Category: theatre

Live performance and cabaret acts have never been so popular in the UK. “Welcome to Britain’s Cabarenaissance. Across the country a new breed of night owl has sworn to bring the dressing-up, the decadence and the dandy back into after-hours debauchery. Clubbing is getting classy. For a growing number of people seeking to burn it at both ends, standing in a cramped stench-box listening to some trend-ophile play six hours of ‘fusion grime’ just doesn’t cut the mustard any more.”

“After almost a year of being just about to settle on a new London home, the Royal Shakespeare Company may have finally found one: the Albery in St Martin’s Lane.”

“Australia’s only show-business company listed on the stock exchange, International Concert Attractions (ICA), is looking to the success of the musical Saturday Night Fever to restore its fortunes following last summer’s failure of The Full Monty.”

What, exactly is theatre? A festival sets up the question by inviting a diverse bunch of testifiers. “Connected in diverse ways to the performing arts, the Enquirers are an intriguingly mixed bunch, ranging from the artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company to a 14-year-old pupil at Holland Park School, and from a Buddhist monk who is the caretaker of the London Peace Pagoda to the chair of the British Council. Groups as well as individuals have been recruited. The liberating twist is that testimony need not be given as a conventional talk. It can be presented as a performance piece, or an installation, or however the testifier sees fit.”

Philadelphia theatres had a good year. “At a time when much of the nonprofits arts community is hurting for support, most producing theaters in the area took the decent business of the season before and, if they didn’t build on it, were at least able to match it.”

The sudden resignation of Sharon Ott from Seattle Repertory Theatre has shocked many in the theatre community. “Any time something like this happens, everybody in the field quivers,” adds Berkeley Rep managing director Susan Medak, who worked with Ott for seven years. Drawing parallels to Pamela Rosenberg’s resignation at the San Francisco Opera, Medak cites the increased difficulties in “running an arts institution now. There’s not the general level of support that makes the job easy. The anxiety level has shot up, because you can’t afford to make mistakes. “

The Actors Equity union and Broadway producers have broken off talks on a new contract. “The two sides couldn’t even agree on who ended the talks. Equity said bargaining stalled at 11 pm “when negotiators for producers walked out.” The League of American Theatres and Producers issued a statement just after midnight that began, ‘Actors’ Equity broke off negotiations…”

People are asking why The Producers is closing early in Toronto. Why did the show flop? “Should a show really be considered a flop when it runs for 33 weeks in this town, delighting 400,000 people and pulling in an average of $1 million a week at the box office? Think of this as a tale of great expectations. The New York producers of The Producers were sure they could enjoy a run of more than a year in Toronto, and they did their financial planning based on that assumption. That begins to explain how The Producers could lose money in Toronto.”

“Musical Theatre Works, the not-for-profit company devoted to creating and developing new musicals, is out of money and will shutter immediately, the Manhattan company announced June 25.”

The American theatre community’s annual report on its health makes interesting reading. “In an economy that is seemingly in recovery — yet one in which the threat of uncertainty seems constant — the report is a curious mix of good news, not-so-good news, and plenty of well-considered spin. The announcement that the nonprofit theatre industry contributed a total of $1.4 billion to the U.S. economy, in the form of salaries, benefits, and payments for goods and services, is certainly a positive, yet this was also the figure cited in Theatre Facts 2002. Still, that figure is considerably more impressive than the $923 million figure cited in Theatre Facts 2001.”