Patrons attending A Christmas Carol were seated and ready for the 7:30 p.m. showtime when a woman began screaming in the crowd. According to social media posts from witnesses, the woman ranted for upwards of 30 minutes. - Bring Me The News
Charles McNulty: "A musical must establish its own aesthetic logic without apology to rational etiquette. We may think we’re living in a purely realistic drama but our inner lives are belting à la Ethel Merman." - Los Angeles Times
French theatre is massively lacking in diversity, so "Le Mois Kréyol, which was created in 2017 by the Caribbean-born choreographer Chantal Loïal, also celebrates French Blackness — and is a reminder of what the country’s mainstream theater is missing." - The New York Times
Not, in this case, the early-20th-century American genre of variety show. This is 19th-century Parisian vaudeville: popular boulevard comedies depicting simply drawn characters from the bourgeoisie — and sometimes including sharp social satire, as during the cholera outbreak of 1832. - The Public Domain Review
The Wife of Willesden is an update to Chaucer's "The Wife of Bath's Tale," transferring the setting from a carriage carrying pilgrims to Canterbury to a group of 21st-century characters doing a pub crawl through the northwest London neighborhood where Smith grew up. - The New York Times
The theatres challenged the fines, claiming it violated their freedom of expression. They argued Quebec’s ban on indoor smoking goes too far, because it forbids actors from smoking even prop cigarettes onstage. - Toronto Star
"More than four centuries ago a series of plays closely based on real murder cases appeared on the London stage. Their literary quality is variable – they tend to melodrama and moralising, indeed to misogyny – but some are written with real skill and bite." - London Review of Books
Representation absolutely matters. But ever since Broadway announced that so many Black plays would reopen its season, there has been a feeling of dread that if these plays don’t do well, there may not be opportunities for future artists. That pressure is unfair. - American Theatre
Theater salaries, even for full-time jobs, are so low so often that the weekly nationwide theater newsletter Nothing for the Group recently debuted a section called That’s Not a Living Wage. - San Francisco Chronicle
First Folio Theatre, a small Equity company in the Chicago suburbs, will close when David Rice retires in 2024. He and his wife founded First Folio in 1996; they had other sources of income, and the theatre can't afford to properly pay a successor. - MSN (Chicago Tribune)
Los Angeles magician Krystyn Lambert and puppeteer Pam Severn have launched a new variety show called "No Man's Land" featuring circus artists, jugglers, ventriloquists, comics, and, of course, prestidigitators — the goal being "normalize female-dominated shows." - MSN (Los Angeles Times)
In all, the 30 productions had a combined paid attendance of 193,309, about 82% of total capacity. The previous week’s attendance was 78% of capacity. - Deadline
A survey of top execs at 64 companies in 25 states found that, following an initial flurry of interest in the spring of 2020, the vast majority of theaters had disappointing viewership and revenue from their online presentations. Many think it was worthwhile nevertheless. - American Theatre
One year ago, founding director Ari Roth was forced to resign after angry protests from staffers about his, er, management style. (It was the second job Roth lost within a decade over behavioral issues.) Roth's successor is Reginald L. Douglas of the District's Studio Theatre. - MSN (The Washington Post)
Being outside makes theatre more precarious, open to a larger universe of weather and chance. Historically the Athenian tragic festivals embraced and marked the seasons. But in the middle ages the pageant wagons of the York mystery plays wisely filled the city streets in June. - The Conversation
