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Theatre

Longtime Folger Theatre Director Janet Griffin To Step Down

THEATRE Posted: January 27, 2021 1:28 pm

The announcement means the departure of one of Washington’s longest-serving theater chiefs and an opening in a company with a prestigious literary pedigree: It is an arm of one of the world’s great classical collections, the Folger Shakespeare Library. – Washington Post

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Read the story in Washington Post Published: 01.27.21

Stand-Up Comedian Jailed For Jokes He Hadn’t Told Yet

THEATRE Posted: January 27, 2021 7:03 am

On New Year’s Day, Munawar Faruqui, a rising talent in India’s relatively new comedy circuit, was starting off a two-week tour with a gig in Indore when the leader of a Hindu extremist group accused Faruqui, who is Muslim, of “insulting religious sentiments” (a crime in India) and had him arrested. He had not yet even started his routine. Two courts have denied him bail, and the police say releasing him would cause “a law-and-order situation.” – BBC

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Read the story in BBC Published: 01.26.21

When Everything Is Seen Through A Screen, What Is Theatre?

THEATRE Posted: January 26, 2021 2:01 pm

“Digital performance has only exacerbated the definitional crises during this year of hard and soft quarantine. At a recent UCLA roundtable on the subject of the future of theater, I came to the conclusion that, even in this pioneering moment in which artists from different time zones can collaborate without ever coming into direct contact, place still matters.” – Los Angeles Times

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Read the story in Los Angeles Times Published: 01.26.21

The Playwright We Need To Snap Us Out Of The Past Four Years Is Brecht

THEATRE Posted: January 26, 2021 8:05 am

“Telling a lie over and over can make it seem true. It can also remove agency from the viewer, ceding the individual’s judgement over to the expectations of the story being told. Brecht refused to let his audience lose themselves in the funhouse mirror of such representations. ‘Art is not a mirror held up to reality but a hammer with which to shape it,’ he wrote.” – Zócalo Public Square

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Read the story in Zócalo Public Square Published: 01.21.21

André Gregory: What I Learned From Brecht (And His Wife)

THEATRE Posted: January 26, 2021 7:33 am

“As I was at the beginning of my education as a young director, as well as a nervous, nerdy intellectual, I asked Helene Weigel about the Verfremdungseffekt, Brecht’s famous ‘alienation effect’ theory. … Weigel laughed and said something like, ‘Don’t pay any attention to Bert’s bullshit and theoretical nonsense. Just look at the work. Look at the work, and see what you see.'” – American Theatre

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Read the story in American Theatre Published: 01.21.21

Before Coming Back To Live Interior Performances, Theatre Audiences Want Vaccines And Masks

AUDIENCE, THEATRE Posted: January 24, 2021 7:30 am

A survey of frequent theatregoers says that widespread vaccines are the only way most people will feel comfortable in the theatre – and, even with that, 94 percent of those surveyed said they still want mask requirement in place. – American Theatre

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Read the story in American Theatre Published: 01.21.21

Pandemic Lockdowns Were Supposed To Be A Chance To Rethink The Ways Theatre Operates. Has That Happened?

AUDIENCE, THEATRE Posted: January 22, 2021 9:01 am

To an extent, yes, it has. Reporter Natasha Tripney talks with theatremakers around Britain about the positive developments — the success of streaming, increased engagement with communities, more egalitarian casting, long-distance collaboration — that started to arise during this public health disaster. – The Stage

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Read the story in The Stage Published: 01.21.21

‘Moulin Rouge!’ — An Oral History Of A Broadway Smash Snuffed Out By Disease

THEATRE Posted: January 21, 2021 12:01 pm

“Set in fin de siècle Paris but supercharged by 75 pop songs, it opened to a rave from The New York Times (‘This one’s for the hedonists,’ exulted Ben Brantley), and it was regularly selling out all 1,302 seats, even during a holiday season when it cost $799 to watch from a cafe table encircled by cancan dancers.” Then came COVID, of course: not only did the show have to close, 25 (!) members of the company, including all three leads, got sick. – The New York Times

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Read the story in New York Times Published: 01.21.21

Take It From A Times Theater Critic: The Trump-To-Shakespeare Analogies Really Don’t Work

