Theatre

Comedians are desperate to get back on stage, said Kai Humphries, and to hear the roar of laughter rather than car horns. He found that he had slipped into a familiar rhythm on stage, timing his gags around the honks signifying his audience’s laughter. “It was strange to adjust because the sound of a car horn usually has a negative connotation,” he laughed. “When I was driving back from the gig, another driver honked their horn at someone and I got a feeling of warmth from it.” – The Guardian

“The show, The Under Presents: Tempest, is a technological first: a live, scripted, participatory play that you attend, from home, using a virtual reality headset. After buying a $14.99 ticket (an in-app purchase inside an esoteric virtual reality game, The Under Presents), and powering up at a set time, you arrive in a virtual theater lobby, with your avatar clad in a black cloak and glowing mask. You can’t speak, but you can gesture. A live actor … leads you and six or seven other audience members to a firepit in the Hollywood Hills, then to Prospero’s island, then back to the firepit for marshmallows and a dance party. … Live actors and live audience members meeting in a shared space at precisely timed intervals. [It] sounds like theater. Sometimes, it even feels like theater. Is this a brave new world for live performance? Or just another app?” – The New York Times

“This is theater of the mind, you know?” Wild says. “We do so much vocal work in the program, so much text work, so much breaking down a scene — What is this character doing? What do they want? What are they after? How do we portray that? — and it all transfers to radio.” – Washington Post

Jesse Green: “For months I’ve been waiting for industry groups to galvanize themselves into meaningful action, as they did in Britain — and as Black theater artists have proved can be done here, too. … But the American theater’s biggest failure is the one that renders it helpless in an existential crisis like this. In allowing itself to be cast as just another industry — a role it does not even play very well — it has disowned its true identity as a public entitlement. Will anyone make that argument now?” – The New York Times

Anna Fleischle, an award-winning designer, has defined “a moment of reset in our industry.” Rachel O’Riordan, artistic director of the Lyric Hammersmith, says she is looking at the public square outside the theatre on King Street. West End producers know that the days of the premium ticket and rip-off booking charges are over. And one can only say to all three parties: what took you so long? – Prospect Magazine

How can one story simultaneously broadcast a contemptible message of myopic reverence for America’s Founding Fathers to some, while others take from it an equally powerful repudiation of everything those founders represent? Unraveling this question requires understanding Hamilton as the messy, mutable product of two masters: its creator, Lin-Manuel Miranda, and the constantly roiling cultural context in which it’s been viewed, especially in 2020. – Vox

Congratulations! Your MFA in directing is about to be put to good use, effectively proving your father wrong about your job prospects. Your firm grasp of Schopenhauer’s aesthetic theory, not to mention your dissertation on the dramatic relevance of Aristotle’s Poetics, will give you the edge you need to pour into your cast of laypeople like the eager, empty vessels they are. – McSweeney’s

“The union, which represents 51,000 actors and stage managers around the country, said it had given the green light to two summer shows in the Berkshires region of Western Massachusetts: an outdoor production of the musical Godspell, and an indoor production of the solo show Harry Clarke.” – The New York Times

So you caught the Hamilton addiction, but that’s only one streaming performance … where are the Schuyler sisters, where are the soldier boys, where are the generals now? – The New York Times

Theatre continues, in some ways weird or alarming and in other ways perfectly creative, during the lockdowns, shutdowns, quarantines, and pandemic numbers spikes. – The New York Times

That is, Netflix, Sam Mendes, Steven Spielberg, and a series of small grants. “The fund will provide short-term relief to hundreds of theater workers and freelancers across the U.K., and particularly those from underrepresented groups, which are disproportionately affected by the crisis.” – Variety

Why have Chicago’s for-profit institutions been so hit? The main reason is their total revenue dependence. A big non-profit potentially can rely on its board members to bankroll it through these hard times, or can sweet talk its big donors. In some rare cases, endowments can be tapped. But that’s not true of for-profit theaters, entirely reliant on ticket sales, bar takings and concessions for their survival. – Chicago Tribune

“Todd London reflects on why and how we gather, and looks at the canons-in-the-making of four African-American playwrights — Jackie Sibblies Drury, Aleshea Harris, Anna Deavere Smith, and Dael Orlandersmith — for how they serve as a map for this moment of revision.” – HowlRound

For the uninitiated, it remains the cultural event of a troubled season. Disney Plus has reputedly suspended all discounts and free trials ahead of Hamilton’s debut on the streaming service. Expect complete internet breakage. – Irish Times

Belarus Free Theatre — outlawed by its homeland’s dictatorship, forced to rehearse and perform in secret, and with its artistic directors living in asylum abroad — has years of experience using secure high-tech platforms to work together remotely and livestream its plays. The company has been unusually productive in the months since the pandemic arrived, and its newest production is already making news. – HowlRound

Something is palpably different among playwrights of the millennial generation, who are envisioning, demanding and conjuring into existence a new and more diverse spectatorship. Their relationship with audiences, rather than operating in the quid pro quo manner of our commercial theater or the insider code of the avant-garde, is charged with protest, clarifying anger and targeted love. – Los Angeles Times

The global circus giant was struggling with an estimated $900 million in debt (much of it incurred by acquiring other companies) even before the pandemic hit and ended all ticket income. In exchange for restructuring and reducing that debt, three of the existing owners have agreed to recapitalize Cirque with $300 million, and the government of Quebec will provide a backup guarantee in order to keep the company’s worldwide headquarters in Montreal. – CBC

No, not like the National Theatre Live performances – more like the 1950s style playhouses. “What I’d like to see is both more modest and more ambitious: a TV series that brings together leading nonprofit theatres to stage new plays appropriate to production in studios without audiences. This may discourage broad comedies and musicals, which thrive on laughter and applause, but it would still allow for a wide range of potential material. Protocols are now being established in Hollywood and New York for studio work designed to protect the safety of cast and crew, and these would make production on this scale possible.” – American Theatre

The Broadway League said Monday that theater owners and producers will refund or exchange tickets previously purchased for shows through Jan. 3. Given the unpredictability of the coronavirus pandemic that has prompted the shuttering of Broadway, the League said it was not yet ready to specify exactly when shows will reopen. – The New York Times

Without the small stages, emerging voices in British theatre don’t have much of a chance. One playwright: “Uncertainty is dreadfully demotivating. I intended to use the lockdown to write a new play that’s been nagging at me, but I’ve hardly written a word. For the first time in a decade and a half, I cannot see much prospect of getting it performed.” – The Guardian (UK)

People are right to be frustrated about the lack of diversity backstage, says the president of the Broadway League, which is ready to perform a “diversity audit” of many parts of Broadway. She says that the League can’t force participation, but that it “would strongly encourage all affected entities, including labor unions and nonprofits that operate on Broadway, to cooperate with the researchers.” – The New York Times

Jose Solís: “As an insider who still holds a little bit of hope about the possibility of change happening within these overly white spaces, I would like to propose some things the Drama Desk and the Outer Critics Circle can do to secure a more diverse membership, who in return will honor shows that defy conventions of what good theatre is, and who gets to make and star in it.” – Token Theatre Friends

The actor who played Burr in the original off-Broadway and Broadway casts on negotiating better pay for the soon-to-be-out movie: “You want to be an ally? You make sure that Black people and people of color and women are getting paid, that they’ll be able to take money home to their families. It’s not about revenge, it’s about equality.” – Los Angeles Times