Category: theatre

How long does it take to produce good work in the theatre? “Cash-strapped Canadian theatres have often complained that they can’t afford enough time to do their best work, but this long-held grievance got a particularly vigorous airing in 2002 as directors hotly debated whether they were facing a crisis – or a myth.”

A respected figure in British theatre, Peter Longman is imploring the government to invest more than £1 billion in the country’s theatre companies, in order to correct what most in the business have viewed as a long and dangerous slide in public monetary support. Longman is not alone in his call for increased public investment, but the word “billion” has the theatre world talking, and government officials stunned.

“The physical condition of London’s theatreland, a unique treasury of mainly Victorian and Edwardian theatres, is beginning to cause anguish among the people who earn their living there. One estimate is that the buildings need well over £200m spent to bring them up to the modern standards that audiences increasingly expect, and to faintly humane working conditions for staff.”

For much of 2002, Broadway seemed caught in a downdraft. But “for the fall and winter, Broadway ticket sales have been running 15% ahead of last year’s levels, says Jed Bernstein, president of the League of American Theatres & Producers. Sales could even surpass 2000’s record-setting figures. Thanksgiving week alone racked up $18.6 million, vs. $16 million for the same week in 2000. Now, with 33 shows on the boards, Broadway is wrapping up its holiday season, traditionally the strongest time of the year. What happened?”

One of the phenomenons of Broadway in recent years has been that “you can now sell the public a 70- or 90-minute play on Broadway for $75 and they swallow it as readily as they do spaghetti in oil and garlic, though it may be far less nourishing or tasty. This only becomes a problem when Tony nominations loom and there aren’t enough American plays to fill the Best Play category. Filling the category these days is a more important question than the quality of the work.”

Is Frank Gehry going to redesign a rundown theatre district in Lisbon? “According to Associated Press, Lisbon officials want to build two modern theaters, a film complex, a museum, stores and offices. ‘I’m just going to see what they’re up to. If it’s real, it’s a wonderful project’.”

Many of the UK’s biggest theatres are getting new leadership this year. “The appointments have been common currency for some time, but it’s only now, with an unprecedented flurry of handovers just around the corner, that mouths are beginning to water at what lies ahead. The players who dominated the scene during the 1990s are making way for fresh blood.”

Across America, actors and crews working in touring shows spend the Holidays away from home. “It is a peculiar lifestyle. And no matter what, it can be kind of a lonely, weird time.”

A team from the Chinese Ministry of Culture comes to Broadway to try to learn its secrets. “We want to know how your Broadway musicals could attract such large audiences. And why our comprehensive art forms — with singing, dancing and drama — could not attract such a large audience.” They “hope to find a way to stem a troubling loss of audience from hundreds of traditional, state-supported Chinese opera houses. Attendance at these houses has dwindle as more modern, youthful entertainments have multiplied.”

Denver has theatre – good theatre. But things seem to be going down rather than up. There are 56 theater companies, but only one (League of Regional Theaters) playhouse. “Ten folded or went dormant the past year. And the one it has, the DCTC, is clawing its way out of budget shortages that resulted in $1.6 million in cutbacks the past 18 months. Chicago, by comparison, has 20 professional LORT theaters. Seattle has five; San Diego three. The best theater cities also have thriving, definable theater districts, something that would be impossible to chart here outside the Denver Center.”