“We have heard stories about people finding the confidence to get their first ever job or making new friendships with people from a different generation, area or culture who they didn’t think they’d ever otherwise have met. And even, in one case, suddenly finding their chronic pain causing them much less of an issue. Most common of all, perhaps, was a shared sense – that audience members also spoke about night after night – of feeling more connected to their home and their city than they had ever felt previously.” The Guardian
Category: theatre
‘It’s Like The Life Of An Athlete’: How Ethan Hawke Prepares Himself, Eight Times A Week, For ‘True West’
“The unfortunate thing about [stage] fights is the more you practice them, the better they get, the more out of control they can seem. … We have to work really hard to make sure we actually feel like the other one is not trying to hurt us, so that [co-star] Paul [Dano] and I can maintain our friendship.” (photo journal) – Vulture
The Musical That’s ‘Too Dark To Live’: ‘Lolita, My Love,’ Lerner’s Worst Disaster
Troy Patterson: “Its first act is weird and perfect; the second indicates the limits of this salvage operation. In The Complete Lyrics of Alan Jay Lerner, the editors ask, in a headnote, ‘How could songs and laughter be woven into a sinister story of a murderous pedophile?’ In other words, how do you solve a problem like Lolita? You don’t, not entirely, but the attempt offers a rare view of a masterpiece.” – The New Yorker
Broadway Hit: “Network” Makes Back Its Investment In Just 15 Weeks
One of this Broadway season’s clearest successes, the play, directed by Ivo van Hove and also starring Tony Goldwyn and Tatiana Maslany, routinely posts weekly box office of $1 million or more, playing to sell-out or near-sell-out houses. For the week ending March 3, Network grossed $1,024,594, with 99% of seats filled. – Deadline
Edinburgh Fringe Performers Earn Average Of $514 For 40 Days: Study
“Edinburgh Fringe theatremakers earned an average of just £392.15 for their work at the 2018 festival, covering a period of as much as 40 days, with fair-pay campaigners branding the figures ‘shocking’. New research reveals that 38% of those surveyed were completely unpaid, with the average payment for those who did receive money standing at £637.25.” (That’s $835.99, or just under $21 a day for 40 days.) – The Stage
Steppenwolf Begins Construction Of $54 Million Theatre And Education Center
“The long-in-gestation building, which has been designed by the Chicago architectural firm of Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill and the British theater design company known as Charcoalblue, is expected to open in the summer of 2021.” It will include, as an addition to its three existing performance spaces, a 400-seat theatre-in-the-round as well as education facilities. – Chicago Tribune
Gender-Switched ‘Company’ And ‘Come From Away’ Lead Olivier Award Noms
Come From Away, a Broadway transfer about the Newfoundlanders who welcomed grounded airlines on 9/11, and director Marianne Elliott’s revival of the Sondheim musical Company with the commitment-shy lead Bobby changed to Bobbie, each received nine nods. Leading the play category with eight nods is The Inheritance, a seven-hour epic about a group of gay men in New York. Among the many notable acting nominees is Ian McKellen, who could receive a record sixth Olivier for his King Lear. – The Guardian
A Theater Critic Reviews The Michael Cohen Congressional Hearing
Peter Marks: “Sometimes, cheap theatrics are redeemed by a memorable line. In the desultorily expanded version of Twelve Angry Men that played out Wednesday on Capitol Hill with Michael Cohen in the hot seat, Rep. Jamie Raskin came up, gratifyingly, with a gem.” – The Washington Post
Andrea Martin Breaks Four Ribs, Pulls Out Of Taylor Mac’s New Broadway Show
The Tony-winning actress was set to co-star alongside Nathan Lane in Mac’s Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus. (The lead roles are servants who have to haul away the dead bodies and clean up after Titus’s war.) The role has been recast, and the first preview performance has been postponed from March 5 to March 9. – The Hollywood Reporter
This African Country Has A Stultifying Theatre Culture. Here’s How To Change That
“Attend three and you will start feeling the monotony in all of it; it is like each performance, each story, is the same,” writes Malawian theatre artist Isaac Mafuel. The problem, he says, is that theatre there has been used primarily as a tool for teaching schoolkids English as a second language, not as entertainment (let alone serious art), and Mafuel offers some ideas for changing that. – HowlRound