Playwright Dan O’Brien: “When you or a loved one are gravely ill you can’t help but feel that now is undeniably, inescapably now. … When one is gravely ill, anything can happen, and sometimes does. In a play, anything can and always does happen. Must do. Every moment a potential calamity. We’ve all seen an actor go up on her lines. Disaster. Beautiful. You can hear a pin drop.”
Category: theatre
Theatre Is Hardly Even Theatre Without The Audience: Lyn Gardner
“A movie is unchanged by an audience’s presence and will continue to run in an empty auditorium. But the theatre requires a human presence in the auditorium, because it is only fully alive when it meets its audience. It is only in that moment that it bursts fully into life. … Without our presence, our engagement and our creativity the theatre dies, however talented the actors and however hard they work on stage.”
If Houston’s Alley Theatre’s Longtime Artistic Director “Retired” Why Was He Paid $383,000 Severance?
More than 20 current and former Alley employees have told the Houston Chronicle that Gregory Boyd’s 28-year, Tony-winning tenure at the theater was tainted by abusive behavior, particularly toward young actresses. Boyd, who abruptly retired with two days’ notice on Jan. 11, did not respond to requests for comment.
Long Wharf Theatre Fires Artistic Director One Day After Report Of Sexual Misconduct Accusations
The New Haven theatre’s board of trustees voted to fire Gordon Edelstein, effective immediately, after The New York Times reported detailed allegations of sexual harassment, and even assault, of staffers by the director.
San Francisco’s American Conservatory Theatre Has Found Its Next Artistic Director
Pam MacKinnon, who has been nominated for three Tony Awards and won one (for the 2013 revival of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?), will take over from departing artistic director Carey Perloff on July 1.
A Musical About Milosevic? The Serbian Dictator? Oh, Yes …
“A Belgrade-based writer, Jelena Bogavac, has now written a play to be performed by Kosovo Serbs in the Kosovo town of Gracanica that attempts to portray the full complexity of a man still blamed by many across the Balkans for the deaths and suffering of tens of thousands of people.”
A Theatre Critic Reviews The NFL Season’s Best Touchdown Celebrations
Nelson Pressley: “Victory rituals have been part of football for decades. … But this season’s repertory ensembles are different from the soloists who have historically commanded the end zone, from Billy ‘White Shoes’ Johnson and his Funky Chicken to Ickey Woods … doing his light-footed soft shoe known as the ‘Ickey Shuffle.’ … Three Kansas City Chiefs performed a potato sack race. Five Detroit Lions formed a boisterous (if bulky) Rockettes-style kickline. Flocks of Philadelphia Eagles danced the Electric Slide.”
Long Wharf Theatre’s Artistic Director Accused Of Sexual Assault And Harassment
Four women have gone on the record describing persistent unwanted sexual contact by Gordon Edelstein. “Six other former employees, women and men, described frequent sexually explicit remarks in the workplace.” Several current and former Long Wharf employees say that other officers and board members had been alerted to Edelstein’s behavior.
Some New Zealanders Can’t Deal With Shakespeare In Maori Language
The fairies in the latest production of Midsummer Night’s Dream speak Te Reo, one of New Zealand’s official languages, for about 20 percent of the production. “Online reviews left about the Pop-up Globe performance said the move was ‘disrespectful’ and ‘bastardising’ Shakespeare and confusing for audiences. Other theatre goers have made their equally damning views direct to the venue’s management.”
Cherokee Nation Member Wes Studi, The Star Of A New Film, Says Theatre Acting Is A Like The Adrenaline Rush Of War
Community theatre, of course. Studi: “It was kind of a combination of the aftereffect of Vietnam in a way, in that — I won’t say I was addicted or a junkie of adrenaline — but, you know, I tried a number of fairly dangerous things just to kick that off in my brain again. … What I saw in community theater was you could learn your lines and do rehearsals and all of that, but finally opening night shows up and you’re in the wings and I rediscovered that huge wall of fear.”