Category: theatre

“This spring there’s an unusually rich crop of [Broadway] entries from American Theater 101. Opening in a span of less than two months are three of the American theater’s best-known and best-loved classics: Tennessee Williams’s Glass Menagerie and A Streetcar Named Desire, and Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? This is noteworthy in itself – producers tend to get out of each other’s way when it comes to name-brand, star-spangled revivals – but another phenomenon is even more intriguing: all three plays have been placed in the hands of British directors. Conspiracy? Certainly not. Coincidence? Not exactly.”

The National Park Service is accepting proposals for a renovation of historic Castle Williams, located on New York’s Governors’ Island between Brooklyn and Manhattan, and one of the most intriguing has come from British architect Norman Foster. “Foster has designed an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Globe Theater in London that would fit inside the 194-year-old castle and serve as a stage for Shakespeare productions and other performing arts… The cost of the new theater is estimated at $78 million, including renovation of the castle.”

“Good radio drama, and especially good radio comedy, liberates the listener in the same way as Shakespeare intended his theatre to ‘piece out’ a play’s ‘imperfections’ with our thoughts.” Classic radio comedy is experiencing a bit of a boom in London, and it’s happening not on the airwaves but in Shakespeare’s territory: the theater.

Ticket sales went up when a militant evangelical group, Christian Voice, started protesting outside performances of “Jerry Springer — The Opera” in London, but its tactics may derail plans for a British tour of the musical. Christian Voice, which this month convinced a cancer charity to refuse a donation from the show, is vowing to picket any theaters on a tour. “The group gained notoriety after it circulated the home addresses and telephone numbers of senior BBC figures when Jerry Springer — The Opera was screened on BBC Two last month. Some people on the list received calls threatening them with ‘bloodshed’.”

In South Korea, the popularity of musical theater is growing astronomically, even if many of the productions are Korean takes on foreign shows. “The size of the performing arts industry is estimated at 170 billion won, out of which musicals alone account for almost half (80 billion). Total audience numbers at musical dramas during the last year reached 700,000, almost double the 370,000 musical-goers in 2001. The musical industry is recording an average 15 percent annual growth, but experts expect even greater growth in this year.”

Every theatrical performance begins and ends in the dressing room, with the dresser as the only truth-teller in a profession grounded in fantasy and illusion. The dressing room is a place that can set the tone for a production…

“A cancer charity has refused a donation from ‘Jerry Springer – The Opera’ after a religious group threatened to protest. … Christian Voice said it had warned the charity that accepting cash from a show full of ‘filth and blasphemy’ would be a public relations disaster. The show’s star, David Soul, accused the religious group of ‘strong-arm tactics’ and blackmail – adding cancer was not just a Christian problem.” The show’s cast had waived their wages for a special benefit performance Feb. 18.

Who is Shakespeare? With Bard fascination having become a cottage industry, and new theories concerning his life and work springing up as fast as their proponents can score book deals, it’s a question worth asking. Interestingly, many of the scholars, actors, and directors who know the playwright’s work best respond to the question the way many people would respond to the question, “Who is God?” Case in point: “As every age has re-invented him, so I have cast him in my own private image. As I am a gay man brought up in a Catholic family in Lancashire, so Shakespeare for me is a gay Catholic who spent some time in Lancashire.”

The New York revival of Hurlyburly, starring Ethan Hawke and Parker Posey, has decided to skip its turn on Broadway, opting instead for a run at a high-profile off-Broadway theater. The producers say that the decision was largely a financial one.

Charlotte Repertory Theatre, that city’s major regional theatre, says it has lost its fight to survive, and will shut down. “It is very unfortunate that there was little community support for a core cultural organization — the Rep — in our city. We feel that it is a tremendous loss to the quality of life for our entire region … a major cultural loss that will be felt for many years to come.”