Category: theatre

“Back in 1987, when Evgeny Kozlov founded his experimental Do-Theatre, the company was illegal and ran around Soviet Leningrad performing clandestine, movement-based theatre wherever they could, which was mainly outdoors. Now the internationally celebrated troupe is running around the globe presenting shows with two separate touring companies.”

Do you count “La Boheme” a musical? Original musical? What about the all-dance “Movin’ Out,” Twyla Tharp’s dance celebration of Billy Joel songs? For Tony nomination purposes, the committee has ruled, “Boheme” is a “musical revival” and “Movin’ Out” a musical…

London’s National Theatre was “showered with 20 nominations” for Olivier Awards. It’s a tribute to departing director Trevor Nunn, who’s reign at5 the National has been controversial. Still, “Nunn himself has very oddly been overlooked for best director despite pulling the strings on Tom Stoppard’s trilogy The Coast of Utopia, A Streetcar Named Desire with Glenn Close and the ecstatically received musical Anything Goes.”

Star choreographer Matthew Bourne has pulled out of choreographing Disney’s stage version of “The Little Mermaid.” A disney spokesman: “There was the time it would take to do [Bourne’s] vision vs. the timeline we’re on, and I don’t think they matched up. . . . I want to work with Matt; I adore him and think he’s really smart. [But] it’s just not going to be on Mermaid.”

While business on Broadway has been brisk this season, commercial off-Broadway “remains mired in gloom”. Some of Off-Broadway’s best theatres are dark after shows failed. “The troubles have persisted for several seasons, aggravated by the Sept. 11 attacks, rising ticket prices, thin profit margins and a string of expensive financial failures.”

“Unavailable to account for himself, Anton Chekhov has become the invention of his admirers, who may variously prefer him tentative or exuberant, skittish or implacable, walking as delicately as a girl or tough as old boots. Some get excited about the new Chekhov, now that those old-maidish Soviets have got their hands off him to reveal new warts on the familiar face; all this does to others is to prompt a smile. For what, I think, could be more natural for a man with delicate physical difficulties in a barbarous age than to complain daily to his sister about water closets? What more obvious for a consumptive whose euphoria turned erotic at inconvenient times than occasionally to turn down some discreet alley in a Siberian town? Thank God for the loss of sanctity.”

“Dance of the Vampires” opened on Dec. 9 to “lukewarm reviews and mediocre daily sales. The producers had hoped to fight the show’s poor critical reception with new television advertising, but the last two weeks proved particularly difficult, as the weekly box office take dipped below $500,000. (The show’s weekly running costs are about $600,000.) At $12 million, ‘Vampires’ ranks among the most expensive losers in Broadway history, taking its place alongside famous flops like ‘Capeman’ and ‘Carrie’.”

Two American brothers – Ted and Norman Tulchin – have bought London’s Playhouse Theatre. “The sale comes as London theatreland battles with a drop in audiences, with fewer US tourists coming to the capital.”

A plan by the mayor of London to spend £350,000 on subsidizing theatre tickets for Londoners, is being welcomed by the theatres. “Just one third of the 12 million people who pay to see plays, musicals, dance and operas in London’s theatreland actually live in London. The tickets, which can cost up to £40, are being offered at reduced prices of £10, £15 and £20 between 15 January and 29 March.”

Michael Grandage is succeeding Sam Mendes running the Donmar Theatre. A scary prospect following a legend? No. “There’s a myth that it’s better for a director to inherit a theatre on its knees and build it up so that, when you leave, you can say ‘Look what I’ve done!’. But to inherit a theatre with an international brand name and a legacy of excellence means that the sky’s your limit. We already have an audience and actors wanting to come. I could never put on Camus in the first season in an unsuccessful theatre, but here I can, and that’s brilliant.”