National tour presenters are feeling betrayed by producers of Avenue Q. They feel that they were “duped” into voting a Tony for the show thinking that it would help the tour business. Instead,”the news that the show would skip a national tour and instead run, in the fall of 2005, in a $40 million, 1,200-seat theatrical venue being built by Steve Wynn in his new $2.5 billion casino, the Wynn Las Vegas Resort and Country Club, snapped the business (and those who cover it) to attention. For road presenters, it caused a reaction as close to a paroxysm as the theatre ever sees.”
Category: theatre
West End Blues (Chapter XXX)
Six London plays have closed less than a month after opening this season. Two ‘blockbuster’ musicals are also about to “expire.” All of which has West End producers fretting about the state of their business.
Call: A Theatre In Every Town
“In 1988, Nigeria published a well-articulated Cultural Policy which promises to mobilise and motivate the people by disseminating and propagating ideas which promote national pride, solidarity and consciousness.” And how best to do that? Theatre. “One of the important steps is to build an average size theatre auditorium in every local government area. A 2000-seater auditorium in every local government area, will give great social service to this nation, especially because it is situated in the metropolis of Lagos, the city that inhabits people from every part of the country.”
Actors Authorize Strike
Members of the Actors’ Equity union have voted 98 percent to authorize a strike if negotiations on a new contract are stalled.
Library Gets A Chunk Of Broadway History
“The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts has received a gift of thousands of pages of scripts, songs and other pieces of stage memorabilia from two of Broadway’s best-known musical teams: Kander and Ebb, and Bock and Harnick. The donation, ranging from scraps of pure inspiration to less successful discards, gives a glimpse of the sometimes delightful, sometimes devilish backstage grind that went into making classic musicals like Cabaret and Fiddler on the Roof.“
Troubled Or Not, That’s A Great Name For a Theatre Company
“The Soulpepper Theatre Company broke ground yesterday morning for a new $12-million theatre and school in Toronto’s Distillery District… The 13-acre site of the historic Gooderham’s Distillery has been made over as an arts and entertainment district, which opened a year ago. But the project has been troubled, with disappointing public attendance and financial conflict among its developers.”
Getting Their Day In Court, Sort Of
The Bush Administration has been adamant in its claims that the detainees being held at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba do not have a legal right to trial, or even a right to have a lawyer question the circumstances of their confinement. But on a stage in London, the issue is being hashed out nightly before sold-out crowds. Guantánamo: ‘Honor Bound to Defend Freedom’, which pits U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld against detainees, judges, and lawyers arguing for due process, is drawn directly from actual statements made by the principals in the debate, and it is intensifying the political debate in the UK.
Move On – Channeling Martha Graham
Richard Move is back with his Martha Graham show in which he plays the great dance diva. “Barring the occasional benefit, it has been more than three years since Mr. Move’s poignant, meticulously researched and hilarious interpretation of Ms. Graham has graced a New York stage.”
Why Avenue Q Cleaned Up At The Tonys
Why did “Avenue Q” win at last week’s Tony Awards? Lots of reasons, really, writes Frank Rizzo. But perhaps the main one was that the show calculatingly positioned itself as a worthy underdog…
Legally Bland? The Blonde Movie To Become A Stage Musical
The latest movie to be turned into a Broadway musical? Legally Blonde, which is due to hit stages in 2005. “It will join a string of hit movies to make it to the stage, including Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and The Full Monty. Tony award-nominated Jerry Mitchell will direct and choreograph the stage version, film studio MGM said.”