Category: theatre

George Wolfe is strongly identified with New York’s Public Theatre. But what is Wolfe’s legacy at the Public? “Mr. Wolfe the director shone brightly during his time at the Public. The Public Theater itself usually seemed to hang back in the shadows, like the timid offspring of a glamorous star.”

The comedy industry in Britain has grown enormously in the past decade with more than 150 new clubs opening. Now “with its top stars eyeing America and other overseas markets and its audiences more numerous and knowledgeable than ever before, live comedy can truly claim to be one of Britain’s fastest-growing forms of entertainment.”

The Ontario government has taken contral of a theatre development fund out of the hands of the Toronto Theatre Alliance “after an internal forensic audit revealed $161,000 had been diverted from the fund” into the TTA’s budget to cover up a deficit. “The annual operating budget of the organization is $350,000, but for the past two years, roughly $90,000 per annum was siphoned into it from the Commercial Theatre Development Fund and the Dora Support Fund to make it appear the books balanced.”

There was an open audition for kids wanting to be in a new West End production of Mary Poppins. “By the time the doors of the Prince Edward theatre opened, the queue stretched twice around the block: the producers estimated that more than 1,000 children turned up.”

How is it that plays come in and out of fashion? “If consistent themes emerge in new plays, it must be for an underlying social reason. And if classic texts emerge in strange clusters or pairs, it can’t be on purely pragmatic grounds.”

Broadway is seriously broken, say a trio of playwrights. The business is hostile to new work, and the expense of production is out of hand. Terrence McNally: Today’s Broadway is “a circus identified with smash hits, as opposed to plays that examine the human condition. The message is all wrong.”

“Today, no one doubts that Lincoln Center Theater is one of the most vital not-for-profit companies in the nation, but its status as a national theatre – indeed, the question of what a national theatre is – is open to debate. So at the dawn of the 21st century, and in the painful, soul-searching aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, a new national-theatre movement is underway.”

“Why has Melbourne’s Playbox, which was founded in 1976, seen such a slide in its fortunes recently? There are lots of theories – from inappropriate programming to poor production values, soaring ticket prices to careless marketing. These are real problems, but they are not the origin of the dilemma, only symptoms of it. The answer lies far deeper. Mainstream theatre has, lately, been swamped by competing interests.”

“Will the board stick with a New Yorker, or will it look around the country? (Oskar Eustis at Trinity Rep in Providence has the dynamic personality of a Joseph Papp, a commitment to new work and even a strong Kushner connection to boot.) Will the board look to England? (Not likely given the urban-driven identity of the Public.) It’s been fairly quiet in the world of artistic-director job searches.”

A Spanish theatre company was forced to censor part of its show in Australia. “The play opened to boos from the audience at its Australian premiere in Melbourne last week when it was announced that scenes had been censored to gain an R-rating from the Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC). The scenes, depicting explicit sex acts, were pixelated or obscured by bright lights.”