Veteran TV writer/showrunner Warren Leight (Law & Order: SVU): "Be open. … Some writers come in with a notion of what they’re going to write and how many actors they’re going to take. And they draft two actors and then they stop. And inevitably when they do that, they fail." - American Theatre
"Unlike Beetlejuice, Heathers or Dear Evan Hansen, which all parlayed onstage popularity into huge digital followings, Treason is turning the formula for musical success around. Its producers cultivated an online fandom for three years before raising the curtain on the show." - The New York Times
Peter Marks: "How do you analyze the artistic circuitry of a new musical when the musical’s lyricist is just circuits? I faced this challenge the other night at an off-Broadway theater. ... Living, breathing actors performed the musical, but no human brain put the words in their mouths." - MSN (The Washington Post)
Laura Collins-Hughes travels to Donegal, in the northwestern corner of Ireland, to visit Glenties — not Friel's own hometown, but that of his mother and aunts (think of the five women of Dancing at Lughnasa), where he spent childhood summers and is now buried. - The New York Times
I have been told that staff, tasked to phone up lifelong supporters and subscribers who didn’t renew for the first time, had to be given counselling after hearing the harrowing explanations they were told for why. - The Stage
Six-thirty may not be a traditional starting time for theatre. But then in the 16th and early 17th-century, before the advent of the indoor playhouse, afternoon performances were the norm; in the interwar-period 8.30pm was common. - The Stage
That's the gambit being tried with a new adaptation, co-directed by Tony Goldwyn and Savion Glover, that's getting a five-day run in New York this week. (Another change: the addition of tap-dancing ancestral spirits called the Griots.) - The New York Times
It’s certainly arguable that the company overreached in pursuing such an extensive rebuild, rather than limping along in what was left of the old space. - Oregon Arts Watch
It's not easy to get one of the slots at the National Alliance for Musical Theatre's Festival of New Music, but this countries-spanning musical beat hundreds of others on its way to the show. - KLCC (Oregon)
In Jeton Neziraj’s Negotiating Peace, "vain generals can only be lured to the negotiating table by promises of Hollywood films celebrating their actions. Opposing parties get drunk while negotiating demilitarised zones, mix up drafts of ceasefire agreements and sign on the wrong dotted line." - The Guardian
"We weathered our own shutdown of sorts, pausing our print publication in May 2020. Now that we’re back on ink and paper, I have frequently been asked: Why now? Isn’t this a counterintuitive move, given the state of the American theatre, let alone of publishing?" - American Theatre
Early Monday morning, thieves stole a U-Haul containing the hundreds of puppets, costumes, and equipment used in Hamid Rahmanian's Persian-style shadow-puppet show Song of the North. The truck was located in Richmond on Wednesday; most of the puppets were there, though the costumes and electronics were gone. - The New York Times
Hampshire High School in the Chicago suburbs had been planning to stage "The Prom" — about, ironically, a school that tries to cancel a dance rather than letting a gay couple attend — when district officials "postponed" the show for "safety" reasons. The ensuing uproar changed their minds. - MSN (Chicago Tribune)
