Category: theatre

Theatre is on the decline in Australia – few audiences and fewer productions. “When they are young and starting out, writers hone their skills on the theatrical fringe. But these fringe companies are disappearing. The number of new works being staged around Australia dropped by more than a third in the past 20 years. More specifically, there has been “a jaw-dropping decrease” in theatrical activity in Melbourne in the decade to 2003 – down by 20 productions to 36.”

“Despite an increase in ticket sales over last season, the Shaw Festival has announced a significant deficit for the second consecutive season. At the festival’s annual meeting in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont., on Friday, organizers revealed that the 2004 season ended with a deficit of $2.37 million, resulting in an accumulated deficit of $4.4 million.”

London’s West End theatres had their best year ever at the box office in 2004. “Almost 12m people attended a West End show in 2004, generating receipts of £341,758,566. The arrival of big musicals including Mary Poppins and The Producers is credited with pushing up ticket sales.”

Any theatre critic who’s been on the job for a while starts to see the same weaknesses over and over. “Repeated weekly exposure to the legitimate stage, although occasionally resulting in an exquisitely attuned creature like John Lahr, for the most part creates individuals who are primarily aware that a lot of the same mistakes are being made in a lot of different places.”

Schiller was one of the great German dramatists. Yet his work has never played well in Britain until now. But now he’s a popular money-maker. “The idea that Schiller, shunned for the best part of two centuries by the British theatre, was now big box-office marked a historical watershed. So what has changed? And why is Schiller no longer box-office poison?”

David Esbjornson, the 52-year-old, New York-based stage director, has been named artistic director of Seattle Repertory Theatre. Esbjornson has numerous Broadway and off-Broadway credits, and close ties to such major American playwrights as Edward Albee, Arthur Miller and Tony Kushner.

“Kà is the latest and most grandiose project from Cirque du Soleil. Indeed, it is probably the most grandiose piece of live theatre ever undertaken. The figures only hint at the ambition of the endeavour. Each show features 158 stage technicians and 75 performers. It cost $200 million to create and needs $1 million a week to keep running.” And what do you get for all that money?

It’s common for musicians to return to works of music throughout their careers; an old conductor’s Beethoven is decidedly different from the young. Such relationships with a work of art are rarer in the theatre. So what’s it like to play the same role in a play separated by decades?

What’s the appeal of all-male Shakespeare? Is it about authenticity, seeing the parts played by men because that’s who Shakespeare wrote them for?

What makes a good musical? There’s no set formula, as a look at musicals set to debut soon shows. “Every idea is improbable until it succeeds. People thought ‘Pygmalion,’ you couldn’t possibly turn that into a musical. ‘Cats’ when it opened in London was considered a big joke.”