The play sure doesn’t look very revolutionary now, but in 1968, the history of gay male characters on stage was short and not very pleasant. Now, however, it’s revolutionary because the gay characters are actually played by out gay actors.
Category: theatre
Who’s Going To Win At The Tonys Tonight?
Mean Girls has a ton of nominations, the same number as (yes) SpongeBob Square Pants. But Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, of course, may sneak up on them, and Once on This Island is a “scrappy” fave.
London’s Donmar Warehouse Gets New Artistic Director
“Michael Longhurst has been appointed as the new artistic director at the Donmar Warehouse in London. Longhurst, the acclaimed director of Amadeus at the National Theatre and Constellations at the Royal Court [and subsequently on Broadway], will take over from outgoing artistic director Josie Rourke at the Covent Garden theatre in March 2019.”
UK Theatre Attendance Down In 2017 Despite More Performances
UK Theatre’s member venues, comprising more than 200 auditoria, took a reduced total of £469.8 million from ticket sales in 2017, down £1.9 million on the previous year. The total number of tickets sold was also less than in 2016, falling 1.87% from 19 million to 18.7 million.
How ‘The Band’s Visit’, Broadway’s Little-Show-That-Could, Got Its Big Song
“Vulture sat down with director David Cromer, book writer Itamar Moses, and composer-lyricist David Yazbek, and Lenk — are all nominated for Tony awards in their respective categories, added with another seven for the show’s total 11 nods — to talk about the process of translating scene into song and creating a number that is unlike anything most people, the creative team included, traditionally believe Broadway is supposed to be.”
SF’s American Conservatory Theatre Names A New Executive Director
Jennifer Bielstein has been named the new executive director of American Conservatory Theater (ACT). She is currently the managing director of the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis. AT ACT, she will take over for Peter Pastreich, who will depart the theatre at the end of the 2017-18 season.
DC’s Forum Theatre Shuts Down
“Forum Theatre, the little company in Silver Spring that on a modest scale championed some of the most advanced ideas in modern playgoing, announced Wednesday that it would be closing shop for good on July 31, after 14 years of putting on adventurous shows. … Factors includ[ed] the crowded theater landscape in the region and [artistic director Michael] Dove’s desire to explore more esoteric kinds of theater than could be sustained by the company.”
As Ticket Prices Rise, Attendance Drops At Britain’s Regional Theatres
“UK Theatre’ member venues, comprising more than 200 auditoria, took a reduced total of £469.8 million from ticket sales in 2017, down £1.9 million on the previous year. The total number of tickets sold was also less than in 2016, falling 1.87% from 19 million to 18.7 million. … This is despite a 2.9% increase in the total number of performances in 2017.”
Could Making All Acting Awards Gender-Neutral Backfire?
“In an open nominations field, the category could be dominated by one gender at the expense of another.” Mark Shenton points out several examples of awards where the acting categories aren’t separated by gender – and where women have subsequently been outnumbered by men as nominees.
Chinese Censors Cancel Australian Play Over – Salty Language? Or Subject Matter?
David Williamson’s The Removalists, written in 1971 and now a standard part of school curricula, was to receive its Chinese premiere as part of an arts festival in Beijing. The playwright says that the official reason for the ban – which comes as relations between China and Australia are at a low point – was “that the language was too salty and that the play was too violent … [But] there’s some speculation that that mightn’t have been the real reason. Because the play does depict police authority well and truly overstepping its mark, which is a sensitive issue here in China at the moment.”