Category: theatre

The show’s getting a pre-Broadway tryout in San Francisco, and “it’s the latest of the Broadway-bound popsicals, those songbook musicals that have been popping up like mushrooms all over the musical theater form.” So how’s it play? “Well, it’s one John Denver tune after another, sung by a cast of six. Diehard Denver fans will miss his uniquely insistent timbre; some may be upset at the ways orchestrator Jeff Waxman has reframed old favorites. Those who consider Denver’s voice akin to fingernails on a blackboard will be relieved by the variety of tones and tempos. But it’s hard to see why they’d want to attend.”

August Wilson’s spirit looms large in all of his works, but never more so than in this production at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles. “Radio Golf,” which examines the price of success for blacks in the ’90s, is the long-awaited finale of his 10-part dramatic cycle about African American life. The project, which took nearly a quarter-century to complete, is seen as both a masterwork of the theater and a treasure of American social history. Celebration of the cycle’s completion has been tempered by last month’s announcement that the 60-year-old writer is battling liver cancer.”

To the surprise of absolutely no one in the New York theatre scene, Lennon, the biographical musical focused on the enigmatic Beatle, is closing only a few weeks into its run. The production had been plagued by problems from the start, and a media report shortly before opening night suggested that the producers and cast were at their wits’ end in dealing with Lennon’s widow, Yoko Ono.

It used to be that America’s East Coast-based stage actors toiled at their craft for little money and less recognition in the vague hope that their efforts would eventually earn them a trip to Hollywood, there to become true stars making real money. These days, the march of the actors seems to be going in the exact opposite direction, as many of Hollywood’s biggest names beat a path to New York to “legitimize” themselves on Broadway stages.

When media giant Clear Channel got into the live theatre business several years back, many in the business feared that the corporate monolith would shortly rule Broadway. But it hasn’t worked out that way – Clear Channel’s stock has been plummeting as its name has become synonymous with bullying tactics and monopolistic business practices – and this week, the company will announce plans to spin off its live entertainment unit. “The general view is that while the spinoff company (as yet unamed) will still have plenty of clout in the touring business (it still controls all those theaters), its presence and influence on Broadway will be greatly diminished.”

London’s Sheffield Theatres has a new artistic director, and while Samuel West is best known for his boyish good looks and serious acting chops, but it may be his fierce commitment to cutting-edge interpretation of classic theatre, as well as his leftist politics, that speak the loudest in his new career. “Even if we’re unlikely to see West in the pages of Hello magazine, he is self-evidently a man with a mission: a Botticelli cherub with balls.”

“A new play by Howard Brenton, author of the notorious work The Romans in Britain, has prompted 200 letters of complaint even before it is unveiled at the National Theatre later this month.”

Hiring Broadway stars for London’s West End seems to be a strategy that works big-time at the box office, says online ticket retailer latsminute.com. “Ticket purchases on the site have tripled in the last year, it said. ‘Going to the theatre has become the in thing to do this year, according to our sales figures’.”

“At present, women artistic directors are less well represented in British theatres than at any point in the past 20 years. Moreover, last year there were 218 new plays staged in Britain – only 38 by women. In the light of these statistics, did women’s companies make a difference?”

London’s Globe Theatre is staging Shakespeare in its original pronunciation. “All this has a certain fascination, and, as “Troilus and Cressida” unfolds, the rolled “r”s, the elided pronouns, and the longer, tenser vowels give the audience a frisson of extra drama. The earthy regional sounds ruffle the familiar strut of Shakespeare’s eloquence and root the language more in the belly than in the larynx. As the antique idiom washes over the mostly roofless auditorium, the audience struggles to suss out the odd bouquet of sound, savoring the hints of Irish, Yorkshire, and Welsh, each with its own verbal spice.
Still, sound must also serve sense.”