Category: theatre

Does a tough new New York State antismoking law mean actors won’t be able to smoke on stage as part of a play? “Passed by the state legislature in March and effective Thurs., July 24, the measure bans the “burning of a lighted cigar, cigarette, pipe, or other matter or substances which contains tobacco” in a long list of situations, including theatres, auditoriums, and museums. The measure closely mirrors New York City’s own tough no-smoking ordinance, and in some ways is even tougher than the local law.” Theatres can apply for a waiver if smoking is required for a performance.

Michael Billington writes that the sudden resignation of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s managing director is an opportunity for the company. “Normally the sudden resignation of a theatre company’s managing director would be interpreted as a sign of crisis. In fact Chris Foy’s departure from the RSC enormously strengthens the hand of its artistic director, Michael Boyd, in setting his seal upon the company.”

The Royal Shakespeare Company’s managing director Chris Foy has quit the company. He was seen as the force behind the company’s unpopular structural moves in the past few years. “Some theatre insiders acknowledged Mr Foy’s talent but felt the moment was right to call time on the management ‘gobbledegook’ of business involvement in the arts.”

“In 1994, the Minnesota Fringe Festival was a scruffy amalgam of 50-some shows spread over a week at a half-dozen venues on the West Bank of the University of Minnesota. This year, the Fringe boasts individuals and groups from throughout the state, across the country and around the world staging 162 shows — a total of 783 performances — over 10 days on 20 stages flung across Minneapolis. For the last couple of years, the Minnesota Fringe has claimed the title of The Largest Fringe Festival in the Country, a figure few -dispute.”

Minnesota’s “Guthrie Theatre eked out its seventh consecutive operating surplus during the 2002-03 fiscal year, in which season subscriptions and total attendance declined and the value of the theater’s endowment plummeted by more than $8.5 million.”

Organizations like Los Angeles’s A.S.K. Theatre Projects, which has suddenly and somewhat mysteriously shut its doors in Southern California, are quite rare in the theatre world. A.S.K. was half theatre lab and half theatrical foundation, the type of organization dedicated to giving talented young writers, directors, and actors a shot at making something special. The results weren’t always good, but that wasn’t the point. A.S.K.’s founders believed strongly that raw talent must be nurtured for it to become art, and with the organization having been apparently folded into a New York-based foundation, L.A.’s theatre scene is feeling the loss.

Let’s face it – theatre people are probably a bit more susceptible to superstition than most. But in the heart of Manhattan’s theatre district, the Belasco Theatre has become legendary for being haunted, and the people who work there claim that there’s a lot more to this legend than simple ghost stories. Closed doors on a set are magically open when the curtain rises, a reek of cigar smoke permeates a production in which no one smokes, and actor after actor reports seeing strange apparitions with some tie to the theatre’s namesake, David Belasco. Melodramatic hogwash? Maybe. But it sure makes for a good theatre story.

For ten days each summer, Minneapolis plays host to the largest Fringe Festival in the U.S. During this year’s fest, “783 performances of 162 dance, theater and spoken-word shows will take place at 20 theaters, cafes and art spaces around town.” To the festival’s devoted spectators, it’s a giant party, but to the actors, directors, and writers involved, it’s a crucial chance to catch the eye of the city’s theatre elite, and thereby ensure employment for the other 355 days of the year.

New York’s Roundabout Theater Company is mounting a production of the Huck Finn-based musical Big River this summer, with a groundbreaking twist. The show is aimed at deaf and hearing-impaired audiences, with the actors using a mix of singing and signing to tell the story. “The deaf learned to feel the music they couldn’t hear; hearing actors spent months learning American Sign Language.” The show’s director says it isn’t a gimmick, but a concerted effort to bring American theater to an audience that is ordinarily ignored by the industry.

It’s been an up-and-down year for New York’s Roundabout Theater Company. Tonys were won and critics heaped praise on nearly everything Roundabout put on a stage this season, but the company ran a $2 million deficit that is likely to result in layoffs and wage freezes. Performances were packed for the revival of Nine currently running on Broadway, but such things seemed unimportant after artistic director Todd Haimes, who has been at the helm of the company for two decades, learned he had a rare form of cancer midway through the year.