Category: theatre

Jerry Springer, The Opera, has had a rough ride on its UK tour. There have been protests, and ticket sales are slow. “So what does the future hold for Jerry Springer: The Opera? Producer Jon Thoday hopes to stage it in Australia, and has not given up on the idea of a Broadway production, although the controversy around the show has previously made it difficult to attract sufficient funding in America, where the Christian lobby is so powerful.”

The Edinburgh Festival has gone “£1 million into the red after losses of £850,000 in 2005, its organisers said yesterday. The festival ran up the deficit producing a record six new shows last year. Some of the cash is being recouped as the shows are sold on.”

Theatre in Vegas seemed like a natural sell. So why didn’t Avenue Q fail to last more than five months? “Off the record, some Vegas producers hypothesized that Avenue Q struggled because it requires a knowledge of English (hard for foreign tourists), or because despite the puppets, it has some fairly serious themes.”

“For those who work in the theatre, it represents the biggest change in scale and aspiration since the beginning of public subsidy for the arts more than half a century ago. For audiences, too, there are high hopes of bigger, better resourced shows, perhaps even featuring some of those fine Scottish actors, from Sean Connery — well, we can dream — to Tilda Swinton, who ply their trade everywhere except at home.”

“I teach dramaturgy, and I spend a good two or three weeks with my students talking about what different dramaturgs think dramaturgy is. The problem is that the term is used to encompass so many things.” One of her favorite short definitions, she adds, is “information designer, [which tells people that] the dramaturg is part of the design staff. … I’m in charge of the text and context of the play.”

Theatre ticket prices have gone “mad” in London’s West End. It’s £127 for some seats? “These prices weed out the poor, the young and the would-be first-time theatregoer and ensure that the gilded auditorium retains its Victorian smugness and rows of white hair and glinting jewellery.”

“Like any great headlining play, the newest sex scandal to hit America’s acting profession has a fresh twist: the top producer accused of sexually harassing the cast of a Broadway play is a woman.
Her alleged victims are also far from being wide-eyed starlets. Instead they are some of the top names on Broadway, including Irish actor Gabriel Byrne.”

A highly political Scottish theatre says political pressure has been put on the arts council to cut its funding. “The company said it had evidence that council members were being advised to end its funding at a meeting later this month. Taking its name from the 1960s statistic which asserted that 7% of the population owned 84% of its wealth, the company was founded by playwright John McGrath.”

After eschewing a national tour and opening in a special theatre in Las Vegas, Avenue Q was expected to usher in a new generation of theatre in the desert. But after only five months, and selling only 65 percent of its tickets, the show is closing. “The short-lived run of “Avenue Q” in Las Vegas will probably give pause to many Broadway producers who have seen long-running blockbusters and newly minted hits alike head to the desert chasing seemingly no-lose propositions.”

Hairspray was a big musical hit spawned in Seattle. Now the same company (The 5th Avenue) that birthed it is producing another musical-made-from-movie: “The Wedding Singer.” “Could The Wedding Singer be the equivalent of Pearl Jam, a second cash megacow? Despite the predictable standing ovation that greeted Thursday’s world premiere, the answer is, ‘No way’.”