Category: theatre

The tourists who pack Broadway shows seem, unaccountably, to have developed a new habit of standing in line outside the theatre they’re waiting to enter, when they could just as easily walk right up to the door and walk to their $100 reserved seat anytime they please. No one seems to know why they do it, and no native New Yorkers seem especially eager to point out that the big line o’ tourists isn’t strictly necessary. “There was no rational reason to stand in line. Had security lines at airports inured people to standing around, waiting to shed their shoes? Or had Americans since 9/11 come to see lining up as a sign of good citizenry, and a rejection of unseemly anarchy?”

“Popular culture has turned divisive and pop-based musicals are unlikely to be outings that the whole family can enjoy. What gives the musical form its growing heritage status is an appeal that carries across the generations, from war vets to under-tens, and that is such a precious rarity in our fissured society that it demands conservation and participation. Poised at the midpoint of high and mass culture, musical theatre reaches the parts that more formal arts cannot begin to touch.”

Minneapolis’ Guthrie Theatre reports its lowest number of subscribers in seven years. “The Guthrie, which has been led since July 1995 by artistic director Joe Dowling, reported total revenues of $18.6 million and total expenses of $20 million. After a $1.4 million transfer from other funds, the Guthrie had a surplus of $25,874. The theater reported 27,172 subscribers for the 2004-2005 fiscal year — 3,000 fewer than the previous fiscal year.”

“Colorado theaters drew 1.7 million patrons and generated $54 million in ticket revenue in 2004, according to a first-of-its-kind survey by The Denver Post. Pretty good for a state of 4.6 million people. But then there’s the tragic frown: Nearly half of those who attended the theater anywhere in Colorado went to a show at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts. That’s great news for the largest performing-arts center between Chicago and Los Angeles. It is not such good news for the nearly 100 other theater companies in Colorado fighting over the other half.”

“Broadway has never truly been owned by anyone, but its eras always have been defined by the proliferation of a particular producer or creative team. Forty years before Mackintosh and Andrew Lloyd Webber, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein had five musicals running at the same time. Producer Manny Azenberg once had seven shows running simultaneously. “And how many shows did David Merrick have running at one time?” Schumacher asked. Still, this is unmistakably Disney’s time on Broadway – and all things Disney-like.”

London’s Globe Theatre is going to stage a production of Shakespeare in what is thought to be its original pronunciation. “Actors in Troilus and Cressida will recite their lines with accents believed to have been heard on the stage during Elizabethan times. It follows on from brief experiments with original pronunciation during the company’s run of Romeo and Juliet in June 2004.”

It’s six months until the massive new Lord of the Rings musical opens in Toronto, and casting and set-building are well under way. “At $27-million, LOTR is the most ambitious and expensive musical production in theatre history…”

One of the biggest surprises on Broadway this season was the box office success of “Doubt.” “In the surprisingly brief space of four months, “Doubt,” by playwright and “Moonstruck” screenwriter John Patrick Shanley, is in the black, a condition that most Broadway productions never achieve. In mid-June, its producers announced the play had made back the $2 million spent to get it to Broadway. Now their talk is about how best to widen “Doubt’s” reach. Plans are already in the works for a national tour — another rarity for a non-musical. A London run, naturally, is being discussed, and there’s early buzz about a movie.”

“When it comes to the health of theater in Colorado, it all depends on whether you see the mask as half-comedy or half-tragedy. On the smiley side, Colorado theaters drew 1.7 million patrons and generated $54 million in ticket revenue in 2004… But then there’s the tragic frown: Nearly half of those who attended the theater anywhere in Colorado went to a show at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts. That’s great news for the largest performing-arts center between Chicago and Los Angeles. It is not such good news for the nearly 100 other theater companies in Colorado fighting over the other half.”

In the wake of the London bombings, the British arts press has been focusing on a West End play that would be controversial under any circumstances, a docudrama called “Talking To Terrorists.” The fact that such a production even exists speaks volumes about London’s attitude towards political theatre, and makes for a striking contrast with an increasingly prickly American public.