Category: theatre

A decision to build Scotland’s new national theatre is a major cultural accomplishment. “It is by far the boldest thing they have achieved in the cultural arena. They have consulted with the theatrical community and they have listened. It isn’t fanciful to say that this is the first major cultural decision which has been arrived at in Scotland through a full democratic discussion.”

A new national theatre is being proposed for the site of the World Trade Center. “The national theater would cull the finest offerings from the country’s regional stages and present them in the performing arts center that Daniel Libeskind, the master-plan architect, has called for at the World Trade Center site. The complex would include three theaters: one with 800 seats, one with 700 and one with 400. The backers envision 15 productions a year, five on each stage, each running six weeks.”

Hal Prince and Steven Sondheim are collaborating on a new show for the first time in 22 years. “Prince has directed more than 30 shows in New York alone, and to sit down with him is to confront a half-century of American theater history. His name instantly evokes an almost unparalleled parade of over-the-moon triumphs, noble failures and, yes, a few bewilderments. When he attaches himself to a project, theatergoers take notice. The last is even more true of Sondheim, of course. Devotees will be making long flights to Washington in the fall to check up on this latest venture. “

In a Broadway season that is light on plays, “Richard Greenberg has the opportunity to become the first American writer to have two new plays running simultaneously on Broadway since Neil Simon did it in 1992 with “Jake’s Women” and “Lost in Yonkers.” (The British playwright David Hare did it in 1999 with “Amy’s View” and his one-man show, “Via Dolorosa.”) It is a league, however, that Mr. Greenberg has trouble considering himself a part of.”

A week before its scheduled opening, the New Jomandi theatre in Atlanta announced that it was canceling its entire 25th anniversary season. “Saying it had been unable to raise enough money for its four-show 2003-2004 program, the theater said it would spend the year in ‘redevelopment,’ then start up again in 2004. Since 2000, Jomandi, one of the few remaining major black theaters in the country, has suffered financial difficulties, canceled shows, and changed its name.”

“Calgary’s Vertigo Mystery Theatre this fall will stage the world premiere of Chimneys, a play Christie wrote in the 1930s. The play originally was set to open at the Embassy Theatre in London in 1931. For some reason, it was dropped at the last minute and never heard from again until the Vertigo troupe found a tattered copy of the script when they moved offices earlier in the year.” Just how did it get there?

A man in Portland is arrested for swinging a metal sword in public. Turns out he’s “one of the leading actors in Portland’s Northwest Classical Theatre Company’s production of “King Henry VI, Part 1.” Police hold him while the show and the audience wait, and finally a director steps in to take his place.

“What are we actually getting when performers stand up and talk about themselves? Where does offstage end and onstage begin in first-person theater? The answers are complex – bedeviling to performers and directors and endlessly alluring to audiences. We’re instinctively drawn to stories that arrive in the envelope of truth.”

Broadway’s revival production of “Cabaret” will have run for 5 1/2 years when it closes in November. “Beyond the show itself, this Roundabout production and its historically significant run — it is the third-longest-running revival ever on Broadway, after “Chicago” and “Oh! Calcutta!” — has quietly enriched the world of the stage (and to some degree the screen) in ways that not many shows can claim.”

English regional theatres have a roster of new leadership. “In the past year, fresh teams have taken over at Chichester, Bristol, Birmingham, Leeds and Liverpool, while new money – £25m – is being pumped into the system. Now comes news of a rising in the Midlands. Lichfield has acquired a new theatre while Coventry, under Hamish Glen, is set to restore an old one. The big question is whether this signals an exciting era of artistic innovation or whether regional theatre is still dogged by the culture of backs- to-the-wall survival.”