Category: theatre

The Royal Shakespeare Company will give its unsung understudies a chance to shine next season, with one show per production in which “all the lead roles will be played by the understudies, and stars may be called on to carry spears and stand around quietly without bumping into the set.”

“The two most frequently repeated bits of common wisdom about the theater are (1) Broadway is dead (or at least in a state of serious decay), and (2) there is simply no audience for live theater among the current ‘younger generation’ of twentysomethings… Regarding the youthful audiences, it’s time to take a closer look at the reality.” Hedy Weiss believes that many of the theaters she attends in Chicago do a fine job of luring 20- and 30-somethings to performances, and points out that some theaters consider it a core part of their mission to create theater for the younger demographic.

“Arts projects in Scotland are to receive a £7.2m increase in funding for the next two years. The Edinburgh-based Scottish Arts Council has pledged to spend nearly £70m on projects. Most of the extra cash is going to The National Theatre of Scotland in Glasgow, which has been awarded £3.5m.”

Theater is a competitive business, and theaters in the same city rarely join forces for any reason, for fear that success for one will mean failure for another. But a Twin Cities-based website is attempting to draw the region’s many theaters together on matters ranging from marketing to the hiring of actors. “Want to post your resume or audition listing? You can do so on the site. Need a set designer or a stage manager? You can cull the hundreds of techies and off-stage talent on the site’s searchable database… Maybe you’re a theater in need of a friendly audience for a free preview performance? [The] site will send out an e-mail to almost 1,000 subscribers giving them all the particulars.”

“At a cost of £15m, the Hackney Empire will reopen tomorrow, a delirium of colour, from gold to brown. It’s anyone’s vision of the voluptuous beauty of an Edwardian music hall – and as phoney as a chocolate £6 note.” As the restoration proceeded, it became clear that the original color scheme of the theater was a bet, well, slap-dash, and the restorers opted for a faux period look, rather than a historically accurate repaint. “The east London theatre, which 20 years ago narrowly escaped demolition for a car park, was designed by the architect Frank Matcham, and is generally agreed to be the best surviving Victorian and Edwardian music hall.”

“Armed with new custom-created research claiming Chicago-area theaters are worth a whopping $347 million in total economic activity to their home metropolis, the League of Chicago Theatres is on a newly energized mission to convince local corporate leaders that Chicago theater deserves to be taken more seriously by business interests… The study, to be released on Monday, argues that Chicago’s live theater industry has doubled its direct and indirect economic impact in just seven years — from $164 million in 1996 to $347 million in 2002.”

Connecticut-based Goodspeed Musicals, which for years has made its home in the town of East Haddam, has been planning to build a new 700-seat theater across the street from its current stage. But last year, the nearby burg of Middletown came calling, offering a better site, a tax abatement, and loads of other perks if Goodspeed would move its base of operations. As yet, Goodspeed’s board has made no decision on where the new theatre will go, but the spectacle of two cities battling over a cultural jewel is a bit sickening, says Frank Rizzo. And besides, how exactly is Middletown planning to make back its investment in Goodspeed if it wins the battle?

The Walt Disney Company is apparently serious about becoming a theatrical juggernaut, as evidenced not only by recent successful Broadway adaptations of its animated films, but also by extensive plans for a nationwide blitz of big-budget stage shows. “Ten years after Beauty and the Beast arrived on Broadway, to critical brickbats and audience acclaim, the company feared by rival producers for its cavernous pockets and brand-name product has become a dominant long-term player onstage. In recently published figures not disputed by the company, Disney has earned more than $1.2 billion in worldwide gross theatrical receipts from Beauty, $1 billion from Lion King and $270 million from Aida.”

“The artistic director for one of Scotland’s leading theatre companies has resigned only a month into her post, claiming cuts by the Scottish Arts Council has made her job ‘unsustainable’. Emily Gray is to leave TAG, the premiere theatre company for children in Scotland, in April after the SAC cut its grant by more than 40%.”

When the state of Massachusetts slashed its arts funding allocation by 62% last year, several Boston theaters which were hoping to make accomodations for visually and aurally-impaired patrons had to shelve their plans. But now, the “Cultural Access Consortium, a not-for-profit organization that tackles accessibility issues for audiences and artists who are sight- or hearing-impaired or both, will begin providing technical and financial aid to area theatres through a new program, the Access Collaborative.”