Category: theatre

Cameron Mackintosh once said a musical takes seven years from inception to a fully staged production. Australian Peter Johnston is now into his fifth year working on “Moses” “He’s got an orchestrated score, concert versions in London and New York and another semi-staged production with orchestra in London behind him. There is also a recording planned in London next year with an international cast.” – The Age (Melbourne)

“It’s a musical theater extravaganza of truly biblical proportions that will play to more than 200,000 people before the run ends in two weeks here in Lancaster County. And those people will gaze upon the power and the glory of the highest production values, and they will rejoice.” – Washington Post

There’s no escaping Scrooge and “A Christmas Carol” this time of year. “Some 20 feature films and at least 17 television movies notwithstanding, ‘A Christmas Carol’ has really been a theater phenomenon from the beginning, despite difficulties like transforming a door knocker into Jacob Marley’s face onstage.” – New York Times

The backstage staff of London’s Royal Shakespeare Company is taking a strike vote. “The union is angry over the RSC’s interpretation of a 1998 agreement over the time-off owed to staff who break European rules on taking at least 11 hours rest between shifts.” – BBC

The last 40 years have seen a rise in the stature of the stage director. “Today’s director is most often a catalyst, visibly channeling theatrical elements and placing a recognizable stamp on the practice.” And he’s sometimes placed alongside or above the contributions of the playwright and actors. – Backstage

Highlights and reviews from the London stage in 2000. – Theatre.com

The Yale Repertory Theatre is expected to announce that Oskar Eustis, artistic director of Trinity Rep Theatre and its conservatory school in Providence, is the likely new artistic director of the Yale Repertory Theatre and dean of its Yale School of Drama. The job is considered one of the plums in regional theater and theater education. – Hartford Courant

Jeffrey Archer’s play in London has been a big bomb – so much so that it’s closing early. But Lord Archer, whose legal woes didn’t slow down his work on the production has been the subject of some creatively vicious reviews: “This leaden and incompetent play leaves you little option but to find its hero innocent and to find everything else (dialogue, legal acumen, structure, and so on) as culpable as all hell … The author’s self-belief is breathtaking and farcical.” – The Independent (UK)

NOTORIETY DIDN’T SAVE THE DAY: “The cliché-ridden play’s most dramatic moment came off-stage on its very first night in the regions, when it opened in Windsor. By a remarkable coincidence, the first performance was also the day that Archer was charged with committing perjury.” – The Independent (UK)

Strangely enough, the straight plays (though they have to have celebs in them). Last year it was thought the straights were doomed. Now several are making money, while the expensive musicals are having a hard time making the rent. – New York Post

“We’ve come to the end of the road for one style of musical, the giant pseudo-Romantic pop-rock sludge pile. I never liked these things; now nobody likes them. As far as I’m concerned, Cats (closed) and Miss Saigon (expiring next month) have been flops all along—the public simply didn’t take my reviews to heart until now.” But what comes next? – Village Voice