Category: theatre

A couple of months ago Charles Spencer wrote a column complaining that London’s West End had seriously deteriorated and that the area was so rundown it was discouraging theatre-goers from going to the theatre. “It is too early to talk of a Broadway-like renaissance of the West End,” he writes now. “A zero-tolerance crackdown on vagrancy, loutish drunks and aggressive begging in the West End is urgently required.” But things seem to be getting better…

“Radiant Baby” the new musical about the life of artist Keith Haring, opens on Broadway. Nice try, but “the show never brings either Haring or his world into crisp focus, relying instead on a blurry shorthand of artist-bio clichés (the agony, the ecstasy, the egomania, the triumph of the creative spirit) and composite social archetypes. Haring’s insistently vital art is so spectacularly in evidence — thanks to the splendid projection designs of Batwin and Robin Productions — which only underscores the musical’s limitations.”

Saying he was “born to run the Old Vic” Theatre Kevin Spacey talks about his plans for when he takes over next year. “He exudes a passionate enthusiasm mixed with a kind of awed delight as he contemplates his task when he becomes the troubled theatre’s artistic director in the autumn of next year; but there’s a lot for him to do before then.”

Broadway musicians have set a strike date of Thursday after talks with producers failed to lead to a new contract. “The parties continue to be very far apart, and there’s not going to be a settlement tonight. We have set a strike deadline for Thursday midnight March 6.”

The musicians’ dispute with Broadway producers over how many musicians must be hired for a show centers on the cost of musicians. But “most people are misinformed about the world of Broadway pit orchestras. They’re not as expensive as you might think (only $1-$6 of a $75 ticket goes to the musicians), and successive contract concessions have whittled their size to a fraction of their Golden Era heyday. There used to be 30, 40, even 50 (musicians) in the pit at a Broadway show. Now the (size) is as small as three. ‘Phantom’ is probably the biggest show on Broadway, and it has only 26.”

Monday, the Lysiustrata Project will perform readings of Aristophanes’ anti-war play. “In the United States, as many as 1,000 separate productions are planned – in all 50 American states – 33 in Massachusetts and 18 in Chicago alone. In Canada, the play will be recited in seven provinces, at more than two dozen venues and, of course, in two languages. On the same day, there will be readings in London, Paris, Berlin, Athens, Beirut – indeed, almost every major world capital. Two readings are planned in Reykjavik, one in Damascus and nine in Aristophanes’s homeland, Greece.”

Though ten Denver theatres are participating in the Lysistrata Project, “there is no theater of protest here, no theater of war, not even one token production of the firehouse eulogy “The Guys,” which has brought the tragedy home to cities outside New York in a way no other medium can. Denver is simply not a reactive theater community, which means it is failing in a fundamental and historic civic responsibility: to bring comfort, perspective and understanding not only about our past but also the world we walk out into once a play ends.”

Wendall Brock detects a shift in attitude in this year’s Broadway season. “The season’s most thrilling productions are asking serious questions about the troubled soul of our democracy. While the Great White Way has always been a showcase for the easy-to-digest, corn-fed Americana of Rodgers and Hammerstein and others, the current season signals an attitude shift that speaks to the jittery politics of the new century.”

After 18 years, Les Miz is closing on Broadway. “On May 18 this blockbuster version of the Victor Hugo novel that helped define the mega-musical of the 1980’s will go dark at the Imperial Theater, taking its place in the record books as the second longest-running Broadway show of all time, after ‘Cats’.”

When “The Play What I Wrote” opens on Broadway next week, it will cost $1 to get in. The next night it costs $2. The next $3. “The Play What I Wrote,” which revolves around a comedy act that’s breaking up, features a surprise celebrity guest star each night. In London, those guests included Roger Moore, Jerry Hall, Sting and Twiggy.