Category: theatre

This winter an actor wrote to the Washington Post, complaining about negative reviews and suggesting that critics ought to pay more attention to the reactions of audiences to a play. So “what is the critic’s role in relationship to the reader? Isn’t he, at least in part, a consumer advocate and, as such, shouldn’t he acknowledge audience response and, by extension, the fact that his aesthetics might not be in sync with popular sensibilities (if that is indeed the case)?”

Product placement is rampant in the movies and getting more blatant all the time. But inserting brands into plays as advertising endorsement has been rare. But that could be changing…

The Pittsburgh Children’s Festival has been scrapped for this year, after the city’s parks department said that it couldn’t afford to provide $60,000 worth of services to allow the event to proceed. The festival, which is put on by the Pittsburgh International Children’s Theater, costs $300,000 to stage, and the company has been unable to raise the money necessary to pick up the city’s portion of the budget.

“With the arrival of a new production of “Fiddler on the Roof” on Broadway, some commentators have again assumed that the show’s value lies in its authenticity. Early responses to the revival have gone so far as to count the Jewish names in the cast and crew, noting incredulously that even the role of Tevye is played by a non-Jewish actor, Alfred Molina. This is hardly surprising: the further removed we are from the Old World, the more we long to recapture it. But what is surprising is that the pseudo-klezmer tunes and schmaltz-laden accents in “Fiddler” were ever assumed to be the real thing.”

A musical is being made of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The movie, a spoof of the legend of King Arthur, did have a few songs — most notably ‘The Camelot Song,’ which contained such famously dubious rhymes as ‘We’re Knights of the Round Table/We Dance Whene’r We’re Able,’ as well as the line that inspired the title of the musical spinoff: ‘We Eat Ham and Jam and Spam a Lot’.”

A Virginia Shakespeare company had a problem – people couldn’t figure out its name (what IS “Vpstart”, anyway?). So after struggling with it for a while (pity the poor marketing manager), the company has a new handle. “Most people couldn’t spell the old name, much less figure out what it is we do by seeing it. And that’s not helpful when you’re trying to attract a wider, regional audience.”

A new wave of gay theatre is hitting Broadway. “We’re not talking the odd little play here and there. No, we’re talking mainstream hits, the hottest tickets on and off Broadway, what American audiences are cheering in a burst of spring fever even as the culture wars gear up for ugly battle in the presidential election next fall. Queer theater is everywhere, from opulent musicals to profound meditations on truth and beauty to outrageously funny comedies.

Orchestra conductors are “among the most alluring humans on earth, but few among the general public understand what they do. As a result, they forever resist credible dramatization in popular culture…”

How do you freshen up a classic like Fiddler on the Roof without disturbing those finely etched images so many have of the show? One can “hardly ignore the special place the show holds in the public’s affections. ‘I told the whole team very early on that I wanted to take care of `Fiddler.’ That’s a phrase I’ve never used before. But there’s already a vast audience that loves the piece, people who will be bringing their children to the theater, perhaps for the first time. And it’s very important not to disappoint.”

Jerry Hall set a record by appearing in six West End theatre performances in one night. “In just under three and a half hours, the Texan supermodel graced the stage in Phantom of the Opera, Les Miserables, Fame, Blood Brothers, Anything Goes and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Although she did not have any lines to learn – all were non-speaking roles and one lasted just 30 seconds – the performances last night earned her a place in the Guinness World Records.”