Category: theatre

“We are going to be interested in the dynamic changes in how a play resonates by having this kind of diversity in the casting; we’re going to find there are more flavours, more experience.”

Jason Zinoman: “The first question I ask of a show isn’t whether or not it’s funny. Rather, I look to understand: What is the comic trying to do, and how interesting or new is it?”

Lyricist Sheldon Harnick and director Jerry Saks will consult on the New York production by the National Yiddish Theater Folksbiene. And, evidently, the author of the original Yiddish-language Tevye-the-Dairyman stories will be a character.

“Theater artists who really want to make a difference might be advised to break free from the constant stream of infuriating updates belching from their phones. It’s not that the stage should turn a blind eye to the latest outrages. Indeed, for too long American drama seemed blithely detached from the economic conditions radically transforming our national life. Yet playwrights have more pressing business than keeping up with the news crawl.”

Lucy Kirkwood, playwright of The Children (now playing on Broadway), says she was trying for a long time to figure out how to write plays about climate change. “Then the events of Fukushima happened, the terrible disaster there. There was a retired work force that volunteered to go back to clear up the plant there. And apparently the entire country sort of voluntarily monitored their own energy usage. They managed to bring down their national energy usage just because everyone was diligent and considerate and thought about themselves as part of something bigger.”

It’s just an idea right now … an idea with a building, and a lot of support, attached. “Four black theater organizations have pledged support, and have expressed interest in moving their institutions to the new Memphis museum. These include the Baltimore-based Black Theatre Commons, Washington, D.C.–based August Wilson Society, St. Paul, Minnesota–based Black Theatre Association, as well as the Lorton, Virginia–based Black Theatre Network.”

Of course, they were two men, and of course, they made a YouTube video. “In the video, the two males are seen gaining entry into the building through an unlocked door that gives them access to the set of the National’s production of Follies. They are then seen leaving the London complex the following morning after spending the night sleeping backstage.”

Plays running at 70 or 80 minutes are, according to Company Theatre’s co-artistic director Philip Riccio, “a newer phenomenon,” perhaps connected to the fact that “most of our playwrights come up through the Fringe festivals”; the majority of Fringe shows need to come in at under an hour.

“Across America, on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line, the races were kept separate at the theater. Black people sat apart in the upper galleries or were excluded entirely, by custom and, in some southern cities, by law. As hybrid places—private associations open to the public—theaters were subject to municipal authority, but property owners possessed the liberty to exclude or restrict at will. The common law recognized no right of amusement seeking. After emancipation, statehouses controlled by Radical Republicans banned distinctions of race and color in public conveyances and resorts. But the legislation was evaded simply by tickets stating that proprietors had discretion to exclude anyone. Nor did it carry a positive grant of rights; it regulated places rather than entitling persons.”

“What may seem disarmingly simple is actually incredibly complex. The dame is definitely a man in a dress, and one who needs to combine a character with strong maternal instinct, a mouth that’s full of broad innuendo and ensure that the joke is always on them. The great dames also form the bridge between the audience and the action on stage. … A great frock and wig can only take you so far.”