Category: theatre

One of them says, “Being a sex worker can be quite isolating. We don’t have our own social club that we can go down to once a month and meet people.”

Junk playwright Ayad Akhtar and Preet Bharara “met briefly in the lobby before the play started, with Mr. Akhtar telling Mr. Bharara: ‘You are such a hero to me, not just because our shared background,’ referring to their South Asian heritage, ‘but also because of all you have done for this country.'”

The playwright – and screenwriter – David Hare explains the difference between writing for stage and screen. “All time spent considering your play is well spent, regardless of outcome. One day you write nothing, the next you write eight pages. It’s not in your hands. … Life is different when writing for the screen. For every hour you spend writing a screenplay, you spend 10 hours defending it.”

In the wake of many, many allegations (including those about Kevin Spacey when he was at the Old Vic), the plan is quite strong. “Royal Court artistic director Vicky Featherstone said her organisation would be adopting the code of behaviour immediately and it represented the ‘beginning’ of an industry-wide conversation about how to bring about lasting change.”

The play is Thomas and Sally, which is about the teenage Sally Hemings, and her owner and the father of her children, Thomas Jefferson. The play’s advertising earned it plenty of protest, and that was before it opened (it closed Oct. 29). It’s garnered much protest, including “an open letter … released by 13 black artists, calling for a public apology from MTC. The letter has received over 1,600 signatures, among them playwrights Dominique Morisseau and Lauren Gunderson (both of whom have affiliations with MTC).”

“A 950-capacity pop-up open-air theatre modelled on Shakespeare’s Rose will rise next summer on a scruffy car park in York, to present a three-month season of [four] Shakespeare plays. … The theatre, which is claimed to be the first of its kind in Europe, will stand in a mock Tudor fairground, with themed food and entertainment including free performances from the back of carts.”

“[Fritzie] Fritzshall is one of 13 Holocaust survivors who tell their stories through holographic images that invite the audience to ask questions, creating what feels like a live conversation.”

“The central question of [Thomas] Bradshaw’s play – whether Sally Hemings, who as Jefferson’s slave was his legal property, could have loved her master, who fathered six of her children – has made Thomas and Sally the locus of a veritable firestorm of public protest and criticism. With that backlash have arisen questions of how sexual assault and slavery history can and should be portrayed onstage.”

Antonia Fraser: “I did something I’ve never done before. I scribbled some notes on a page from one of Harold’s yellow legal pads because I was waiting for a taxi to go to Mass, and too lazy to go upstairs. … When I had written the note, I stripped off the yellow page. Then I nearly fainted. Beneath lay Harold’s unforgettable handwriting – although rather frail – and a title: ‘The Pres and the Officer’. Six pages followed, his handwriting getting noticeably stronger.” (includes complete script)