Category: theatre

What does the fall theatre season across America look like? Conservative. “The prevailing theme of the coming season is a tendency to play things artistically safe in this economically challenged climate…”

At the National Black Theatre Festival in Winston-Salem, it’s time for a question – what exactly is black theatre? “Ask for a definition of black theater, and no consensus really emerges. Some suggest it’s theater that celebrates black people and the black experience, as do a plethora of shows here this week based on real lives…”

The Minnesota Fringe Festival, the largest in the U.S., is halfway through its 10-day run, and Dylan Hicks detects some subtle shifts in the focus of many participants. “With more shows than ever, the Fringe serves as a broader – if still skewed – zeitgeist-o-meter. In keeping with the tenor of the times, frivolity is somewhat on the wane. In terms of percentages, there appears to be a decline in shows trumpeting nudity, and while comedy remains strong, it’s not quite the hegemony it once was. Either that or it’s just lurking in odd places.”

The original stars of Mel Brooks’s Broadway smash The Producers, Matthew Broderick and Nathan Lane, are rejoining the show for a three-month run next January, according to sources. “Yesterday, Broadway oddsmakers were predicting that Lane and Broderick’s limited return engagement would be sold out before noon today.”

Southern Ontario’s Shaw Festival was in reinventing mode this summer. But “a host of factors ranging from SARS to the Iraq war has scared away a big part of its audience and made it impossible for new artistic director Jackie Maxwell to determine if her vision will succeed.”

The self-styled “Comedy Terrorist” gained notoriety in the UK after casrhing Prince William’s birthday party. Now he’s at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. He’s dreadful – a “talent-free zone.” “Throughout its tortuous, one-hour length, the show radiated this sort of laziness. The gags, most of which revolved around the conflicts in the Middle East, were too pathetic to repeat; the props smacked of a primary-school play. And then there was the delivery. Oh lordy, the delivery…”

What’s happened to the Broadway musical? Has it lost its ability to capture the imagination? Today’s most succsessul shows are derivitive or revivals. “Even today’s very few legitimate musical theater stars seem exhausted or ambivalent.”

“The 57th Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the world’s biggest arts event, is under way. Thousands lined the route as the traditional opening cavalcade snaked past the castle walls in an eruption of colour. The city’s streets filled with festival goers, performers, celebrities, tourists and the media as the spectacular procession got into full swing. This year’s three-week programme offers more than 1,500 shows across the spectrum of the performing arts.”

Miller Outdoor Theater is “one of Houston’s most cherished cultural venues and home to dozens of free concerts and plays every year.” But a power struggle between the theater’s advisory board and the city’s parks department may be jeopardizing the venue’s legacy of providing Houstonians with free orchestra concerts, Shakespeare performances, and dance recitals. Miller board members set the theater’s schedule and pay the performers out of the money garnered from a local hotel tax. But the parks department staffs the theater, and its financial contribution is crucial. With money tight in Houston, the parks commissioner has slashed the Miller’s budget, and there is even talk of privatization, and that has board members up in arms.

“Long relegated to children’s birthday parties, puppets are no longer considered strictly kiddie fare. At venues like New York’s P.S. 122, St. Ann’s Warehouse, and HERE Arts Center, puppeteers are tackling Rossini operas, Shakespearean tragedies, and Ionesco tales. Puppets are also a growing presence on Broadway.