Category: theatre

The British Library has compiled a specatular trove of recordings of some of England’s most important theatrical performances. “Encompassing stagings by all of the RSC’s artistic directors to date, the track listings read like a roll-call of acting luminaries.”

The striking (or locked out, depending on whom you ask) musicians at New York’s Radio City Music Hall have filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board, saying that the musicians actually accepted the terms of a new contract on Friday, hours after the strike began, but that the head of Radio City’s ownership group refused to implement the deal unless the union placed a newspaper ad saying that it had lied in its press statements leading up to the strike. Radio City isn’t commenting directly on the charge, but it has issued a hotly worded statement blasting the musicians’ union. Radio City’s famous Christmas Spectacular performances have been continuing with recorded music in place of the 35-piece orchestra.

Plymouth, that’s where, as increasingly the Theatre Royal pushes the envelope. “Plymouth may be geographically isolated, but London theatre gets stuck in its own cultural ghettoes. Because we are not metropolitan and fashionable, we have to look very hard at what we can give artists, and one of the things we can offer and develop is a collaborative rather than a competitive culture. I think one of the reasons that writers and companies keep coming back is because we actually talk to them, discuss what they want and how we can help them do it. It is not about the vanity of creating the next big thing but about creating a culture where people can thrive.”

A day after musicians went on strike against Radio City Music Hall, they decided to go back to work. But they were locked out as management replaced them with recorded music. “The musicians, their instruments in hand, pulled down their picket line and returned to work Thursday morning after a one-day strike. But they wound up stranded outside Radio City as thousands of ticket-holders streamed past to attend the first show of the season.”

“The Producers” has shut early in Australia, running only six months. “The show has made a modest profit but only because it ran for eight months in Melbourne last year. It’s a far cry from Disney’s family extravaganza, The Lion King, which packed out the Capitol Theatre for almost two years and is playing to full houses in Melbourne.”

“Scotland, for better or worse, has no great weighty theatre tradition behind it. There is no Shakespeare or Marlowe, no George Bernard Shaw or Wilde. Scottish theatre has always been demotic and vital, led by great performances, great stories or great playwrights. This is a chance to start building a new generation of theatre-goers as well as reinvigorating the existing ones; to create theatre on a national and international scale that is contemporary, confident and forward-looking; to bring together brilliant artists, composers, choreographers and playwrights; and to exceed our expectation of what and where theatre can be.”

It was 20 years ago last week that Les Miserables opened in London. Produced worldwide since then, “Les Miz,” as it is popularly known (or “The Glums”), “has so far been performed in 38 countries in 21 languages,” and “a licensed schools edition has seen 3,000 amateur productions.” It has “penetrated deep into the cultural life of a generation – and there are no signs of an abatement. Why has this happened?”

As South Florida begins to dig out from the damage caused by Hurricane Wilma, the region’s theatres are struggling to cope with the revenue loss that will inevitably be the result of continued power outages and civic chaos. “Most arts groups are hopeful that early-November shows will go on as scheduled, and once a facility’s power is restored, that should be the case.” But the weekend that the hurricane hit was opening weekend for a number of local productions, and “by the time the reviews ran (though people who didn’t get a newspaper, have Internet access or were otherwise consumed with post-hurricane life undoubtedly didn’t read them), the theaters were like the vast majority of South Florida’s population: in the dark.”

Talk to any Broadway veteran for a few minutes, and you’ll be sure to get an earful of the strange and wonderful behind-the-scenes world that most theatre-goers never get a chance to experience. So it’s almost surprising that an “inside Broadway” walking tour has only just sprung up in Manhattan. “Throughout the tour, one’s attention is brought to things even the most eagle-eyed pedestrian can miss. These include the comedy/tragedy gargoyles adorning the Lunt-Fontanne; the diminutive shoeprints of actress Helen Hayes in the sidewalk in front of the theater that bears her name; and the elaborate mural depicting various theater greats adjoining the Marriott Marquis Hotel.”