Category: theatre

Sorkin describes how he approached the challenges of translating one of America’s most beloved novels into a different medium in a different century (the world has changed a lot since Mockingbird was written) and how the production’s team handled the lawsuit from Lee estate executor Tonja Carter.

Its primary accomplishment is its bluntness, reflected in the subtitle A Candid Look at Broadway. No writer has better captured the way theater insiders actually talk about their craft. Goldman listens in on artists discussing how to fix shows out of town, to curmudgeonly patrons and critics on the aisle, and to producers working out how to make money—even on flops. Goldman never wrote another book about the theater, and he wrote this one with the unmistakable swagger and detail of someone who can burn every bridge because he knows that his subsequent career will be elsewhere.

It started with recruiting: “Music hall stars of the day such as Marie Lloyd, Phyllis Dare and Vesta Tilley believed they were doing their bit for the war effort by exhorting – and sometimes shaming – the men in the audience into joining up. ‘We don’t want to lose you / But we think you ought to go,’ went one not very subtle refrain.”

Some might think comedy hasn’t actually changed that much – remember Andrew “Dice” Clay? Is he that different from Louis CK? – but it has, and “for some of that, we have to thank the influence of UnCabaret, the alternative showcase that celebrated its 25th anniversary at the Theatre at Ace Hotel with a mostly all-star showcase that spent almost as much time looking inward at what it means to have a conscience in comedy as it did eliciting obvious laughs.”

But too bad for the fire safety staff: “While stage door staff will be retained in a revised role, the RSC said it was continuing with a proposal to merge the fire and safety officer roles, with the fire officer role ‘absorbed into the security roles,’ which are contracted out.”

Just under half of all UK theatres currently at risk are in coastal towns, the Theatres Trust has revealed, as it issues a plea for seaside venues to be “restored and repurposed”. By investing in the buildings, it claims that they could become cultural hubs to “serve their local communities and drive regeneration”.

“Beyond its eerily accurate forecasting about the corporatization of news media and the degradation of truth, this Network has a timely and more fundamental message about the power of anger and what happens when society unleashes it en masse. It just might not be the message that audiences expect, or one that its principal constituents see eye-to-eye on. They have been trying to discern its meaning since they staged it in London, and are still negotiating with the play and with each other.”

“One of the industry’s faults is that producers can find themselves in financial trouble and in a bid not to lose face may not want to tell anyone else about it. Invariably, this sees the situation escalate to crisis point, and by that time with the problems apparent, they’re often irrevocable.”