THEATRE Posted: January 20, 2021 7:35 am

Jesse Green: “I admit that I do it too. … But even these comparisons are reductive — in both directions. Shakespeare’s characters are much richer and more readable than someone as unforthcoming as Trump. At the same time, we’d be lucky if he were merely Shakespearean; no made-up villain, even Iago, is as alarming as someone for whom all the world is truly a stage.” – The New York Times

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Read the story in New York Times Published: 01.19.21

Founders Of Belarus Free Theatre Get Death Threats From Lukashenko Government

THEATRE Posted: January 20, 2021 5:05 am

“We will definitely find you … and we will hang you side by side.” So said a column in Sovietska Belarus, the more-or-less official newspaper of the post-Communist dictatorship. The targets were Natalia Kaliada and Nicolai Khalezin, who fled to the UK as political refugees in 2011 but have continued to work long-distance with Belarus Free Theatre, which they founded in 2005 and which still produces and performs dissident drama in secret. – The Daily Mail (UK)

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Read the story in Daily Mail (UK) Published: 01.12.21

How Did American Theater Deal With The Trump Era? Urgently

THEATRE Posted: January 19, 2021 11:04 am

“For the most part, it didn’t aim straight at the president. … Rather, producers elevated formally adventurous, politically incendiary plays — like Heidi Schreck’s What the Constitution Means to Me and Jeremy O. Harris’s Slave Play — that spoke meaningfully to our nation’s troubled soul. Audiences, hungering for that holiest of dramatic experiences, catharsis, used the ritual of theatergoing to think and hurt and heal.” – The New York Times

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Read the story in New York Times Published: 01.18.21

Stage Union Volunteers To Help Theatres Be Vaccination Sites

THEATRE Posted: January 19, 2021 8:30 am

Jonas Loeb, communications director of IATSE, says this time around turning music venues into a vaccination center would require a new configuration. “It doesn’t use any unusual technique.” He adds, “The workers know those venues better than anyone else and can help hook up all necessary utilities quickly and efficiently. To them, it’s a relatively normal job, but with different stakes.” – Variety

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Read the story in Variety Published: 01.16.21

What’s To Become Of The Trump Impersonators?

THEATRE Posted: January 18, 2021 2:28 pm

“No one is going to want to see my Donald Trump” now. Anyone who is seeking Trump comedy after Jan. 21, I just feel bad for them.” – Washington Post

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Read the story in Washington Post Published: 01.16.21

UK Courts Are Leasing Theatres For Courtrooms – Artists Are Objecting

THEATRE Posted: January 18, 2021 2:01 pm

Three national lockdowns in Britain, as well as tough social distancing guidelines, have hampered the business of England’s court system this past year, creating a huge backlog of cases. Since July, the country’s courts service has been renting suitable spaces — like theaters, but also conference centers and local government buildings — then turning them into temporary courtrooms. – The New York Times

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Read the story in The New York Times Published: 01.18.21

The Musical Fantasy World Created By Teens That Has Spawned Three Concept Albums For Broadway Shows

AUDIENCE, THEATRE Posted: January 17, 2021 8:30 am

Yes, it’s partly because of TikTok and the world of duets, collaborations, and free-flowing (but in this case, very directed) creativity. But it’s so much more: “Averno [is] the setting of a sprawling, cross-platform universe over TikTok (125,000 followers), Instagram (47,000 followers), Spotify (1.4 million streams), YouTube, Twitter and Tumblr. It encompasses podcasts, livestreams, novels and short stories, TV and film scripts, an extensive alternate-reality game and, yes, musicals — all at different stages of completion.” – The New York Times

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Read the story in The New York Times Published: 01.15.21

Unlocking The Technology Of Relationships

THEATRE Posted: January 15, 2021 3:01 pm

What does it look like when a small-scale, long-term community effort in Detroit is connected to a small-scale, long-term community effort in Seattle or Dallas? What is there to learn and exchange in that story being shared? In a national or federal approach to storytelling, you lose so much texture, so much detail, because in an effort to make stories accessible to more people, to build power on a bigger scale, stories get reduced. – Howlround

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Read the story in Howlround Published: 01.14.21

Lessons From 40 Years Performing Online

THEATRE Posted: January 15, 2021 2:01 pm

“Everything about the experience of using a computer is still flat, everything uses these windows, but then we also have high-speed processes that allow for these windows to actually be functional.” – Howlround

