Category: theatre

Jerry Lewis is going to direct a Broadway musical version of “The Nutty Professor.” “I’ve had an awful lot of inquiries about it for years, and I never really bothered to pay much attention to it. I saw this kid perform, and he wanted very much to do that, and he had money. I said, ‘With those pockets, we’ll give it a shot.'”

Hairspray becomes the second high-profile musical to close prematurely in Vegas. “We make this decision with regret and disappointment, but with the reality that the show did not find the audience it needed for us to continue.”

Paul Higgins has left the London fringe venue Theatre 503. But a hacker sent emails purportedly from Higgins saying he had left after a vote of no confidence. “The theatre is currently examining how someone could have gained access to the director’s account and says it is unaware of who might have held a grudge against him.”

Julia Roberts’ star turn in “Three Days of Rain” was the talk of the city when it opened in April, but with two weeks left in the play’s run, ticket brokers say they are finding themselves stuck with hundreds of seats — and are now selling ducats below face value…

“On Broadway the Tonys sometimes help winning shows and sometimes make no difference at all. When the Tony lands at a regional theater, its effect is no more predictable. The winners of the regional award have varied widely.”

This season on Broadway illustrated the worth of good directors. “The battle between art and commerce on what we occasionally still call the Great White Way, continues as ever. But the happy surprise this year is that if you focus on the ample good work being done — and ignore the largely crass cacophony of the season’s musical fare, or the soulless star vehicles that will always be around — you might just be able to convince yourself that it’s a fair fight.”

“Industry pundits and Tony voters are all over the place with their predictions” regarding who will take top honors for best musical in this year’s awards show. This type of speculation is nothing new, of course, but with this year’s race being as close as it apparently is, “some theater people wonder if the balance will be tipped by how the industry feels about the people behind each show.” In an industry as insular as Broadway, that could make for some very hurt feelings.

An Off-Broadway theater is being evicted from its longtime home by the building’s owners, who have a deal in place to turn the property into a hotel. Lamb’s Theater Company, which has rented the space since 1978, is hoping to find a new home somewhere in Manhattan, and to rebuild its existing stage as is.

Black theatre is a scarce commodity in the U.S., outside of repetitive productions of the plays of a small, “commercially viable” group of playwrights. To actor/playwright Ted Lange, the struggle for African-American visability in the theatre world has never been fully engaged, and as part of his continuing effort to promote the genre, “he’s turned the 19 plays he’s written into a cottage industry for small black theaters across the country.”

Actor Richard Griffiths reportedly stopped dead in the middle of a scene during a matinee performance of The History Boys on Broadway this week after several cell phones went off. Griffiths, who has a history of this kind of thing, gave the audience a thorough dressing-down, and threatened to stop the play for good if one more phone went off.