessors have been in their 20s.” — The New York Times

“In London, it is possible to stage a state-of-the-nation play while remaining vague about the nation you mean. Not so elsewhere.” Just ask the folks at the national theatres of Scotland, Wales, and Ireland — the latter two of which are currently caught up in arguments that go right to the heart of their “national” status. — The Guardian

The “School of Rock” features very talented students who can really play their instruments and sing. So just where do you find the talent that can carry the show?

The mayor called the structure an “iconic and historic theater that holds a special place in the hearts of Stratford residents.” The fire was just devastating, she said. – Hartford Courant

The union says actors wages for staged readings in developing projects haven’t increased since 2007. But it believes that actors in this early stage ought to get a cut of future profits. An interesting idea, but it immediately raises questions about who owns what and how they should be rewarded. – Clyde Fitch Report

“In her role at McCarter Theatre Center in Princeton, Mann has overseen more than 160 productions, including more than 40 world premieres, since she became [the artistic director and resident playwright] in 1990. In that time, the theater won a Tony Award for outstanding regional theater, and Mann was twice nominated for Tony Awards as a playwright and director, as well as winning a Peabody Award and numerous NAACP awards.” — NJ.com

The new channel will compete with SiriusXM’s “On Broadway,” which also features songs and such hosts as Seth Rudetsky and John Tartaglia. – Washington Post

The theatre, built with the help of Lincoln Kirstein and Joseph Vernor Reed, and a stage where many actors, including Katherine Hepburn, had performed, had been vacant for years. – Connecticut Post

Lin-Manuel Miranda kicked off the latest of six tours for his musical Hamilton in Puerto Rico, where he once again played the role that, so far, has brought him the most fame. But how does the song “Hurricane” play on an island still traumatized by 2017’s devastation? – The New York Times

“[UCB], facing substantial financial pressures, announced on Wednesday that it would be closing its East Village location in Manhattan, a month after laying off several staff members. That will leave the comedy theater with three venues: Its struggling flagship in Hell’s Kitchen, which opened last year, and two locations in Los Angeles.” — The New York Times

“Actors feel they’re being shoved to the bottom of the food chain again. The Abbey’s success is at our expense. They have managed with this model to reduce our already poor remuneration to pre-millennium levels.” – Irish Times

“In this edited conversation, Ben Brantley, co-chief theater critic for The Times, and the critics Elisabeth Vincentelli and Jason Zinoman aim to make sense of Mr. van Hove’s ascent, from Off Broadway to a Tony Award, David Bowie to All About Eve.” — The New York Times

It was a theatre committed to helping theatre artists work. The theater would allow people to come in with their scripts and put them up with no upfront costs, which is an unusual approach in the L.A. theater scene. In return, the theater would take half of the door proceeds. – LAist

It all started years before, when Eric Idle told Mel Brooks he wanted to do a musical version of The Producers. Brooks rejected the idea — then. When he changed his mind later and made gobs of money, Idle decided he could do the same thing. (Well, that’s how Idle tells it …) — Vulture

“Raised in Mexico City, widely traveled, and based in the Boston area since the 1980s, Bensussen is just the sixth artistic director in Hartford Stage’s 55-year history. She is the first woman to hold the position,” in which she succeeds Tony-winning director Darko Trasnjak. — Hartford Courant

A theatre researcher thinks not: “On the surface, theatres of the real offer authenticity and certainty in their attachment to reality. But watching one of these plays does not produce a secure experience of truth. The closest we can get to an objective reality is the feeling of real, replacing fact with feeling.” – The Conversation

A reporter and photographer travel to Orlando to see 44-year-old Michael Job acting his role at a Biblical theme park called The Holy Land Experience. — National Geographic

The store, known for its wide selection of play scripts and books on theater, had announced that it was going to close after one rent hike too many for its 84-year-old owner. So Miranda, who says he wrote much of In the Heights in the Drama Book Shop basement, got three of his Hamilton producing partners to join with him to buy the business. — NPR

“The Globe’s exhibition space will close following what the London theatre has described as a ‘difficult financial year’, meaning several roles will be restructured and some teams merged. The theatre said the changes to its tours and exhibitions department would impact approximately 40 employees – about 14% of its 288-strong staff.” — The Stage

After being passed over for a promotion, Molly Diers resigned from the theater last January, alleging gender discrimination and a hostile work environment. Now both a union-management arbitrator and the Minneapolis Department of Civil Rights have ruled in the Guthrie’s favor. — The Star Tribune (Minneapolis)