Category: theatre

Despite critical acclaim, women playwrights are badly represented on American stages. “During the 2003-04 season 21 percent of professionally produced plays in the United States were written by women; during 2004-05, the number dropped again to 19 percent. The absolute numbers aren’t changing. There’s simply a kind of schizophrenia in the theater managements. I think that despite the evidence, artistic directors have a strong conviction that plays by women don’t sell’.”

How do you recommend theatre to children? It’s not an absolute. There are many things to account for: “how mature he is relative to others his age, what gives her nightmares or whether the music of Andrew Lloyd Webber would make them start speaking in tongues or spit up.”

A venerable superstition has struck again — that it’s bad luck for theater artists to utter the name “Macbeth.” Amanda McBroom’s solo show opening off-Broadway has had the word deleted from its title. “People are afraid of the word. The arcana is intense.”

“If it isn’t already, Las Vegas will soon be the second city of Broadway, home to more New York musicals than any market outside Manhattan. If Broadway shows went to Vegas instead of touring, what would happen to the traditional road theaters and their customers? More saliently, what would happen to their backers, who are often investors in New York productions? If they were outflanked by casino operators, how would that alter the kinds of shows that make it to Broadway in the first place? For even though the tail of touring had to some degree wagged the dog of Broadway for years, Vegas now threatened to clone a new dog entirely. A big dog with sequins.”

Want a ticket to see Matthew Broderick and Nathan Lane in the new Broadway revival of Neil Simon’s The Odd Couple? Well, you should have thought of that weeks ago. The show is sold out through the end of its planned run, and the producer recently came to the dual realizations that a) he no longer has to care what the critics will say, and b) it would be dishonest for him to place any ads for the show, since he has no tickets to sell. Of course, if you’re truly desperate for your Broderick-Lane fix, you could always try the ticket brokers, but bring plenty of cash: a decent seat is going for as much as $1000.

A group of regional performing arts centers in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Boston, Hartford, and St. Paul have banded together to form a new production company, with the intention of developing new touring shows which can play profitably at the centers, and also creating larger shows which could be of interest to Broadway. The five centers will share production costs and profits, and all will have equal rights to shows developed by the new partnership.

Johnny Cash, who died in 2003, will become the latest musical legend to have his material tried out on theatre’s biggest stage when a show featuring his music moves to Broadway next year. “More than 35 of the country star’s songs will performed in Ring of Fire, although no actor will actually portray Johnny Cash. The show, directed by Tony winner Richard Maltby, has received favourable reviews during its short preview run in Buffalo, New York… Cash had given his approval for the musical before his death, having previously rejected several projects.”

Musicians at New York’s famed Radio City Music Hall are threatening to strike over the issue of overtime pay for the venue’s popular Christmas Spectacular. (Yeah, that’s the one with the Rockettes.) A strike could jeopardize the show, which draws huge numbers of tourists and is a New York institution, but Cablevision, which owns Radio City, has issued a statement saying that it “fully expects” to reach an agreement with the musicians before the show opens for the year.

Broadway shows based on movies – “movicals” – are hot these days. “In an era that has few big name songwriters of the ilk of Cole Porter, or Rodgers and Hammerstein, the stage must increasingly rely on other familiar brands. Lord of the Rings is the latest hit film bound for the stage, though one could argue that the production is based on JRR Tolkien’s trilogy – not the Peter Jackson films. But coming hot on the heels of Jackson’s Oscar success, the musical will undoubtedly benefit from the book’s big screen adaptation.”

Are ticket prices a deterrent to going to the theatre? October 20 has been declared National Free Night of Theatre day and the Bay Area is one of three cities testing out the idea. “The idea is to attract new audiences and to reward the curious and faithful as well. Participants cover the spectrum from the highest-profile companies to a host of midsize and small groups. Theatre Bay Area, affectionately known as TBA (for obvious reasons), has announced the availability of more than 4,000 free seats that evening at more than 70 large and small companies.”