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Read the story in Howlround Published: 01.14.21

When Yiddish-Speaking Puppets Roamed The World

THEATRE Posted: January 15, 2021 11:03 am

Puppetry had never been part of the Yiddish theater tradition, but in 1920s America, they were all the rage. So in 1925-26, a pair of writers created a Purim shpiel (the Jewish equivalent of a Christmas panto) with puppets. It was such a smash success that the two men ended up creating a puppet company that put on Yiddish shows nine times a week year-round in New York City and toured the Eastern Seaboard and Midwest, Cuba, Britain, France, Poland, and, ultimately, the Soviet Union. Yet the whole odyssey lasted less than a decade. – Smithsonian Center For Folklife & Cultural Heritage

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Read the story in Smithsonian Center For Folklife and Cultural Heritage Published: 01.12.21

How Paris Theatres Keep Putting On Plays While The Pandemic Has Stopped Public Performances

THEATRE Posted: January 15, 2021 10:01 am

Shows were running in the French capital for a few months last year, before a big new wave of COVID infections led to a new lockdown and a crop of new productions were going to waste. But not anymore: leave it to Parisians to find an inventive way to break the rules while officially obeying them. – The New York Times

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Read the story in New York Times Published: 01.14.21

Negro Ensemble Company: A Brief History Of A Pathbreaking Theater Group

THEATRE Posted: January 14, 2021 11:04 am

The NEC’s roots lay in a drama workshop for Harlem youth that founder Robert Hooks ran in a makeshift theater in his apartment until the landlord found out. The professional company was born in 1967 with a Ford Fourndation grant, and it went on to become perhaps the most successful Black theatre group in the world, with a Pulitzer, two Tony Awards, more than a dozen Obies — and more than 4,000 alumni (including quite a few famous names) who learned acting, directing, and theater tech there. – American Theatre

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Read the story in American Theatre Published: 01.13.21

For 100 Years, Magicians Have Been Sawing People In Half

THEATRE Posted: January 13, 2021 11:58 am

On January 17, 1921, in a north London theatre, “an English magician called Percy Thomas Tibbles literally and laboriously sawed through a sealed wooden box that contained a woman. It was a sensation and has since become one of the best known magic tricks, performed with all manner of tools and varying degrees of blood – always involving someone cut in half and nearly always with them miraculously put back together.” – The Guardian

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Read the story in The Guardian Published: 01.10.21

Do Critics Shape The Theatre Of Their Time? Ben Brantley Says —

THEATRE Posted: January 12, 2021 9:01 am

“Has it really happened that way, though? To go back to my paragon, Pauline Kael, she was perceived as shaping the course of Hollywood, and I’m not sure she did when you look back at it. Culture — like history, and we know how perverse and also cyclical history can be — follows its own inevitable patterns. … I don’t think critics are shapers. I think we’re mirrors.” – American Theatre

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Read the story in American Theatre Published: 01.11.21

Freelancers, The Lifeblood Of British Theatre, Are In For Another Terribly Rough Year

THEATRE Posted: January 11, 2021 5:15 am

The situation under the third lockdown is, if anything, worse than in March because the freelancers don’t have anything to fall back on. “In telephone interviews this week, four theater freelancers said they had set up their own businesses to get through the pandemic; another said he was working as a delivery driver; and another said she was relying on a combination of unemployment checks and parental support.” – The New York Times

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Read the story in The New York Times Published: 01.08.21

The Royal Shakespeare Company Attempts A Return Of A Midsummer Night’s Sax Comedy

THEATRE Posted: January 10, 2021 12:30 pm

Swinging the Dream, a 1939 musical that flopped after 13 performances despite (or because of?) having a cast of 150 and three bands. It’s being revived, rewritten, and live-streamed during the pandemic. – The Guardian (UK)

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Read the story in The Guardian (UK) Published: 01.06.21

Dr. Fauci Says That Theatres May Reopen In The Fall If Vaccination Program Is A Success

AUDIENCE, THEATRE Posted: January 10, 2021 5:00 am

He said that “the timeline hinged on the country reaching an effective level of herd immunity, which he defined as vaccinating from 70 percent to 85 percent of the population.” In addition, audiences will likely be required to wear masks for some time, for the safety of performers and staff. – The New York Times

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Read the story in The New York Times Published: 01.09.21

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