Category: theatre

“Words are the dialectical battleground of Pinter’s works, sometimes treasured and hoarded like irreplaceable gems, sometimes scattered heedlessly like junk in a looted dime store. His people live by them, betray them, bicker over them, flay one another with them.”

“Bringing in new audiences has become an increasing concern for theater companies with aging subscribers. Not only is the coveted 18- to 35-year-old demographic not subscribing, they aren’t even a substantial slice of the single-ticket buying pie. In response, companies are developing clever methods of channeling attention toward their theaters – things like student rush, which offers tickets for reduced rates right before a show. Other theaters are taking more proactive steps, like the College Ambassador Program.”

“When a group of New York producers announced they were bringing Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Woman in White to Broadway, there was plenty of head-scratching around Shubert Alley. The $8 million show, which opened last year in London, had three strikes against it: West End critics gave it mixed reviews; reporters and critics for the [New York] Post and the New York Times who attended the opening night performance registered their reservations; and the box office never took off (an investor in the London production says it’s nowhere close to paying back).” Still, tweaks have been made, and the producers are assuring everyone within earshot that the show is much better now. Unfortunately, they tried to prove it by inviting the critics back…

This week, a trial over the increasingly contentious issue of human genetic history began in Pennsylvania, where a school board member is suing to get “intelligent design” included in the curriculum alongside Darwin’s theory of evolution. Meanwhile, in California, a performance kicked off a tour of a play based on the famous Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925. The rhetoric coming from both venues is white-hot, as religious conservatives and secularists continue to square off across the U.S., and while the theatre company presenting the tour says it isn’t taking sides, the question of evolution, long thought to have been settled, has suddenly become fodder for dangerously political drama.

The British city of Bath has a new children’s theatre, known as The Egg, and its designers are right proud of it, which is good, since they’re also the target demographic. “Children have played a large part in creating this theatre, which has been built inside an old cinema the entrance of which is round the side of its parent company, the Theatre Royal Bath… Being inside the Egg is like being inside a traditional theatre but with none of the more daunting elements. There are no dark velvet curtains, there is no prickly plush, the seats are smooth and not flip-up.” And perhaps best of all, there’s a soundproof room at the back where parents can take a screaming baby away from the crowd while still being able to see and hear the production.

Tom Stoppard and David Hare have each been commissioned to write a new play for the 50th anniversary season of London’s Royal Court Theatre. The Court has been one of Britain’s premiere venues for new plays, and Stoppard said he “[didn’t] want to fall under a bus before having a play on its stage.” Another highlight of the anniversary year will be a rare acting appearance by playwright Harold Pinter, who will perform the role of the “wearyish old man” in a Beckett play. “The Royal Court’s illustrious history as Britain’s new writing theatre has seen it associated with writers such as Edward Bond, Caryl Churchill, Sir David Hare, Joe Orton and Sam Shepard. In the 1990s the theatre nurtured a new wave of talent, including Sarah Kane, Martin McDonagh and Mark Ravenhill.”

In an unprecedented move, the provincial government of Ontario has signed on to become an investor in the massive new musical production of The Lord of the Rings, set to open in Toronto in 2006. “Taking on a role traditionally played by impresarios, idealists and other theatrical gamblers, the provincial government will contribute some $2.5 million of the show’s $23 million budget, betting that the production’s global appeal will justify a unique, and risky, public-private partnership.” The province stands to gain a great deal from a successful run – Toronto will have exclusivity for the show through spring 2007 – and while there is some risk involved, government officials expect the show to turn a $40 million profit.

The Blue Man Group has become a global brand. “What began as an experimental performance-art trio 14 years ago in the East Village has slowly grown into a small global empire. There are now “Blue Man Group” shows in Manhattan, Chicago, Boston, Toronto and Berlin. Today, Blue Man Theater, a 1,760-seat complex, is to open at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas, where the group has previously performed at the Luxor hotel. Next month, the Blue Men will begin playing on the West End in London. All this expansion has meant that dozens of new Blue Men must be recruited and trained.”

“It used to be the case that you opened with a mega-star and then the casting got less starry as you went on. Nowadays that’s totally untrue – quite often you find the person taking over is just as prestigious as the person who created the role in the first place. Actors are no longer loath to take over from someone else. These days what happens is an actor often goes in and recreates the role in his own terms – he doesn’t offer a carbon-copy performance, but rethinks the role.”

The West End’s Royal Court Theatre is turning 50. “But there’s no getting away from it: the home of angry young men is facing middle-aged spread; its position as standard bearer of the new is under threat.”