Category: theatre

Mary Pix was born in 1666 (the year of the Great Fire of London), had her first big London successes in 1696, and went on to write an estimated 13 plays (both tragedies and comedies) and one novel, despite the opposition of what we might as well call the patriarchy. A retitled production of her 1700 script The Beau Defeated opens this month at Stratford-upon-Avon.

The peripatetic Lin-Manuel Miranda, he of a little show called “Hamilton,” and Ben Platt, erstwhile Tony-winning star of the hit musical “Dear Evan Hansen,” have teamed up for a three-minute performance that combines the first show’s “The Story of Tonight” with the latter’s “You Will Be Found.” The fusion, created by Alex Lacamoire — who did the orchestrations for both shows — is a fundraising tool for Saturday’s March for Our Lives, in Washington and other cities, for measures to end gun violence.

“While he was performing an aerial straps number, long-time aerialist Yann Arnaud fell onto the stage, a Cirque du Soleil representative said in a statement. He was taken to Tampa General Hospital, where he died from his injuries.”

Since the new play opened last weekend, the Footlights Theatre in Falmouth, Maine, has been getting hate calls. “I had one woman tell me, ‘I don’t want to see a play about those (expletive) Jews,” the executive artistic director says. He sent an email out to supporters: “I need people to know this is happening. … It’s not an open invitation to hate again.”

You call it ‘blackened faces,’ the parent who pointed it out was concerned that it looks more like ‘blackface’ – perhaps it’s time, Bethel Park High School, near Pittsburgh, to call the whole thing off, or at least replace that practice with black ski masks. (Note: This article uncritically says that blackening stagehand faces is something “stage crews around the country have [been doing] for years” – but in the comments, many theatre folks step in to say that’s untrue.)

The theatre took down its website and all of its social media at the same time the announcement went out on a Friday morning. “The unsigned statement from ATC’s board (which declined interview requests) praised [AD Will] Davis while implying a downturn in ticket sales under his tenure: ‘Despite the innovative, engaging and inclusive approach to ATC that current artistic director Will Davis brought to our theater, which continued to garner a positive reception for our productions and educational programs, the theater has suffered from a reduction in earned revenue.'”

Kander: “Because corruption in society never seems to go out of style. Every once in a while, it becomes more obvious than not.”
Reinking: “Every step is basically a word. Especially with musical theatre, because you’re not doing it for dance’s sake, you’re promoting a story – and, more than that, a moral.”