Category: theatre

Russia’s first home-grown musical “Nord-Ost” was a huge success in Moscow until rebel Chechens took over the theatre and killed 100 people. The show reopened earlier this year in the same theatre, but the stigma of the hostage drama finally shut down the show. “The organisers kept the seats full in part by offering places to the disadvantaged, who would not otherwise have been able to see the show. The modest operational profits made before the crisis were wiped out. Nord-Ost remains a musical and theatrical success, and an innovation in Russia.”

“Hairspray” picks up five Outer Critics Circle Awards, adding to its awards at last week’s Drama Desk Awards. “The writers who cover Broadway and off-Broadway theater for out-of-town media crowned “Hairspray” king with five awards in all, including outstanding musical, director (Jack O’Brien), actress (Marissa Jaret Winokur), featured actor (Dick Latessa) and costume design (William Ivey Long).”

“The Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays, which over the last 15 years has awarded grants totaling $3.8 million to 114 playwrights and 55 not-for-profit theatres across the country, has canceled its 2003 grant cycle in order to undertake a major overhaul of the program’s outlook and mission.”

Political plays don’t have to be serious and hard to sit through. “Most great political plays aren’t about politics. It’s obvious to say they are about people, but some of the best are about people who are as far away from the political process as you can get. As in politics, the answer in the theatre seems to be: make plays appear cool, which only alienates people even more. It’s now extremely difficult to get a play produced unless it stars her out of EastEnders or him out of The Bill.”

The Almeida, “one of the most creative and fashionable theatres in London,” reopens this week after a £7.6m makeover. “Now Michael Attenborough takes over with a strong programme pretty much guaranteed to fill the revamped theatre’s 321 seats. And he has to fill them – this is a very small number of seats and the economics of the Almeida have always been of the wing-and-prayer variety.”

“Hairspray” gets 14 nominations for the 48th Annual Drama Desk Awards, tying the number received in past years by “The Producers,” “Ragtime” and “The Secret Garden.” Other high scorers included the musicals “La Bohème,” “A Man of No Importance,” “Movin’ Out,” “Nine” and “Avenue A,” the new play “Take Me Out” and the revival of “Long Day’s Journey Into Night.”

In America “children’s theatre is big industry, with budgets for some theatres soaring as high as $9 million per year. The number of children who are served by these theatres is in the millions (4.6 million entertained by the New York-based Theatreworks/USA alone) and the companies that are committed to theatre for children and/or teenagers are booming.” So what’s different about doing theatre for kids?

Auditions have been held in London for a Saddam lookalike for a new play. “The show’s organisers were surprised at the turnout, as 14 actors and amateurs donned military fatigues and berets for the open audition at London’s Riverside Theatre in Hammersmith. As the script, by Feelgood author Alistair Beaton, is still being written, the lookalikes were required to do nothing more than wave to imaginary crowds in the manner of the deposed dictator.”

“The disastrous opening days of the World Stage festival at Toronto’s Harbourfront Centre left organizers joking about biblical plagues. The final ones left them facing a modern one.” From the war in Iraq to a freak ice storm to cancellations to the SARS outbreak, World Stage was a disaster from beginning to end this year, and the hit came at a time when the festival was already struggling financially.

The arts are all about diversity, of course, but in the theatre world, it can be difficult to draw certain lines. Can a black actor play Hamlet? If so, can a white actor play Othello, whose race is central to the play that bears his name? And what about accents? Must actors performing Shakespeare all use a standard, stock ‘Shakespeare’ accent? (Think Laurence Olivier or John Gielgud.)Increasingly, the answer has been that ‘mixed casting’ is not only allowable, but useful in many situations, and even the most staid and conservative companies are starting to experiment. Case in point: the venerable Royal Shakespeare Company, which has been raising some eyebrows during a residency in Washington, D.C.